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Andrew Lackey

Professor Malcolm Campbell

English 1104

5 April 2017

A Free Web: How Businesses Thrive on Network Neutrality

The internet is about to undergo a massive renovation. The only problem is that this

renovation will not appeal to us, the average web-user, nor will it appeal to the thousands of

small-business owners who need an online presence to succeed and create new jobs for the

United States. Network neutrality, the principle that unifies, strengthens, and builds upon the

foundation of the internet, is under attack. It is important that we, the internet users of today,

understand the consequences that come with changing the inherent design of broadband

networks. This passage will be used to argue in favor of protecting an internet that maintains an

open and innovative environment.

Before going into the details, net neutrality and the roles of both the Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) need to be addressed.

Network neutrality is the principle that all internet activity will be treated the same by ISPs, such

as Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Cox, and many others. The structural design of the internet, also

known as the end-to-end principle, depends on neutrality for the sake of innovation. The power

grid is a common example that explains net neutrality and the end-to-end principle in simpler

terms: electric companies produce power and then deliver it all across the world, and when this

power reaches a household it will accommodate anything from an Ipod Nano to a large
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refrigerator (Wu). It is important to note that the power grid functions on neutrality as well the

current across every wire is the same and provides equal service to all households who pay their

electricity bill. Broadband networks are the same way, and with net neutrality in place, ISPs have

their networks running at a constant speed and do not change their network speed based on who

is using it. Meanwhile, power companies have improved their systems by an impressive amount

over the last century, all while being considered a neutral industry; whos to say that ISPs

cannot make the same progress with their infrastructure?

Think of an ISP like a water-supply company they provide internet bandwidth, which

can be characterized as pipes. Large pipes conserve water pressure (internet speed) which allow

families to cook, clean, and water the plants at the same time, without much hassle. These

activities equate to multi-tasking on the internet: where streaming video, listening to music, and

emailing a professor all at once require a lot of bandwidth (Chelsea). Net neutrality originated

from that of telephone operators, whose job was to connect phone calls no matter who was on the

line. Telephone operators did not discriminate from any type of phone activity, making it

possible for me to call my mother just as easily as calling my drug dealer (theoretically, of

course). The same has held true for ISPs; they provide the fiber-optic networks that produce

high-speed internet, which web-users pay for by yearly subscription, and do nothing regarding

what content actually transmits on their network. This internet tradition maintains its integrity

through the oversight of the FCC.

The Communications Act of 1934 established what is known as the Federal

Communications Commission, also known as the FCC. There are three parts of this law that

make it legal for the FCC to regulate the internet. The first part is Title II, which establishes the
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right for the FCC to regulate and enforce rules to common carriers a person or company that

transports goods and services. The second part is the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which

was simply a revision of Title II making the internet relevant to the FCC (Open Internet). Net

neutrality wasnt even acknowledged, by law, until 2015 when the FCC decided to classify ISPs

as common carriers. So how was there net neutrality before 2015? What upheld the concept of

net neutrality from 1998 to 2015 was the Communications Decency Act, or CDA (Section 230 of

the Communications Decency Act). This third piece of legislation informally created a net

neutral internet, thanks to porn. Internet porn was growing rapidly in the mid 1990s, and

congress needed to design a law that appealed to the 1st amendment but also appealed to

protecting children from indecent content. Congress used CDA to establish a set of rules, which

would be enforced by the FCC, that protected children from obscene materials, protected ISPs

from being liable for the adult content, and to protect the free-speech of the pornographic content

creators. When the dust settled, ISPs were barred from restricting the content found on their

networks and pornographic material was up-held by our right to free-speech, which inevitably

equipped the FCC to enforce net neutrality where entrepreneurs, content creators, and web

users could freely share content and enjoy equal opportunity that helps build business, even if its

porn.

Before 2015, what helped maintain a free-web in the last decade was ex-President

Obamas push for FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to recognize ISPs as a common carrier. In the

legal context, bright-line rules were created to clearly define the context and enforcement of such

rules, leaving no room for subjective interpretation. When that decision was made by the FCC,

and through multiple court rulings, three bright-line rules came into play: ISPs could not
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block, throttle, or use paid prioritization when dealing with their broadband networks (Open

Internet). This means that they cannot block any legal content, as that was initially established by

CDA in 1998; throttle, or vary the speed of internet across websites; or prioritize sites by offering

to put them in fast-lanes in return for money (Fung).

Obamas interest in protecting the free-internet through these bright-line rules stems from

the popular belief that the internet is the cornerstone to innovation and that net neutrality

creates an equal playing field for entrepreneurs, writers, activists, and businesses (Somanader).

On the other hand, we have ISPs vying for complete control of this so-called playing field.

ISPs are looking to turn an all-inclusive, intramural flag football game into the NFL Super Bowl.

