Network neutrality
Encyclopedia
Network neutrality is a principle
that advocates no restrictions by Internet service provider
s or governments on consumers' access to networks that participate in the Internet
. Specifically, network neutrality would prevent restrictions on content, sites, platforms, types of equipment that may be attached, and modes of communication.
Since the early 2000s, advocates of net neutrality and associated rules have raised concerns about the ability of broadband providers to use their last mile
infrastructure to block Internet applications and content (e.g. websites, services, and protocols), and even block out competitors. (The term "net neutrality" didn't come into popular use until several years later, however.) The possibility of regulations designed to mandate the neutrality of the Internet has been subject to fierce debate, especially in the United States.
Neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service
model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity
, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services. Many believe net neutrality to be primarily important as a preservation of current freedoms. Vinton Cerf, considered a "father of the Internet" and co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, Tim Berners-Lee
, creator of the Web, and many others have spoken out in favor of network neutrality.
Opponents of net neutrality claim that broadband service providers have no plans to block content or degrade network performance. Despite this claim there has been a case where an Internet service provider, Comcast, intentionally slowed peer-to-peer
(P2P) communications. Still other companies have acted in contrast to these assertions of hands-off behavior and have begun to use deep packet inspection
to discriminate against P2P, FTP, and online games, instituting a cell-phone style billing system of overage
s, free-to-telecom "value added" services, and bundling. Critics of net neutrality also argue that data discrimination
of some kinds, particularly to guarantee quality of service
, is not problematic, but is actually highly desirable. Bob Kahn
, co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, has called the term net neutrality a "slogan" and states that he opposes establishing it, but he admits that he is against the fragmentation of the net whenever this becomes excluding to other participants. Opponents of net neutrality regulation also argue that the best solution to discrimination by broadband providers is to encourage greater competition among such providers, which is currently limited in many areas.
traffic should be treated equally. Net neutrality advocates have established different definitions of network neutrality:
Absolute non-discrimination: Columbia Law School
professor Tim Wu
: "Network neutrality is best defined as a network design principle. The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally."
Limited discrimination without QoS tiering : United States lawmakers have introduced bills that would allow quality of service
discrimination as long as no special fee is charged for higher-quality service.
Limited discrimination and tiering: This approach allows higher fees for QoS as long as there is no exclusivity in service contracts. According to Tim Berners-Lee
: "If I pay to connect to the Net with a given quality of service, and you pay to connect to the net with the same or higher quality of service, then you and I can communicate across the net, with that quality of service." "[We] each pay to connect to the Net, but no one can pay for exclusive access to me."
First come first served: According to Imprint Magazine, Cardozo Law School professor Susan P. Crawford
"believes that a neutral Internet must forward packets on a first-come, first served basis, without regard for quality-of-service considerations."
(FCC) issued a Broadband Policy Statement (also known as the Internet Policy Statement), which lists four principles of open Internet, "To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to:"
These points are often summarized as "any lawful content, any lawful application, any lawful device, and any provider". President Barack Obama
's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
called for an investment of $7.2 billion in broadband infrastructure and included an openness stipulation. During the FCC's hearing, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association
urged the FCC to adopt the four criteria laid out in its 2005 Internet Policy Statement as the requisite openness.
In 2008, when the FCC auctioned off the 700 MHz block of wireless spectrum
in anticipation of the DTV transition
, Google
promised to enter a bid of $4.6 billion if the FCC required the winning licensee to adhere to four conditions:
These conditions are broadly similar to the FCC's Internet Policy Statement (FCC's applications and content are combined into a single bullet, while an extra bullet adding a requirement for wholesale access for third party providers was included). The FCC adopted only two of these four criteria for the auction, viz., open devices and open applications, and only applied these conditions to the nationwide C block portion of the band.
In September 2009, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski
proposed to add two additional rules on top of its 2005 policy statement, viz., the nondiscrimination principle that ISPs must not discriminate against any content or applications, and the transparency principle, which requires that ISPs disclose all their policies to customers. He also argued that wireless should be subject to the same network neutrality as wireline providers.
In October 2009, the FCC took the next step by approving a notice of proposed rule making on the subject of net neutrality.
In May 2010, after it was believed the FCC would drop their effort to enforce net neutrality, they announced that they would continue their fight. It was believed they would not be able to enforce net neutrality after a Federal court's overthrow of the agency's Order against Comcast. However, under commission chairman Julius Genachowski, the FCC has proposed reclassifying broadband Internet access providers under the provisions of Title 2 of the Communications act in an effort to force the providers to adhere to the same rules as telephone networks. This adjustment is meant to prevent, "unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities or services."
On December 21, 2010, the FCC approved new rules
banning cable television
and telephone
service providers from preventing access to competitors or certain web sites such as Netflix
. The rules also include a more limited set of obligations for wireless providers. The rules would not keep ISPs from charging more for faster access. Republicans
in Congress
have announced plans to reverse the rules through legislation. Verizon has also indicated that it will challenge the FCC's decision in court, and Colin Crowell
, the former Senior Counselor to the FCC Chairman, has called such court challenges "inevitable."
) was passed to subsidize a telegraph line, stating that:
In 1888, Almon Brown Strowger invented an automatic telephone exchange to bypass non-neutral telephone operators who redirected calls for profit.
In 2009, Tim Wu
, a professor at Columbia Law School
, published and popularized a proposal for a net neutrality rule, in his paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. The paper considered network neutrality in terms of neutrality between applications, as well as neutrality between data and QoS-sensitive traffic, and proposed some legislation to potentially deal with these issues. Throughout 2005 and 2006, network neutrality and the future of the Internet
was debated by cable companies, consumers
, and Internet service providers (ISPs), although the issue was almost completely ignored by the media until 2006.
