Don't be Neutral on Net Neutrality
SHA Newsletter: Vol. 3 No. 1

You might start hearing more and more about "Net Neutrality". It's important to you, and it's at risk today because of the consolidation of telecommunications companies in the US. I am an advocate of Net Neutrality. Without it, I might not be able to carry out the technical work and teaching that I do. It could be more difficult to maintain the professional and personal contacts I have developed with colleagues around the world. Losing Net Neutrality would hurt the people I try to serve, making their Internet usage less convenient and more expensive.

What is Net Neutrality?

This is a new phrase that sums up the collaborative underpinnings of the Internet. In the early days of the Internet, it was plainly a shared resource. If you wanted "Internet access", you (or your college, laboratory, or company) bought a computer of some sort, paid for long distance communication gear, and hooked up to the nearest computer that had a connection to the Internet.

The understanding among all these "Internet sites" was pretty simple: 1. You paid for your own communication equipment and costs if there were any. 2. You agreed to transmit any information that came to your part of the network, regardless of who sent it or where it was going.

That's it. This meant that your Internet server would be doing work for other people. But it also meant that every other computer on the Internet would do work for you. And no money would have to change hands. It was simple and effective for allowing people to communicate and share information.

Today, of course, few of us have our own Internet servers and wide-area networks. We buy Internet access from service providers, and if we run a Web site, we hire a hosting company to run the computers for us. But for many years that collaborative understanding held true. Nobody charged your ISP for connection to the global Internet. No one exacted a fee for carrying email, say, from AOL to Earthlink. Everyone shared this common resource. Hundreds of companies made tidy profits. Millions of people like you and me gained access to perhaps the most astounding system ever created. It's truly a win-win situation.

The Threat Against Net Neutrality

Today, telecommunications companies are merging and diverging into new businesses. Your phone company wants to sell you TV channels. Your cable company wants to handle your phone calls. And everyone wants to make a deal for your Internet access and email. They all can do this, because television, phone calls, movies, and email can all be sent over the Internet. The problem comes when companies that provide Internet access also provide services like TV, Internet based phone service and similar services. Those companies can have a strong temptation to rig their network to give preference to their own services – and to discriminate against services provided by competitors.

What Could Happen Without Net Neutrality?

Your ISP wants to provide a search function, so they make a partnership agreement with Yahoo. They require you to use their connection software on your computer. Guess what? Whenever you try to make Google your home page, your software resets it to Yahoo. If you take the software off, you can't connect to your ISP.

You buy DSL service from your phone company. Later you decide that you want to try one of those new voice-over-IP (VoIP) companies. You'll save money if you send phone calls over the Internet instead of a phone line. But you can't, because your phone company blocks the competitor's VoIP data through your Internet connection. They only allow their own VoIP service on their network.

Your cable company provides a video-on-demand service using your high-speed Internet modem. When you visit a competing Internet movie site, downloads are slow and choppy. Your cable company limited the download speed for every movie service except its own.

You go to check your email and find it filled with advertising mail. You discover that your ISP charges large advertisers a fee to guarantee that their messages will be sent into your inbox. AOL proposed just such a system, called CertifiedEmail, in early 2006. Read more here.

You buy a new laptop, and you hook up a wireless router so it can go on the Internet. Your ISP blocks your access because they want to charge extra when you connect more than one computer.

What is the Justification?

One justification is that the companies want to provide "better customer service" or an "improved customer experience". But what this means is that customers will face fewer choices and have a more difficult time finding alternatives to services they don't like.

Large telecommunications companies also justify discrimination like this by drawing analogies to the traditional phone network. Over the phone network, it costs more – and uses more resources – to send long calls rather than brief ones. It takes more work to send a long distance call than a local one. The phone company has to maintain the equipment to handle calls, and they need revenue to cover the cost.

The argument extends this phone analogy to Internet service. But the analogy doesn't really hold, because of the collaborative history of the Internet. No one company runs, or pays for, the Internet. Unlike the telephone network, no one company built all of the Internet. We all pay our share, and we should share alike.