It is a game between recruiting only the top businesses on the market, versus giving equal

opportunity for anyone to create content online. They are looking to appeal these bright-line

rules for the sake of maximizing profit and claim to improve innovation. However, these actions

might prove to be counter-intuitive, and apparently quite destructive, according to a law review

written by Brigham Young University. Brigham Young University, better known as BYU,

established a 30 page law review detailing how FCC regulations on ISP companies assist in the

growth of the internet. It is true that broadband providers advance their systems, but this comes

in reaction to the demands of content creators and web-users. If ISPs were allowed to

discriminate the amount of bandwidth given to application creators the market prices for such

content would rise, making overall development decrease and less information available;

this would inevitably cause innovation to suffer (Cano, 728).

Lets take a step back and focus on how exactly ISPs can take advantage of businesses if

net neutrality laws werent in place today. The creation of paid prioritization polices, which are
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the policies used by ISPs to maximize profit, is the leading assumptions when it comes to having

an unneutral internet. According to Stanford, there is certain evidence that suggests without the

FCC, internet would be split into tier groups or fast-lanes, that could result in a massive

problem for small-business websites (Iskandar). Here is why: Like most other businesses, ISPs

are looking for money, and they profit primarily through means of web-user subscription and

corporation contracts given to domains like Netflix or Google. ISPs will perhaps introduce a

special fee for these large corporations to run on higher speed networks if the FCC were not

involved. The internet would then be controlled into multiple lanes of traffic, each lane restricted

to a unique speed limit, and in order to get into the fast lane you will have to cough up millions

of dollars. A small business, perhaps a mini-Amazon or YouTube, will not have the same

opportunities as these large businesses because their internet speed will not be on par with those

who pay. Consequently, the web traffic of these small businesses will diminish, along with their

profits, their hopes, and their dreams.

Legislation that pertains to network neutrality is beyond the scope of this argument,

however there are simple rules that will be addressed to account for such convoluted and

intricate legal forums. Many businesses are highly dependent on these bright-line rules. A

website, created by Stanford University, devoted to dissecting the net neutrality argument gives

multiple reasons why de-regulating ISPs would slow competition on the internet and give control

to a couple very powerful and very wealthy corporations. Ridding the internet of net neutrality

would essentially give ISPs the ability to act as content gatekeepers (Iskander). Today, web-

users and content creators see the internet as one stable interface, allowing them to transport to

any location imaginable without restriction. However, when ISPs are given the option to pick
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and choose who gets the most bandwidth, the internet becomes tiered like wedding cake. This

will prompt companies to pay for high-speed internet, small-businesses will be left in the

figurative fiber-optic dust that large, wealthy corporations stir up. Successful online businesses

such as Google, Netflix, and YouTube will have the option to be placed on a pedestal and reign

over the businesses that cannot afford the fees that ISPs place on their networks; and because

they are unregulated, their profits will be tremendous. From a users point of view, the internet

will no longer be homogeneous. It will resemble something like my bedroom with clothes

scattered all over my floor, the only place I would want to be is my nice warm bed next the

window which oversees a beautiful spring morning. Of course, my clothes are symbolizing the

small businesses overlooked by me, the web-user, and my bed is representing the one location on

the internet that is even remotely enjoyable or convenient The high-speed sites such as Google

and YouTube. With net neutrality, my mom will act as the FCC she will clean my room for me

and make every square-inch a place in which I can roam freely, without restriction. Just like

having a specific cable TV subscription, where only certain content is available to the subscriber,

without FCC regulation ISP subscriptions will look similar, only in web form. Of course, no one

knows exactly how the internet would function or look like without the FCC because ISPs have

always been under regulation.

Judges, internet service providers, even the U.S. President, are attempting to reconstruct

the internet into a system that does not favor the job growth we have seen for the past two

decades. Those who oppose net neutrality claim that competition and innovation are hindered.

When it comes to paying for internet service via ISP, think of it like Golden Coral an all-you-

can-eat buffet (Wasserman). Large and small people alike, they all pay the same price but for
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different amounts of food. Comparing this to bandwidth usage, sites that use the most bandwidth

such as Netflix and YouTube (using up 37.1% and 17.9% of all bandwidth data, respectively)

theoretically pay the same price to hold their domain as every other site (Edwards). Robert Khan,

the co-inventor to Internet-Protocol (IP), stresses that because ISPs are forced to provide the

same network capabilities to everyone, the incentive to innovate and improve upon their fiber-

optic networks becomes stale (Iskander). However, I will argue that the incentive for ISPs to

improve their networks and bring in costly engineers to do the job is derived from keeping the

web neutral. It is also valuable to point out that internet consumers choose for themselves who

their ISP will be, and that is also where competition may come from. The reality is that most

Americans cannot tell the difference between two ISPs, and I believe it is within an ISPs best

interest to provide consumers with accurate and easily understood advertisements to maximize

membership. An ISPs incentive to innovate will come from the need to provide consumers with

the best possible network because if they do not they will lose customers and perhaps go out of

business. Marc Andreessen, a successful founder of the internet software company Netscape,

claims If you have these pure net neutrality rules where you can never charge a company like

Netflix anything, youre not ever going to get a return on continued network investment (qtd. in

Cowen). The problem with this statement is that charging a fee to the few companies who use the

most bandwidth will not compare to how much revenue an ISP is already making on the data

plans web-users pay for.