In August 2010, Google
and Verizon reached an agreement in which they both opposed complete network neutrality. The agreement details that ISPs should be "prohibited from preventing users of its broadband Internet access service from-- (1) sending and receiving lawful content of their choice; (2) running lawful applications and using lawful services of their choice; and (3) connecting their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network or service, facilitate theft of service, or harm other users of the service." They went on to say that wireless ISPs, such as cellphone companies, should not be required to provide neutral networks for their customers. The rationale for this statement was that wireless networks are still being developed.
application companies are advocates of neutrality. Yahoo!
, Vonage
, Ebay
, Amazon
, IAC/InterActiveCorp
. Microsoft
, along with many other companies, have also taken a stance in support of neutrality regulation. Cogent Communications
, an international Internet service provider, has made an announcement in favor of certain net neutrality policies. According to Google
:
Individuals who support net neutrality include Tim Berners-Lee
, Vinton Cerf, Lawrence Lessig
, Robert W. McChesney
, Steve Wozniak
, Susan P. Crawford
, Ben Scott
, Marvin Ammori
, David Reed
, and US President Barack Obama
.
A number of net neutrality interest groups have emerged, including SaveTheInternet.com
which frames net neutrality as follows:
Envision Seattle and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund offer a model legal ordinance for communities and cities to enforce a free and open Internet.
SaveTheInternet.com
accuses cable and telecommunications companies of wanting "to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all". According to SaveTheInternet.com these companies want to "tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data ... to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video while slowing down or blocking their competitors." Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol
(IP) and current Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google
, has supported efforts to introduce network neutrality legislation
in the US, arguing that "the Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services." Cerf concluded that:
and Robert W. McChesney
argue that net neutrality ensures that the Internet remains a free and open technology, fostering democratic communication. Lessig and McChesney go on to argue that the monopolization of the Internet would stifle the diversity of independent news sources and the generation of innovative and novel web content.
calls an "unfair business model." Advocates warn that by charging "every Web site, from the smallest blogger to Google", network owners may be able to block competitor Web sites and services, as well as refuse access to those unable to pay. According to Tim Wu, cable companies plan to "carve off bandwidth" for their own television services and charge companies a toll for "priority" service.
Proponents of net neutrality argue that allowing for preferential treatment of Internet traffic, or tiered service
, would put newer online companies at a disadvantage and slow innovation in online services. Tim Wu
argues that, without network neutrality, the Internet will undergo a transformation from a market "where innovation rules to one where deal-making rules." SaveTheInternet.com
argues that net neutrality creates an "even playing field" and that "the Internet has always been driven by innovation. Web sites and services succeeded or failed on their own merit." According to Lawrence Lessig
and Robert W. McChesney
:
. According to Lawrence Lessig
and Robert W. McChesney
:
Under this principle, a neutral network is a dumb network
, merely passing packets regardless of the applications they support. This point of view was expressed by David S. Isenberg in his well-known paper, The Rise of the Stupid Network.
Contrary to this idea, the research paper titled End-to-end arguments in system design by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark argues that network intelligence
doesn't relieve end systems of the requirement to check inbound data for errors and to rate-limit the sender, nor for a wholesale removal of "intelligence" from the network core.
, the Competitive Enterprise Institute
, the Goldwater Institute
, Americans for Tax Reform
, and the Ayn Rand Institute
. Opponents of net neutrality include hardware companies and members of the cable and telecommunications industries, including major telecommunications providers.
A number of these opponents created a website called Hands Off The Internet to promote their arguments against net neutrality. (The website no longer exists). Principal financial support for the website comes from AT&T, and members include technology firms and pro-market advocacy group Citizens Against Government Waste
.
Network neutrality regulations are opposed by some Internet engineers, such as professor David Farber
and TCP
inventor Bob Kahn
.
Robert Pepper
is senior managing director, global advanced technology policy, at Cisco Systems, and is the former FCC chief of policy development. He says: "The supporters of net neutrality regulation believe that more rules are necessary. In their view, without greater regulation, service providers might parcel out bandwidth or services, creating a bifurcated world in which the wealthy enjoy first-class Internet access, while everyone else is left with slow connections and degraded content. That scenario, however, is a false paradigm. Such an all-or-nothing world doesn't exist today, nor will it exist in the future. Without additional regulation, service providers are likely to continue doing what they are doing. They will continue to offer a variety of broadband service plans at a variety of price points to suit every type of consumer." Bob Kahn
, another computer scientist, has said net neutrality is a slogan that would freeze innovation in the core of the Internet.
Farber has written and spoken strongly in favor of continued research and development on core Internet protocols. He joined academic colleagues Michael Katz, Christopher Yoo
, and Gerald Faulhaber in an Op-Ed for the Washington Post strongly critical of network neutrality, stating, "The Internet needs a makeover. Unfortunately, congressional initiatives aimed at preserving the best of the old Internet threaten to stifle the emergence of the new one."
and telecommunication
s company, has argued that they will have no incentive to make large investments to develop advanced fibre-optic networks if they are prohibited from charging higher preferred access fees to companies that wish to take advantage of the expanded capabilities of such networks. Thorne and other ISPs have accused Google
and Skype
of freeloading or free riding for using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build.
Tim Wu
, though a proponent of network neutrality, claims that the current Internet is not neutral as, "among all applications", its implementation of best effort generally favors file transfer
and other non-time sensitive traffic over real-time communications.
s led to a sharp increase in the mid 1990s followed by a subsequent sharp increase since 2003 as video streaming and peer-to-peer
file sharing
became more common. In reaction to companies including YouTube
, as well as smaller companies starting to offer free video content, using substantial amounts of bandwidth, at least one Internet service provider
(ISP), SBC Communications (now doing business as AT&T
), has suggested that it should have the right to charge these companies for making their content available over the provider's network.
