Net Neutrality

http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/net-neutrality

5 ways ending net neutrality will destroy your UK online

business
by Ben Sullivan| 06 June 2014
If the UK Government goes ahead with a net neutrality veto
then it could be your business counting the costs.
In late May the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted
for new net neutrality rules that could allow ISPs to charge content
providers for prioritised speed and reliability.
The president of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, had received criticism from
net freedom advocates and numerous technology advocates for
proposing such rule changes, warning that the proposals could let
broadband providers prioritise traffic on their networks.
However, commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said on the vote: "I
believe the process that got us to this rulemaking today is flawed. I
would have preferred a delay. I think we moved too fast, to be fair."
Wheeler said: "The potential that there would be some kind of a fast
lane has many concerned.
"I don't like the idea and I will work to see that does not happen. We
specifically ask whether we can and how to prevent an internet fast
lane."
The FCC's proposal does somewhat result in the fact that prioritised
traffic deals may be legal, but it also asks whether deals should be
banned, and how to prevent unprioritised traffic from slipping into
an internet 'slow lane.'
In May, the UK government acted to veto EU legislation that
enforces net neutrality. The European Parliament had voted to put
net neutrality principles into law, but every country in the EU must
also pass the legislation for it to come into effect.
Critics in the UK against net neutrality say that the law would hinder
the Government's attempt to block illegal material.
A government spokesperson was quoted as saying: "We do not
support any proposals that mean we cannot enforce our laws,
including blocking child abuse images."

In light of the UK's position, here are five reasons why the ending of
net neutrality could affect your UK online business.
1) ISPs and the Government could discriminate against
content they do not like.
Without net neutrality, ISPs can favour business partners or
strategic allies over your business which may actually be in
competition with their interests.
2) Small and personal websites could get slower content
delivery.
ISPs will be able to leverage website owners into paying for faster
load times. Small and home-owned websites won't get a look in.
If ISPs force website owners pay for faster load times.
3) Your business may have to pay for faster delivery.
Just like the point above, be prepared to shift some money to gain
access to fast content delivery if net neutrality is ended. SMBs and
personal websites will be the ones to suffer from slower content
delivery.
4) Your competitors, particularly those with a bigger budget,
could pay for faster content delivery which will oust you
from the game.
The FCC's proposal which would allow for 'commercially reasonable'
discrimiation is the very opposite to the idea of cultivating a
business startup environment and entrepreneurship. Competitors
that already have an established budget will be able to gain an
upper hand over your business.
http://www.cbronline.com/news/tech/software/e-commerce/4-waysending-net-neutrality-will-destroy-your-uk-online-business-4287625
Net neutrality: what is it and why does it matter?
The FCC meets Thursday to discuss new rules for regulating the
web. James Ball explains the latest challenge to net neutrality
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theguardian.com, Wednesday 14 May 2014 16.54 BST

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The new rules would introduce an effective competition test which

sets a bar ISPs have to pass in order to prioritise particular traffic.
Photo: Lukas Coh /AAP Image
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) meets Thursday to
discuss new rules for regulating the internet, bringing the debate
about net neutrality back to the fore. The FCC was forced to
rewrite the rules after its old ones were overturned in January
following a court battle with Verizon. Protesters are camping out
outside the FCC's offices and some of the world's biggest tech firms
have written to the regulator expressing concern that the proposals
leaked so far offer a grave threat to the internet.
As is common on the information superhighway, a debate on an
issue like net neutrality tends to lead to a great deal of shouting but
not much actually being said. So, ahead of the latest in what will be
a long string of protests, decisions, rulings and challenges, it's worth
taking a step back and looking at what we're debating and how we
got here.
What is is net neutrality?
The core principle of net neutrality is a simple one: that all traffic
(data) traveling across the internet should be treated the same at
each stage of the process.
That roughly means that whether a particular packet of data is video
from Netflix, HTML from the Guardian, or a P2P file being sent across
BitTorrent, it's given the same priority along the same routes. Noone has priority access, or a "fast lane".
This is one of the key principles around the governance and
structure of the internet, and one the FCC and Obama
administration have both said they support, though people have
their doubts about the FCC's stance in particular.
Why it matters
The more lurid of the pro-net neutrality posters and articles get very
dramatic about what an abandonment on net neutrality would
mean. One particularly dramatic viral image shows an ISP bundle
looking more like a cable subscription: charging additional sums