Communications providers argue that independent Internet sites and services benefit from high-speed access. Internet companies get free access to their customers, courtesy of ISPs, cable, and phone companies. This argument says that independent sites that don't provide access should pay the companies that do.

But customers of those ISPs pay for access, often paying high monthly fees under multi-year contracts, even when they don't use any bandwidth. What drives the demand for ISP services? You guessed it. The availability of news, music, video, shopping, and information sources on the Internet makes it worth the money to buy Internet access.

In addition, telecommunications companies gain the benefit of globally accepted Internet standards. They are primary beneficiaries of the groundbreaking research that created the original Internet architecture and implementation. And they continue to benefit from the collaboration of organizations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which develops and refines Internet technical protocols. Thousands of organizations around the world cooperate to make sure that the Internet works everywhere and for everyone.

But These are Made-Up Cases!

Yes. These are hypothetical cases, but they are based on either real or conceivable situations. There's nothing to stop a large media company from creating situations like this by using filters on email and making adjustments to their network switches and servers.

The most recent real example involves the merger of AT&T with BellSouth, one of the regional telephone companies. These two companies were split when the Bell System was divided in the 1980's – to increase competition! Now, AT&T will be allowed to acquire BellSouth, reducing competition and creating a larger company providing multiple services. The merger will combine the resources of AT&T, BellSouth, and Cingular Wireless. Those are big companies on their own, and the resulting firm will have tremendous capability.

In an effort to secure regulatory approval, AT&T made a series of commitments about Net Neutrality in a filing to the Federal Communications Commission. Here's a quotation from one of the documents submitted by AT&T describing their commitments in the merger.

"AT&T/BellSouth also commits that it will maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service. This commitment shall be satisfied by AT&T/BellSouth's agreement not to provide or to sell to Internet content, application, or service providers, including those affiliated with AT&T/BellSouth, any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth's wireline broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership, or destination."

I found this quotation here http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6518716851

I think that this quotation makes a strong statement about Net Neutrality. It's significant that AT&T made this commitment and set a high standard for Internet citizenship. It's also significant that these promises will last for only 30 months after the merger. After that, there are no promises.

Let Me Be Perfectly Clear

AT&T has not done anything illegal here, and I am not trying to claim that they have. Indeed, AT&T is already responsible for important parts of the Internet "backbone", the network servers that literally keep the Internet together. They have done a lot to further the interests of Internet users in the past.

I also cannot predict what the company will do in the future. I'm simply using this merger as an example, because it happens that AT&T has made specific promises about Net Neutrality. Someone at AT&T obviously believes Net Neutrality is enough of an issue to warrant such a step.

What Can We Do?

Think about this issue and how it might affect your use and enjoyment of the Internet. Think about the influence the Internet has on how you shop, bank, communicate and learn about world events. Consider what would happen if your access to the Internet were rationed based on commercial, political or other criteria.

When you sign up for cable, Internet, and phone service; be careful. Read the terms of service carefully. Understand the limitations of your service. Make sure you understand the rules for using, renewing, and canceling your service agreement.

Become aware of your service provider's acceptable use policy and Netiquette in general. Use your Internet access with respect for the shared resource that it is.

Talk to local and state leaders and elected officials who can influence licensing of cable operators and telecommunications regulations. Ask them to explain their positions on Net Neutrality and let them know your views.

Write to your members of Congress about this issue, and explain why it is important for your freedom of expression and our ability to work together throughout the world. After all, this is a political and legal issue – not strictly a technical one. Ask them to establish national rules prohibiting discrimination in Internet traffic based on its ownership, source, or destination.

Please note: Any trademarks and trade names of others mentioned in this message are the property of their owners, and not Stoney Hill Associates, LLC. We respect the intellectual property of others. The information provided is believed to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee that the procedures and information given here will work correctly for your specific situation.

If you would like help with a computer or software problem you face, contact us. Send an email to request@stoneyhillassociates.com.

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