Bret Swanson from the Wall Street Journal said that YouTube
, MySpace
and blogs are put at risk by net neutrality. Swanson says that YouTube streams as much data in three months as the world's radio, cable and broadcast television channels stream in one year, 75 petabytes. He argues that today's networks are not remotely prepared to handle what he calls the "exaflood" (see exabytes). He argues that net neutrality would prevent broadband networks from being built, which would limit available bandwidth and thus endanger innovation.
, and preventing the spread of computer viruses. Quoting Bram Cohen
, the creator of BitTorrent,"I most definitely do not want the Internet to become like television where there's actual censorship... however it is very difficult to actually create network neutrality laws which don't result in an absurdity like making it so that ISPs can't drop spam or stop... attacks." Some proposed pieces of legislation would even make fair queuing illegal as it requires prioritization of packets based on criteria other than that permitted by the proposed law.
Recent pieces of legislation, like The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, attempt to mitigate these concerns by excluding reasonable network management from regulation.
The Wall Street Journal has written that: "Government's role here, properly understood, is not to tell Comcast how to manage its network. Rather, it is to make sure consumers have alternatives to Comcast if they are unhappy with their Internet service."
George Mason University
fellow Adam Thierer has argued that "any government agency or process big enough to control a major sector of our economy will be prone to influence by those most affected by it", and that consequently "for all the talk we hear about how the FCC's move to impose Net Neutrality regulation is about 'putting consumers first' or 'preserving Net freedom and openness,' it's difficult to ignore the small armies of special interests who stand ready to exploit this new regulatory regime the same way they did telecom and broadcast industry regulation during decades past."
In her recently published research, Aparna Watal, Legal Officer at Attomic Labs, puts forward three reasons for resisting any urge "to react legislatively to the apparent regulatory crisis". Firstly, she explains, "contrary to the general opinion, the Comcast decision does not uproot the Commission’s authority to regulate ISPs. Section 201(b) of the Act, which was cited as an argument by the Commission but not addressed by the Court on procedural grounds, could grant the Commission authority to regulate broadband Internet services where they render 'charges, practices and regulations for, and in connection with' common carrier services unjust and unreasonable." Secondly, she suggests, it is "undesirable and premature to legislatively mandate network neutrality or for the Commission to adopt a paternalistic approach on the issue...[as] there have been few overt incidents to date, and the costs of those incidents to consumers have been limited." She cites "prompt media attention and public backlash" as effective policing tools to prevent ISPs from throttling traffic. She suggests that it "would be more prudent to consider introducing modest consumer protection rules, such as requiring ISPs to disclose their network management practices and to allow for consumers to switch ISPs inexpensively, rather than introducing network neutrality laws." Finally, she explains that while "by regulating broadband services the commission is not directly regulating content and applications on the Internet; however, to say that content will remain unaffected by the reclassification is inaccurate. The different layers of the Internet work in tandem with each other such that there is no possibility of throttling or improving one layer's performance without impacting the other layers. If that was the case, then network neutrality would be maintained regardless of what happened at the transmission layer. To let the Commission regulate broadband pipelines connecting to the Internet and disregard that it indirectly involves regulating the data that runs through them will lead to a complex, overlapping, and fractured regulatory landscape in the years to come."
has called the debate overhyped, saying the claims of both sides are "vague and misleading."
Author Andy Kessler has argued that, though network neutrality is desirable, the threat of eminent domain
against the telcos, instead of new legislation, is the best approach.
Columbia University Law School professor Tim Wu
observed the Internet is not neutral in terms of its impact on applications having different requirements. It is more beneficial for data applications than for applications that require low latency
and low jitter
, such as voice and real-time video: "In a universe of applications, including both latency-sensitive and insensitive applications, it is difficult to regard the IP suite as truly neutral." He has proposed regulations on Internet access networks that define net neutrality as equal treatment among similar applications, rather than neutral transmissions regardless of applications. He proposes allowing broadband operators to make reasonable trade-offs between the requirements of different applications, while regulators carefully scrutinize network operator behavior where local networks interconnect.
has begun a consultation to examine the possible need for legislation to mandate network neutrality, countering the potential damage, if any, caused by non-neutral broadband access. The European Commission
, within the proposals to amend the European regulatory framework for the electronic communications networks and services published on 13 November 2007, considers that prioritisation, or in other words product differentiation, "is generally considered to be beneficial for the market so long as users have choice to access the transmission capabilities and the services they want" and "consequently, the current EU rules allow operators to offer different services to different customers groups, but not allow those who are in a dominant position to discriminate in an anti-competitive manner between customers in similar circumstances." Furthermore, the European Commission thinks that the current European legal framework cannot effectively prevent network operators from degrading their customers. Therefore, it is proposed to empower the European Commission to impose a minimum quality of services in order to tackle this situation. In addition, an obligation of transparency is also proposed to limit network operators' ability to set up restrictions on end-users' choice of lawful content and applications.
The European Commission's proposal was reviewed by the European Parliament
at First Reading. In the summer of 2008, the lead committees in the European Parliament achieved their final draft reports. On 24 September 2008 the European Parliament held a plenary vote on the draft reports from those committees. At the next step the European Council will vote for its common position on the European Commission's legislative proposals on 27 November 2008. After that the negotiation between the European Parliament and the European Council will be made under the cooperation procedure. The adoption of these proposals is supposed to take place before the end of 2009.
A debate on net neutrality in the UK was held at Westminster on 20 March 2006, sponsored by AT&T. It was attended by the Government and Opposition trade secretaries, telecommunications regulators, industry figures and other experts in the field. Google, a noted supporter of net neutrality, declined an invitation to the debate, and then called it "biased". The conclusion was that Net Neutrality laws in the UK would be "extreme... unattractive and impractical" and that it was "an answer to problems we don't have, using a philosophy we don't share". Further debates at the Royal Society and Institute of Public Policy Research in 2006 came to different conclusions "Marsden C. Net Neutrality: Towards a Co-regulatory Solution at Chapter 1".
