Just when it seemed the critical principle of net neutrality would be preserved in two of the largest and most influential internet populations – the United States and the European Union – that reassuring prospect for businesses and consumers has been thrown into doubt in both jurisdictions.
Net neutrality is the concept that all traffic on the net should be treated equally by internet infrastructure providers, regardless of how much bandwidth it requires or how large or small the entity generating the traffic.
Thus, YouTube is not charged more for the considerably greater bandwidth it demands daily to serve up videos than, say, a small start-up in Galway.
This might initially seem an odd approach. After all, Google-owned YouTube is a major user of web bandwidth, along with streaming service Netflix. Between the two, they hog half of the world’s total bandwidth. Surely they should pay more for it?
Innovation
Well, no. As World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee has argued, alongside many others, the infrastructure itself should be neutral. There should not be a fast lane and a slow lane for delivery of services to internet users, or you introduce fast and slow lanes for innovation.
That start-up in Galway, operating on seed funding and credit card debt, will immediately be at a service provision and financial disadvantage because, inevitably, its service will likely start and remain in the slow lane. Small, feisty newcomers with a great idea in most cases just won’t be able to pay for parity of delivery, and they won’t be able to scale if their idea flourishes.
That’s a loss to all of us, and creates a world where today’s dominant companies are more monopolistic and less open to challengers. Or, to look at it from a less cynical viewpoint, it means a crucial piece of the whole start-up ecosystem, in which small innovative challengers are soon spotted and bought by the larger companies, is damaged.
That significant exit route for new companies becomes more restricted, which in turn limits the circulation of capital and investment from those exits, and the re-entry into the market of bought-out founders with their next big idea. But a two-tiered net also damages citizen-oriented services.
What about streaming educational services that can have a huge impact on global literacy? What about health or government or human rights initiatives that need bandwidth?
Power
Berner’s Lee wrote in February: “Of course it is not just about blocking and throttling. It is also about stopping ‘positive discrimination’, such as when one internet operator favours one particular service over another. If we don’t explicitly outlaw this, we hand immense power to telcos and online service operators.
“In effect, they can become gatekeepers – able to handpick winners and the losers in the market and to favour their own sites, services and platforms over those of others. This would crowd out competition and snuff out innovative new services before they even see the light of day.”
Initially, both the US and EU seemed to be on the side of net neutrality. In February, the Federal Communications Commission decided, historically, that the internet would be treated in future as a utility, which means it cannot be blocked or throttled. An initial court challenge to this ruling by the telecommunications industry was thrown out by a Washington DC court.
And the EU had indicated – well before the US – that it planned to protect net neutrality as a key principle in Europe.
But this week, the EU finally published its proposed rules for net neutrality, and, as many European neutrality advocates have warned, an alarming fuzziness of wording and lack of specificity means critical sections could be open to interpretation by the courts and could actually disallow neutrality in important areas.
Meanwhile, in the US, a federal appeals court is fast-tracking hearings for a legal challenge against the new FCC rules by telecommunications companies and other internet service providers. Initial arguments will be made in coming months and a decision is expected by the appeals court in the new year.
Legal challenge
To be fair, a legal challenge to the FCC stance was always expected, and the issues are so enormous that the case it is likely to go, eventually, all the way to the Supreme Court. The final determination on net neutrality in the US is thus consigned to the courts.
Over here, however, we can take action and ensure EU net neutrality rules do adequately provide for true net neutrality. Irish MEPs and our ministers need to help ensure uncertainties and ambiguities are removed from the current document. Ireland’s voice must be strong on this enormously important economic and social issue.