Another way that competition is said to be hindered is through the creation of new ISPs.

For anyone to start their own ISP it will take millions of dollars, multiple licenses and contracts,

and fiber-optic know-how to even compete with the large companies today (Brodkin). Looking
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at a recent report, ISPs might not need this type of competition to have an incentive to innovate.

It is reasonable to assume that ISPs will innovate without competition, according to McKinsey

Global Institute research. This institution found that the best course of action for public sector

leaders would be to promote broad access to the Internet, since Internet usage, quality of

[broadband] infrastructures, and Internet expenditure are correlated with higher growth in per

capita GDP (Manyika). When online activity continues to grow, because of FCC regulations to

keep the internet neutral, ISPs will be forced to maintain bandwidth networks and secure

domains at a reasonable speed that adapts to the changing bandwidth usage of growing

businesses. This is exactly what The McKinsey Global Institute found net neutrality gives

equal opportunity to all businesses, which shows a collateral affect to GDP growth and an

incentive for ISPs to maintain their networks.

Looking back at the end-to-end principle, it is no wonder why the power industry thrived

on neutrality. Innovation is not governed by the complexity of their wires, rather it was governed

only by their simple approach to connect power-to-consumer in the most efficient way possible.

The answer for ISPs, therefore, is not to scramble for every drop of USD by complicating their

networks; rather, holding strong, equal networks that allow consumer and creator to collaborate

effectively will also yield the best results for ISPs. It seems there is substantial evidence and

support by multiple sources to suggest that net neutrality benefits the majority of people. It is

dangerous to see ISPs looking for more ways to profit from consumers and creators, because

when the FCC is taken out of question, it is shown that ISP policy will only cater to large

corporations. There is hope that the FCC continues to enforce slight regulation on ISPs for as
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long as the internet lives, so that people may continue to create new products, share their ideas,

and innovate to their hearts content.

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Works Cited

Bradley, Tony. Weighing the Economic Impact of Net Neutrality. PC World, IDG,

27 April 2010.

www.pcworld.com/article/195079/weighing_the_economic_impact_of__net_neutrality.html.

Accessed 1 March 2017.

Berkman, Fran. "Why net neutrality activists are pushing for Title II classification for ISPs." The Daily

Dot. The Daily Dot, 11 Dec. 2015. https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/what-is-title-ii-net-

neutrality-fcc/. Accessed 1 April 2017.

Brodkin, Jon "One big reason we lack Internet competition: Starting an ISP is really hard." Ars

Technica. Cond Nast, 06 April 2014. https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/04/one-big-reason-

we-lack-internet-competition-starting-an-isp-is-really-hard/. Accessed 1 April 2017.

Cano, Emma N. Saving the Internet: Why Regulating Broadband Providers Can Keep the Internet

Open. Brigham Young University Law Review, vol 2016, no. 2, pp. 711-740.

librarylink.uncc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=117697368&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Chelsea. "What is Bandwidth?" The Beacon. Vweb, 18 May 2016. http://fios.verizon.com/beacon/what-

is-bandwidth/. Accessed 1 April 2017.

Cowen, Tyler. "Marc Andreessen on net neutrality." Marginal Revolution. WordPress, 22 May 2014.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/05/marc-andreessen-on-net-

neutrality.html. Accessed 1 April 2017.

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Edwards, Jim. "Court Ends 'Net Neutrality' On A Technicality." Business Insider. Business Insider, 14

Jan. 2014. http://www.businessinsider.com/simple-explanation-of-net-neutrality-2014-4.

Accessed 1 April 2017.

Fung, Brian. "Net neutrality takes effect today. Heres how it affects you." The Washington Post. WP

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neutrality-takes-effect-today-heres-how-it-affects-you/?utm_term=.412febc94714. Accessed 1

April 2017.

Iskandar, Tatiana, Lee Semien, and Daniel Vinegrad. Net Neutrality. Stanford U,

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Accessed 1 March 2017.

Kang, Cecilia. Court Backs Rules Treating Internet as Utility, Not Luxury. nytimes, 14 June 2016,

www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/technology/net-neutrality-fcc-appeals-court-ruling.html.

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"Open Internet." Federal Communications Commission. N.p., 25 Aug. 2016.

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"Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act." Electronic Frontier Foundation. N.p., n.d.

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Somanader, Tanya. A Free and Open Internet: What You Need to Know About Net Neutrality.

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http://mashable.com/2014/05/16/5-arguments-against-net-neutrality/#.0bilmiHtmqt. Accessed 1

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Wu, Tim. Network Neutrality FAQ. TimWu. N.p. Accessed 29 April 2017.

http://www.timwu.org/network_neutrality.html