December 19, 2009, the "Telecoms Package
" was published in the Official Journal of the European Union, and must be implemented in Member States' laws by May 2011. The new legislation requires European telecom and Internet service providers (ISPs) to tell their customers when any of their personal data has been breached. Before, these companies did not inform their customers of any personal privacy violations. Also, the legislation will make customers able to switch from a fixed land line to the new 3G service in one working day. In addition "spectrum reframing—where 3G services can be used in what is currently 2G radio spectrum—is also to be allowed, so as to allow a faster rollout of high-speed mobile Internet services". The commission is quoted saying, "Thanks to the new transparency requirements, consumers will be informed—even before signing a contract—about the nature of the service to which they are subscribing, including traffic management techniques and their impact on service quality, as well as any other limitations (such as bandwidth caps or available connection speed)". "This will increase the incentives for better protection of personal data by providers of communications networks and services," the Commission said. "In addition, the rules concerning privacy and data protection are strengthened, e.g. on the use of 'cookies' and similar devices."
The European Parliament had argued that one issue with the new package is that the guidelines for national regulators on investment in next-generation broadband have not been set.
European Citizens' rights groups have argued that the adoption of the Harbour Report would be the end of net neutrality. They claimed that the report was heavily influenced by US telecoms giants, including AT&T and Verizon, and was a sign of the European Parliament watering down its concerns in order to form a consensus with the European Council.
The existing 2002 regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services in the European Union is comprised by five directives, which altogether are referred to as "the Framework Directive and the Specific Directives". More specifically these directives are: (a) Directive 2002/19/EC of the European Parliament on access to, and interconnection of, electronic communications networks and associated facilities (Access Directive), (b) Directive 2002/20/EC of the European Parliament on the authorisation of electronic communications networks and services (Authorisation Directive), (c) Directive 2002/21/EC on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services (Framework Directive), (d) Directive 2002/22/EC (Universal Service Directive), and finally, (e) Directive 2002/58/EC (Directive on privacy and electronic communications).
Due to the technological and marketing developments, combined with the final users' continuously increasing needs and demands for better, faster, and more accessible services, the European Parliament and the Council recently amended all five directives as given above. More concretely, Directives 2002/22/EC and 2002/58/EC were amended by Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009, and Directives 2002/19/EC, 2002/20/EC and 2002/21/EC were amended by Directive 2009/140/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009. All these amendments are followed by the Commission's declaration of net neutrality (L 337, 18 December 2009, page 69).
On that ground, Regulation (EC) No 1211/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 established the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the Office Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications
. BEREC's main purpose is to "promote cooperation between NRAs (national regulatory authorities) and between NRAs and the Commission" and "shall contribute to the development and better functioning of the internal market for electronic communications networks and services, by aiming to ensure a consistent application of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications" "carrying out its tasks independently, impartially and transparently". BEREC is neither a Community agency nor has legal personality and it is replacing the ERG (European Regulators Group). Whilst the Office, also established by the Directive mentioned above, is a Community Body with legal personality within the meaning of Article 185 of the Financial Regulation, and shall provide administrative and professional support services to BEREC.
, the largest German mobile telecommunication company, announced that it is blocking Skype
, "even though," according to the international, pro-net-neutrality, OpenNet Coalition, "Skype is both a key application for voice communication on the Internet and is known to consume a small amount of bandwidth. Therefore it is obvious the decision was not based on any real need of traffic management or Quality of Service issue.".
Proposta di legge dei senatori Vincenzo VITA (PD) e Luigi Vimercati (PD)
"Neutralita' Delle Reti, Free Software E Societa' Dell'informazione"
Senator Vimercati in an interview said that he wants "to do something for the network neutrality" and that he was inspired by Lawrence Lessig, Professor at the Stanford Law School.
Vimercati said that the topic is very hard, but in the article 3 there is a reference to the concept of neutrality regard the contents. It is also a problem of transparency and for the mobile connections: we need the minimum bandwidth to guarantee the service. We need some principle to defend the consumers. It's important that the consumer has been informed if he could not access all the Internet.
The bill refuses all the discrimination: related by the content, the service and the device. The bill is generally about Internet ("a statute for the Internet") and treat different topics like network neutrality, free software, giving an Internet access to everyone.
to track customer behaviour and otherwise filtering or manipulating network traffic. The legislation applies to any telecommunications provider.
and Rep. Chip Pickering
introduced HR5353 "To establish broadband policy and direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a proceeding and public broadband summit to assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues relating to broadband Internet access services, and for other purposes." On August 1, 2008, the FCC formally voted 3-to-2 to uphold a complaint against Comcast
, the largest cable company in the US, ruling that it had illegally inhibited users of its high-speed Internet service from using file-sharing software. FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin said that the order was meant to set a precedent that Internet providers, and indeed all communications companies, could not prevent customers from using their networks the way they see fit unless there is a good reason. In an interview, Martin said, "We are preserving the open character of the Internet." The legal complaint against Comcast related to BitTorrent, a transfer protocol that is especially apt at distributing large files such as video, music, and software on the Internet. For 2009, Rep. Markey has reintroduced it. Comcast admitted no wrongdoing in its proposed settlement of up to 16 dollars per share in December 2009. On April 6, 2010, the United States Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia in Comcast Corp. v. FCC ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to force Internet service providers to keep their networks open to all forms of content.
On December 21, 2010, the FCC approved new rules banning cable television
and telephone
service providers from preventing access to competitors or certain web sites such as Netflix
. The rules would not keep ISPs from charging more for faster access. Republicans
in Congress
plan to reverse the rules through legislation.