each month for access to particular sites or services $5 for online

gaming sites, $5 for international, and so on.
It's certainly scary no-one wants to be hit in the pocket but isn't
really the most realistic idea of what an abandonment of net
neutrality would likely mean (though it could, in theory, happen
down the line). ISPs actually blocking all but permitted content, or
even just directly charging customers for particular access would be
particularly easy for the FCC, even under its watered-down rules, to
challenge. The courts would likely have a similarly easy time against
such rulings.
What's more likely
Instead, the initial effects to consumers would likely be invisible.
ISPs could rather offer prime deals to particular heavy users of
bandwidth. The most obvious candidate is, of course, Netflix a
single site which often makes up as much as a third of all internet
data usage. Where other video sites like YouTube try to optimise
their content, Netflix will generally use as much of the pipe as it can:
if there's lots of bandwidth going, it'll send UltraHD. Only if the
pipe's slow will it compress and optimise.
It's no exaggeration to say a single stream of one Netflix program
can use the same amount of data as a million straightforward web
pages, and it's the ISPs that have to manage that traffic.
Why shouldn't they pay for that access, then?
On the surface, it seems reasonable, then, to charge Netflix for their
relatively free (or at least cheap) ride: if they're using so much more
bandwidth than anyone else, why not charge them for priority
access?
Here's the arguments why not. The first is one of competition:
allowing companies to charge for a fast lane completely reshapes
how the marketplace works. Let's say Netflix is willing to pay every
US ISP for a special "fast lane" for its data (it has, after a fashion,
already cut one such deal).
Later, a better competitor comes along: easier to use and cheaper,
with better shows, better tech etc, but its relatively slow net
connection means it can't stream at the same quality its streaming
might even be bitty and interrupted. As a startup, it can't compete
with what Netflix is (hypothetically) shelling out to ISPs. And so
despite the better tech and content, the challenger fails. An internet
without net neutrality moves huge market power to the gatekeepers
and the incumbents (of course, you could argue in that example it's
only shifting the monopoly away from rightsholders to pipeholders,
but that's a different issue).
A second issue is merely one of fairness. In our homes, ovens use
vastly more power each day than lightbulbs. Should, then, oven
manufacturers pay electricity companies for all that burdensome

work they have to do to keep ovens working especially when

lightbulbs are so low-strain? Generally, we'd see such a concept as
ridiculous: the customer pays once, and that's enough.
What's the FCC doing?
So now we come to what the latest challenge there've been many
others to net neutrality is. The agency had previously tried to
come up with a fairly good guarantee of net neutrality, which most
advocates were relatively happy with.
However, this was struck down in January by the appeals court as
overly burdensome: the FCC, they said, should specify some
circumstances in which it might allow ISPs to prioritise traffic. The
agency has responded with a proposal that would use Section 706 of
the Telecommunications Act that would assess attempts to prioritise
traffic on a case-by-case basis. The proposal either protects or
undermines net neutrality, depending on how much you trust the
FCC.
The new rules would introduce an effective competition test which
sets a bar ISPs have to pass in order to prioritise particular traffic.
Senior FCC staff promise that bar will be set very high any deal
must prove itself commercially reasonable. The FCC is trying to
reassure net neutrality advocates that neutrality is safe under such
a regime. Critics seem unwilling to stake such a lynchpin of the open
internet on assurances.
Wise as that seems, the alternative proposal carries heavy risk.
What many open internet advocates are calling for is for the FCC to
declare that the internet is a utility, like electricity. This would be
done under Title II of the Communications Act, which already covers
telecommunications services but since 2002 has not covered
"information services" data travelling over the internet. If the FCC
reclassified information under Title II, as in the earlier analogy, the
data must flow equally, just as power flows across the grid. Such an
effort would do much to safeguard net neutrality. If it worked.
If it didn't and opposition and lobbying against it from the powerful
and connected cable companies is already fierce the FCC has
played its last card, its doomsday device. It would have nothing left
in its hand: net neutrality in the US would likely be a lost cause.
The FCC seems keen to avoid rolling the dice. It wants net neutrality
advocates to trust that it's trying to protect the principle while
keeping something in reserve. Advocates fear it's merely trying to
kill neutrality with a whimper, rather than a bang.
It all comes down to trust the one thing everyone seems to be
lacking.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/netneutrality-fcc-what-is-it

