Stephan Clark
WRIT 140/POSC 130
Fall 2007/Section 64180
1 November 2007
Assignment 3
The Internet Can’t Make It Uphill In Neutral
Holden McNeil, when attempting to explain the concept of the Internet to his oblivious friends in the adventure/comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, states, “The Internet has given everybody in America a voice.” If only the Internet were as simple as Holden summarized it, there wouldn’t be controversial debate concerning the methods in which people should be able to make their voices heard. In truth, the companies that control the usage of the physical resources required to transfer information over the Internet – the broadband providers – are responsible for the distribution of information from those who host web sites – the content providers. Broadband providers control bandwidth – the speed at which information reaches those who access it – in two different ways, both typically based on price. First, they charge different rates for different bandwidths to those accessing the information, which is generally seen as fair because each person is granted equal opportunity to decide which bandwidth to use. Second, broadband providers charge different rates for different bandwidths to content providers, thus deciding how fast information gets out to those who access it. Because, in the latter of the two methods, end-users aren’t given a choice of bandwidth for the information they’re trying to access, there exists the debate on equality of voice. Advocates of what has been fittingly named “network neutrality” desire for everybody’s voice on the Internet to carry equal weight, and want to implement laws that would ensure such equality by requiring broadband providers not to allot higher bandwidths to wealthy content providers simply because they can pay more for it. By establishing uniform rates for all content providers, broadband providers would thus remain neutral in information distribution, and would give end-users the freedom to choose which Internet applications and sites to use, as opposed to choosing preferred applications or sites because they load faster.
The concept of net neutrality seems at first glance to be as straightforward as First Amendment rights to free speech, but in fact, the issue is extremely complex, and requires one to consider many aspects of broadband Internet usage. For example, opposition to net neutrality comes from those who claim that equal bandwidth for all would be economically unnecessary for many content providers and would diminish the overall efficiency of the Internet because of the limited resources available to handle bandwidth distribution. Politically, these proponents of a tiered bandwidth system are in favor of more lenient regulations, while advocates of net neutrality are on the offensive, pushing for broadband providers to have less discretion in the distribution of their bandwidth. Ideally, net neutrality would benefit all users only if the resources available could supply the demand for bandwidth and if those resources were reasonably affordable to be used by all content providers. Until those criteria are met, however, employing a tiered system of bandwidth usage to the Internet serves as the most efficient method of distributing information.
Having a broadband Internet connection simply means having a high-speed Internet connection. Technological advancements yielded the broadband movement, which enabled information to travel across the same copper-based phone network at higher bandwidths. However, the Internet is expanding continuously, and in most areas, technology isn’t. Consequently, the same bandwidth must accommodate greater amounts of information. This dilemma makes net neutrality difficult to accomplish. If it were implemented, bandwidth would be distributed evenly among all available content. Opponents of net neutrality argue that many of applications on the Internet, such as text-based content and still-image websites, don’t need the level of bandwidth they would receive by taking away from the more complex applications, such as streaming video and real-time gaming environments. Taking bandwidth from applications that need it would result in a diminished “quality of service” guarantee between broadband providers to content providers (Singer 36).
The next flaw in net neutrality concerns the economic injustices of sharing bandwidth. In the tiered Internet system, broadband providers can establish contracts with content providers such as game companies to ensure that an enhanced quality of service is upheld, and that applications intended to run in real-time can remain usable (Singer 36). Net neutrality calls for broadband providers to “Enable any content, application, or service” to be offered in a nondiscriminatory way, “including with respect to quality of service, access, speed, and bandwidth,” which would result in voidance of such contracts and decrease profits for broadband providers (United 2). Further, net neutrality would prohibit broadband providers from implementing different rates in the first place, since no content provider would receive higher bandwidth priority than any other. To put it simply, net neutrality would require a broadband provider to charge the same fee to a large content provider such as Google or Amazon as it charges to small content providers, such as a local retail business. As a result, one of two consequences could occur. Either, charges for smaller content providers would skyrocket to compensate for the money lost through lowering charges for large content providers, or all bandwidth charges would disappear entirely to accommodate a non-discriminatory Internet environment. In the first case, the small content providers would pay extra money for bandwidth they don’t need while large content providers would receive lower bandwidth than demanded for their applications. Content providers then would “cause content providers to reduce their investment in new [quality-of-service]-needy content,” which would lead to a large technological step backward by getting rid of many real-time and high-definition applications (Singer 40). In the second case, broadband providers would suffer economically, which seems harmful to only them until the resource factor is considered. The broadband providers are the ones working to expand bandwidth capabilities within their networks, and will fail to advance in doing so if their economic resources are cut short. By keeping a tiered system of bandwidth distribution now, broadband providers can keep economic burden off the small content providers and still acquire the funds needed to support projects to expand network capabilities, such as building Verizon’s fiber optic network, which “is… capable of offering bandwidth pipes much fatter than DSL and potentially cable (Weiss 22).” Then, after new lines have been laid down that can support high-speed data transfer for all, net neutrality principles can work efficiently.
Most of the net neutrality debate centers around businesses, but in the end, the end-users are the ones who may be affected most. Under net neutrality, broadband providers would have to minimize services because of resource restrictions, which would result in a deteriorated Internet experience for end-users, who often desire content of the highest quality, such as high-definition video and cutting-edge applications, such as real-time interaction. Economically, net neutrality could place burdens on individuals as well. Consider the two alternative consequences of net neutrality mentioned above. If the first case were to occur, small content providers might need to charge more to those who access their information in order to compensate for their raised costs of service. By retaining a tiered system of bandwidth distribution, only end-users who use the most bandwidth-intensive applications, such as real-time video games, would need to pay premium rates, while those who only access information from “content providers who do not require higher [quality of service], which is the majority of sites out there right now” would only need to pay for their initial service, the price of which being determined by the end-user’s choice of bandwidth (Singer 40). If the second case were to occur, end-users might expect not only a deteriorated Internet experience because of bandwidth restrictions, but possibly also raised costs in initial service, instead of costs set forth by content providers. Broadband providers would lose revenue from contract holders under net neutrality, and might decide to make up for the losses by raising bandwidth charges for consumers. Though, the consumer market wouldn’t stand for costs as high as the $140 proposed by Richard Clarke for Internet service, much less the $466 proposed for Internet and HDTV service (Singer 39). Therefore, prices would go up and disturb end-users, but the increase wouldn’t nearly make up for the money lost through voided contracts from content providers with quality-of-service-needy content, and the hope of laying down lines with fatter bandwidth pipes in the near future would simply turn into another pipe dream. The only way to work toward a more capable network would be to keep a tiered system and keep profits flowing in.
Network neutrality looks like a great idea on paper, but so too do many other systems which do not succeed in practice. With the somewhat chaotic expansion of size and amount of content on the Internet within only a couple of decades, the concept of regulating such a massive collection of services and applications is difficult to go about doing. It seems that, until technological capacity surpasses content capacity, net neutrality will not yield positive results for any particular player in the Internet game, from broadband provider to end-user. Still, there may be hope in the future for net neutrality. Until technology advances further, however, the voices Holden McNeil claimed everyone has will have to range from yell to whisper.
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