On September 23, 2011 the FCC released its final rules for Preserving a Free and Open Internet. These rules state that providers must have transparency of network management practices, not block lawful content, nor unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic. These rules are
effective November 20, 2011.
(ISPs) can now legally limit individual actions of the subscriber's network activity, if such actions threaten the normal functioning of the network. ISPs are obliged to exclude the possibility of access to information systems, network addresses, or uniform pointers which a subscriber informs the operator of communication in the form specified in the contract. The subscriber is obliged to take actions to protect the subscriber terminal from the impact of malicious software and to prevent the spread of spam
and malicious software
to its subscriber terminal. In reality, most Russian ISPs shape the traffic of P2P protocols
(like BitTorrent) with lower priority (P2P is about of 80% of traffic there). Also, there is popular method, called retracker, for redirecting some of the BitTorrent traffic to the ISP's cache servers and other subscribers inside of a metropolitan area network
(MAN). Access to MANs is usually with greater speed (2x–1000x or more, specified in the contract) and better quality than the rest of the Internet.
, amended its telecommunications law in order to preserve network neutrality, becoming the first country in the world to do so. This came after an intensive campaign on blog
s, Twitter
, and other social networks.
The law, published on 26 August 2010, added three articles to the General Law of Telecommunications, forbidding ISPs from arbitrarily blocking, interfering with, discriminating, hindering or restricting an Internet user's right to use, send, receive or offer any legal content, application, service or any other type of legal activity or use through the Internet. To that effect ISPs must offer Internet access in which content is not arbitrarily treated differently based on its source or ownership.
sense has been instantiated into law in many countries, including Japan
. In Japan, the nation's largest phone company, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
, operates a service called Flet's Square over their FTTH high speed Internet connections. In South Korea
, VoIP is blocked on high-speed FTTH networks except where the network operator is the service provider.
According to Thomas Lum, a specialist in Asian Affairs: "Since its founding in 1949, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has exerted great effort in manipulating the flow of information and prohibiting the dissemination of viewpoints that criticize the government or stray from the official Communist party view. The introduction of Internet technology in the mid-1990s presented a challenge to government control over news sources, and by extension, over public opinion. While the Internet has developed rapidly, broadened access to news, and facilitated mass communications in China, many forms of expression online, as in other mass media, are still significantly stifled. Empirical studies have found that China has one of the most sophisticated content-filtering Internet regimes in the world. The Chinese government employs increasingly sophisticated methods to limit content online, including a combination of legal regulation, surveillance, and punishment to promote self-censorship, as well as technical controls."
, as well as in other protocols and distributed systems in general. The principle states that, whenever possible, communications protocol
operations should be defined to occur at the end-points of a communications system, or as close as possible to the resource being controlled. According to the end-to-end principle, protocol features are only justified in the lower layers of a system if they are a performance optimization, hence, TCP retransmission for reliability is still justified, but efforts to improve TCP reliability should stop after peak performance has been reached.
The concept was highlighted in a 1981 conference paper End-to-end arguments in system design by Jerome H. Saltzer
, David P. Reed
, and David D. Clark
. They argued that reliable systems tend to require end-to-end processing to operate correctly, in addition to any processing in the intermediate system. They pointed out that most features in the lowest level of a communications system have costs for all higher-layer clients, even if those clients do not need the features, and are redundant if the clients have to re-implement the features on an end-to-end basis. This leads to the model of a "dumb, minimal network"
with smart terminals, a completely different model from the previous paradigm of the smart network with dumb terminals.
, though a proponent of network neutrality, claims that the current Internet is not neutral as its implementation of best effort generally favors file transfer
and other non-time sensitive traffic over real-time communications. Generally, a network which blocks some nodes
or services for the customers of the network would normally be expected to be less useful to the customers than one that did not. Therefore for a network to remain significantly non neutral requires either that the customers not be concerned about the particular non neutralities or the customers not have any meaningful choice of providers, otherwise they would presumably switch to another provider with fewer restrictions.
While the network neutrality debate continues, network providers often enter into peering arrangements among themselves. These agreements often stipulate how certain information flows should be treated. In addition, network providers often implement various policies such as blocking of port 25 to prevent insecure systems from serving as spam relays, or other ports commonly used by decentralized music search applications implementing peer-to-peer networking models. They also present terms of service that often include rules about the use of certain applications as part of their contracts with users.
Most consumer Internet providers implement policies like these. The MIT Mantid Port Blocking Measurement Project is a measurement effort to characterize Internet port blocking and potentially discriminatory practices. However, the effect of peering arrangements among network providers are only local to the peers that enter into the arrangements, and cannot affect traffic flow outside their scope.
Jon Peha from Carnegie Mellon University
in his paper "The Benefits and Risks of Mandating Network Neutrality, and the Quest for a Balanced Policy" presents a challenge for policy makers to create policies that protect users from harmful traffic discrimination while allowing beneficial discrimination. Peha discusses the technologies that enable traffic discrimination, examples of different types of discrimination, and potential impacts of regulation.
There is no single, uniform method of interconnecting networks using IP
, and not all networks that use IP are part of the Internet. IPTV
networks are isolated from the Internet, and are therefore not covered by network neutrality agreements.
The IP datagram
includes a 3-bit wide Precedence field and a larger DiffServ Code Point that are used to request a level of service, consistent with the notion that protocols in a layered architecture offer services through Service Access Point
s. This field is sometimes ignored, especially if it requests a level of service outside the originating network's contract with the receiving network. It is commonly used in private networks, especially those including WiFi
networks where priority is enforced. While there are several ways of communicating service levels across Internet connections, such as SIP
, RSVP
, IEEE 802.11e
, and MPLS
, the most common scheme combines SIP and DSCP. Router manufacturers now sell routers that have logic enabling them to route traffic for various Classes of Service at "wire-speed".