A government ruled for net neutrality. Too bad it wasn't your

government
In America and Europe, the internet is going mobile out of
convenience. In the developing world, mobile is the internet. Here's
what happens when companies take advantage of that
Dan Gillmor ; theguardian.com, Friday 6 June 2014 11.15 BST

One day, you might actually have to use Facebook to get on the
mobile web. Photograph: Billy Farrell/BFAnyc.com/REX
The net neutrality debate has focused in America on wired lines
not mobile. But what just happened in Chile is a precursor to the
real battle in at least the medium term: the mobile internet.
Chile's telecommunications regulator, the Subsecretaria de
Telecomunicaciones, recently imposed some short-term pain on
some of the nation's internet users, hoping to ensure a long-term
gain: Chileans' ability to make their own choices about how they
want to use the internet. Mobile carriers had wanted to partner with
giant internet services (including Facebook and Google) to offer
what they call "zero-rating" connections: an increasingly common
arrangement in which mobile phone customers got no-cost mobile
data as long as they used those specific services. But the regulator
instead insisted that Chile's network neutrality law meant what it
said, and nixed those arrangements.
Those of us who believe that the principle of net neutrality is crucial
to a truly open internet the kind of web required to ensure
innovation and free speech need to recognize that in many places,
including the United States, we've already lost the near-term battle
when it comes to mobile. The carriers, supported by regulators and
even supposedly open-internet-friendly companies like Google, have
seized control, re-centralizing a medium that was designed to be
decentralized. This is a dangerous mistake.
In America and Europe in particular, internet use is going mobile at
a rapid rate, largely due to its convenience but, in much of the
developing world, mobile essentially is the internet. Zero-rating
services are training people to believe that Facebook Zero, Twitter
Zero et al are synonymous with what it means to be online.
Defenders of these arrangements have one reasonable argument:
without zero-rated services, a lot of people wouldn't be online at all.
Think of the benefits, they say, while downplaying or even ignoring
the long-range damage to the open internet.
The non-neutral mobile internet emerges from the assumption that
mobile networks are so bandwidth-constrained that carriers must
heavily tinker with what users can do and impose penurious data
caps. So why do people in Finland pay a small fraction of the price
for much more mobile bandwidth which they use than people in
Germany, Spain and the US? It's simple, according to persuasive

research from a Helsinki consultancy, Rewheel: Finland has genuine

competition not dominated by an dominant state-preferred (or
owned) carrier. According to Rewheel, the dominant European
carriers are trying to create a "digital OPEC" a cartel designed to
maintain high prices.
In America, meanwhile, two national mobile carriers already have a
dominant market share: Verizon and AT&T are far ahead of Sprint
and T-Mobile and a host of smaller companies that resell minutes
and data from the networks of big carriers. For its part, AT&T is
planning an "over the top" service that will maintain data caps but
not charge for "Sponsored Data" a blatant slap at net neutrality.
Meanwhile, Sprint wants to buy T-Mobile, arguing that a combined
company will have the needed heft to truly compete with Verizon
and AT&T. But it seems much more likely that a "SprinT-mobile"
would simply join the big guys to create a cartel that ratchets up the
caps and prices for phone users, and makes special deals with "data
sponsors".
The competition policy people at the US Justice Department in a
rare example of it doing its job under the Obama administration
already blocked AT&T from buying T-Mobile a deal that would have
been even worse, to be sure but the smart money seems to be
betting that this one will be approved.
A Sprint / T-Mobile deal would be just the latest in a global race for
media/telecom consolidation. In Europe, German chancellor Angela
Merkel has actually called for more telecom mergers. The European
Union's chief antitrust official objected to Merkel's approach, but
cross-border consolidation seems more likely to proceed than stop.
We could well be headed toward an era in the not too distant future
in which a handful of telecom carriers with national units allied
with governments dominate global communications.
Meanwhile, we keep hearing a common refrain: everything is going
mobile. In Silicon Valley, internet startups almost always say that
they are "mobile first" and the traditional web second. It's true that
users, especially younger ones, prefer mobile devices to desktop
and laptop computers. But a mobile-first strategy will put startups
and established companies alike including news organizations
under the thumb of an industry that will, sooner than later, be
extracting tribute from every company that wants to do business on
the mobile internet.
So I'm baffled that we're framing network neutrality in such a
constrained way. We definitely need to save it for our wired-line
services. But if we ignore the ways in which mobile carriers are
trying to create a new cartel of their own, we'll be in even worse
trouble.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/06/governmen
t-ruling-net-neutrality-america-europe-mobile