With the emergence of multimedia, VoIP, IPTV, and other applications that benefit from low latency, various attempts to address the inability of some private networks to limit latency have arisen, including the proposition of offering tiered service
levels that would shape Internet transmissions at the network layer based on application type. These efforts are ongoing, and are starting to yield results as wholesale Internet transport providers begin to amend service agreements to include service levels.
Alok Bhardwaj has argued that net neutrality preservation through legislation is consistent with implementing quality of service protocols. He argues legislation should ban the charging of fees for any quality of service which would both allow networks to implement quality of service as well as remove any incentive to abuse net neutrality ideas. He argues that since implementing quality of service doesn't require any additional costs versus a non-QoS network, there's no reason implementing quality of service should entail any additional fees. However, the core network hardware needed (with large number of queues, etc.) and the cost of designing and maintaining a QoS network are both much higher than for a non-QoS network.
Xipeng Xiao covers the relationship between QoS and Network Neutrality in the book Technical, Commercial and Regulatory Challenges of QoS: An Internet Service Model Perspective.
is the control of computer network
traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency
, and/or increase usable bandwidth
by delaying packets that meet certain criteria. More specifically, traffic shaping is any action on a set of packets (often called a stream or a flow) which imposes additional delay on those packets such that they conform to some predetermined constraint (a contract or traffic profile). Traffic shaping provides a means to control the volume of traffic being sent into a network
in a specified period (bandwidth throttling
), or the maximum rate at which the traffic is sent (rate limiting
), or more complex criteria such as GCRA
.
that makes liberal estimates of peak user demand. Over-provisioning is used in private networks such as WebEx and the Internet 2 Abilene Network, an American university network.
David Isenberg believes that continued over-provisioning will always provide more capacity for less expense than QoS and deep packet inspection
technologies.
to recoup costs of 'consumer surplus). However, purchasers of connectivity on the basis of Committed Information Rate
or guaranteed bandwidth capacity must expect the capacity they purchase in order to meet their communications requirements.
Various studies have sought to provide network providers the necessary formulas for adequately pricing such a tiered service
for their customer base. But while network neutrality is primarily focused on protocol based provisioning, most of the pricing models are based on bandwidth restrictions.
Principle
A principle is a law or rule that has to be, or usually is to be followed, or can be desirably followed, or is an inevitable consequence of something, such as the laws observed in nature or the way that a system is constructed...
that advocates no restrictions by Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s or governments on consumers' access to networks that participate in the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. Specifically, network neutrality would prevent restrictions on content, sites, platforms, types of equipment that may be attached, and modes of communication.
Since the early 2000s, advocates of net neutrality and associated rules have raised concerns about the ability of broadband providers to use their last mile
Last mile
The "last mile" or "last kilometer" is the final leg of delivering connectivity from a communications provider to a customer. The phrase is therefore often used by the telecommunications and cable television industries. The actual distance of this leg may be considerably more than a mile,...
infrastructure to block Internet applications and content (e.g. websites, services, and protocols), and even block out competitors. (The term "net neutrality" didn't come into popular use until several years later, however.) The possibility of regulations designed to mandate the neutrality of the Internet has been subject to fierce debate, especially in the United States.
Neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service
Tiered service
Tiered service structures allow users to select from a small set of tiers at progressively increasing price points to receive the product or products best suited to their needs. Such systems are frequently seen in the telecommunications field, specifically when it comes to wireless service, digital...
model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity
Artificial scarcity
Artificial scarcity describes the scarcity of items even though the technology and production capacity exists to create an abundance. The term is aptly applied to non-rival resources, i.e. those that do not diminish due to one person's use, although there are other resources which could be...
, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services. Many believe net neutrality to be primarily important as a preservation of current freedoms. Vinton Cerf, considered a "father of the Internet" and co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
, creator of the Web, and many others have spoken out in favor of network neutrality.
Opponents of net neutrality claim that broadband service providers have no plans to block content or degrade network performance. Despite this claim there has been a case where an Internet service provider, Comcast, intentionally slowed peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
(P2P) communications. Still other companies have acted in contrast to these assertions of hands-off behavior and have begun to use deep packet inspection
Deep packet inspection
Deep Packet Inspection is a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part of a packet as it passes an inspection point, searching for protocol non-compliance, viruses, spam, intrusions or predefined criteria to decide if the packet can...
to discriminate against P2P, FTP, and online games, instituting a cell-phone style billing system of overage
Cellphone overage charges
-Pre-paid and post-paid plans:The billing plans for mobile phones can be categorized as either a pre-paid plan or a post-paid plan.In a pre-paid plan, the cell phone user pays for the minutes before using them...
s, free-to-telecom "value added" services, and bundling. Critics of net neutrality also argue that data discrimination
Data discrimination
Data discrimination is the selective filtering of information by a service provider. This has been an new issue in the recent debate over network neutrality...
of some kinds, particularly to guarantee quality of service
Quality of service
The quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...
, is not problematic, but is actually highly desirable. Bob Kahn
Bob Kahn
Robert Elliot Kahn is an American Internet pioneer, engineer and computer scientist, who, along with Vinton G. Cerf, invented the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol , the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet.-Career:After receiving a B.E.E...
, co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, has called the term net neutrality a "slogan" and states that he opposes establishing it, but he admits that he is against the fragmentation of the net whenever this becomes excluding to other participants. Opponents of net neutrality regulation also argue that the best solution to discrimination by broadband providers is to encourage greater competition among such providers, which is currently limited in many areas.
Definitions of network neutrality
At its simplest, network neutrality is the principle that all InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
traffic should be treated equally. Net neutrality advocates have established different definitions of network neutrality:
Absolute non-discrimination: Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...
professor Tim Wu
Tim Wu
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School, the former chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate Magazine. He is also a former Bernard L. Schwartz and Future Tense fellow at The New America Foundation...
: "Network neutrality is best defined as a network design principle. The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally."
Limited discrimination without QoS tiering : United States lawmakers have introduced bills that would allow quality of service
Quality of service
The quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...
discrimination as long as no special fee is charged for higher-quality service.
Limited discrimination and tiering: This approach allows higher fees for QoS as long as there is no exclusivity in service contracts. According to Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
: "If I pay to connect to the Net with a given quality of service, and you pay to connect to the net with the same or higher quality of service, then you and I can communicate across the net, with that quality of service." "[We] each pay to connect to the Net, but no one can pay for exclusive access to me."
First come first served: According to Imprint Magazine, Cardozo Law School professor Susan P. Crawford
Susan P. Crawford
Susan P. Crawford was until December 2009 President Barack Obama's Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy...
"believes that a neutral Internet must forward packets on a first-come, first served basis, without regard for quality-of-service considerations."
FCC broadband policy statement
In 2005, the U.S. Federal Communications CommissionFederal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) issued a Broadband Policy Statement (also known as the Internet Policy Statement), which lists four principles of open Internet, "To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to:"
- access the lawful Internet content of their choice.
- run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
- connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.
- competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.
These points are often summarized as "any lawful content, any lawful application, any lawful device, and any provider". President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama.To...
called for an investment of $7.2 billion in broadband infrastructure and included an openness stipulation. During the FCC's hearing, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association
National Cable & Telecommunications Association
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is the principal trade association for the U.S. cable TV industry, representing cable operators serving more than 90 percent of the nation’s cable households and more than 200 cable program networks, as well as equipment suppliers and providers...
urged the FCC to adopt the four criteria laid out in its 2005 Internet Policy Statement as the requisite openness.
In 2008, when the FCC auctioned off the 700 MHz block of wireless spectrum
United States 2008 wireless spectrum auction
The United States 700 MHz FCC wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction 73, was started by the Federal Communications Commission on January 24, 2008 for the rights to operate the 700 MHz frequency band in the United States...
in anticipation of the DTV transition
DTV transition in the United States
The DTV transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
promised to enter a bid of $4.6 billion if the FCC required the winning licensee to adhere to four conditions:
- Open applications: Consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content, or services they desire;
- Open devices: Consumers should be able to utilize a handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer;
- Open services: Third parties (resellers) should be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms;
- Open networks: Third parties, such as Internet service providers, should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee's wireless network.
These conditions are broadly similar to the FCC's Internet Policy Statement (FCC's applications and content are combined into a single bullet, while an extra bullet adding a requirement for wholesale access for third party providers was included). The FCC adopted only two of these four criteria for the auction, viz., open devices and open applications, and only applied these conditions to the nationwide C block portion of the band.
In September 2009, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski
Julius Genachowski
Julius Genachowski is an American lawyer and businessman. He became Federal Communications Commission Chairman on June 29, 2009.-Education:Genachowski grew up in Great Neck, New York. He attended yeshiva and studied in Israel...
proposed to add two additional rules on top of its 2005 policy statement, viz., the nondiscrimination principle that ISPs must not discriminate against any content or applications, and the transparency principle, which requires that ISPs disclose all their policies to customers. He also argued that wireless should be subject to the same network neutrality as wireline providers.
In October 2009, the FCC took the next step by approving a notice of proposed rule making on the subject of net neutrality.
In May 2010, after it was believed the FCC would drop their effort to enforce net neutrality, they announced that they would continue their fight. It was believed they would not be able to enforce net neutrality after a Federal court's overthrow of the agency's Order against Comcast. However, under commission chairman Julius Genachowski, the FCC has proposed reclassifying broadband Internet access providers under the provisions of Title 2 of the Communications act in an effort to force the providers to adhere to the same rules as telephone networks. This adjustment is meant to prevent, "unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities or services."
On December 21, 2010, the FCC approved new rules
FCC Open Internet Order 2010
The Federal Communications Commission Open Internet Order is a set of regulations that move towards the establishment of the internet neutrality concept. Some opponents of net neutrality believe such internet regulation would inhibit innovation by preventing providers from capitalizing on their...
banning cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
and telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
service providers from preventing access to competitors or certain web sites such as Netflix
Netflix
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...
. The rules also include a more limited set of obligations for wireless providers. The rules would not keep ISPs from charging more for faster access. Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
in Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
have announced plans to reverse the rules through legislation. Verizon has also indicated that it will challenge the FCC's decision in court, and Colin Crowell
Colin Crowell
Colin Crowell is the Head of Global Public Policy at Twitter. He is a telecommunications and Internet technology policy expert in Washington, D.C., who worked for over two decades for Congressman Ed Markey the former chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House...
, the former Senior Counselor to the FCC Chairman, has called such court challenges "inevitable."
Development of the concept
The concept of network neutrality predates the current Internet-focused debate, existing since the age of the telegraph. In 1860, a US federal law (Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860
The Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860 called for the facilitation of communication between the east and west coasts of the United States of America. Hiram Sibley of the Western Union Telegraph Company won the contract. In 1861, Benjamin Franklin Ficklin joined Hiram Sibley in helping to form the...
) was passed to subsidize a telegraph line, stating that:
In 1888, Almon Brown Strowger invented an automatic telephone exchange to bypass non-neutral telephone operators who redirected calls for profit.
In 2009, Tim Wu
Tim Wu
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School, the former chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate Magazine. He is also a former Bernard L. Schwartz and Future Tense fellow at The New America Foundation...
, a professor at Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...
, published and popularized a proposal for a net neutrality rule, in his paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. The paper considered network neutrality in terms of neutrality between applications, as well as neutrality between data and QoS-sensitive traffic, and proposed some legislation to potentially deal with these issues. Throughout 2005 and 2006, network neutrality and the future of the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
was debated by cable companies, consumers
Consumer
Consumer is a broad label for any individuals or households that use goods generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer occurs in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary.-Economics and marketing:...
, and Internet service providers (ISPs), although the issue was almost completely ignored by the media until 2006.
In August 2010, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and Verizon reached an agreement in which they both opposed complete network neutrality. The agreement details that ISPs should be "prohibited from preventing users of its broadband Internet access service from-- (1) sending and receiving lawful content of their choice; (2) running lawful applications and using lawful services of their choice; and (3) connecting their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network or service, facilitate theft of service, or harm other users of the service." They went on to say that wireless ISPs, such as cellphone companies, should not be required to provide neutral networks for their customers. The rationale for this statement was that wireless networks are still being developed.
Proponents
Proponents of net neutrality include consumer advocates, online companies and some technology companies. Many major InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
application companies are advocates of neutrality. Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, Vonage
Vonage
Vonage is a publicly held commercial voice over IP network and SIP company that provides telephone service via a broadband connection. The company's name is a play on their motto "Voice-Over-Net-AGE"....
, Ebay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, IAC/InterActiveCorp
IAC/InterActiveCorp
InterActiveCorp is an American internet company with over 50 brands across 40 countries headquartered in New York City...
. Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, along with many other companies, have also taken a stance in support of neutrality regulation. Cogent Communications
Cogent Communications
Cogent Communications is a multinational internet service provider whose network spans more than 53,300 intercity fiber route miles and 15,800 metro fiber miles. Cogent provides service in over 165 markets across 31 countries in North America and Europe...
, an international Internet service provider, has made an announcement in favor of certain net neutrality policies. According to Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
:
Individuals who support net neutrality include Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
, Vinton Cerf, Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
, Robert W. McChesney
Robert W. McChesney
Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...
, Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...
, Susan P. Crawford
Susan P. Crawford
Susan P. Crawford was until December 2009 President Barack Obama's Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy...
, Ben Scott
Ben Scott (Policy Expert)
Ben Scott is Policy Advisor for Innovation at the US Department of State, where he works at the intersection of technology and foreign policy. In a small team of advisors to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he works to help steward the 21'st Century Statecraft agenda with a focus on...
, Marvin Ammori
Marvin Ammori
Marvin Ammori is an American academic, lawyer, and activist. He is best known for his work on network neutrality issues and freedom of speech. He is a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law, where he helps lead a JD/LLM program in Space & Telecom law.-Education and Career:He...
, David Reed
David P. Reed
David P. Reed is an American computer scientist, educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known for a number of significant contributions to computer networking....
, and US President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
.
A number of net neutrality interest groups have emerged, including SaveTheInternet.com
Save the Internet
Save the Internet is a coalition of individuals, businesses, and non-profit organizations led by Free Press working for the preservation of network neutrality.-History:...
which frames net neutrality as follows:
Envision Seattle and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund offer a model legal ordinance for communities and cities to enforce a free and open Internet.
Control of data
Supporters of network neutrality want a legal mandate ensuring that cable companies allow Internet service providers (ISPs) free access to cable lines, called a common carriage agreement, and the model used for dial-up Internet. They want to ensure that cable companies cannot screen, interrupt or filter Internet content without court order.SaveTheInternet.com
Save the Internet
Save the Internet is a coalition of individuals, businesses, and non-profit organizations led by Free Press working for the preservation of network neutrality.-History:...
accuses cable and telecommunications companies of wanting "to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all". According to SaveTheInternet.com these companies want to "tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data ... to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video while slowing down or blocking their competitors." Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
(IP) and current Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, has supported efforts to introduce network neutrality legislation
Network neutrality in the United States
Network neutrality in the United States is a hotly debated issue subject to regulatory and judicial contention among network users and access providers...
in the US, arguing that "the Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services." Cerf concluded that:
Digital rights and freedoms
Lawrence LessigLawrence Lessig
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
and Robert W. McChesney
Robert W. McChesney
Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...
argue that net neutrality ensures that the Internet remains a free and open technology, fostering democratic communication. Lessig and McChesney go on to argue that the monopolization of the Internet would stifle the diversity of independent news sources and the generation of innovative and novel web content.
Competition and innovation
Net neutrality advocates argue that allowing cable companies, often termed "content gatekeepers", the right to demand a toll to guarantee quality or premium delivery would create what Tim WuTim Wu
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School, the former chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate Magazine. He is also a former Bernard L. Schwartz and Future Tense fellow at The New America Foundation...
calls an "unfair business model." Advocates warn that by charging "every Web site, from the smallest blogger to Google", network owners may be able to block competitor Web sites and services, as well as refuse access to those unable to pay. According to Tim Wu, cable companies plan to "carve off bandwidth" for their own television services and charge companies a toll for "priority" service.
Proponents of net neutrality argue that allowing for preferential treatment of Internet traffic, or tiered service
Tiered service
Tiered service structures allow users to select from a small set of tiers at progressively increasing price points to receive the product or products best suited to their needs. Such systems are frequently seen in the telecommunications field, specifically when it comes to wireless service, digital...
, would put newer online companies at a disadvantage and slow innovation in online services. Tim Wu
Tim Wu
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School, the former chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate Magazine. He is also a former Bernard L. Schwartz and Future Tense fellow at The New America Foundation...
argues that, without network neutrality, the Internet will undergo a transformation from a market "where innovation rules to one where deal-making rules." SaveTheInternet.com
Save the Internet
Save the Internet is a coalition of individuals, businesses, and non-profit organizations led by Free Press working for the preservation of network neutrality.-History:...
argues that net neutrality creates an "even playing field" and that "the Internet has always been driven by innovation. Web sites and services succeeded or failed on their own merit." According to Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
and Robert W. McChesney
Robert W. McChesney
Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...
:
Preserving Internet standards
Network neutrality advocates have sponsored legislation claiming that authorizing incumbent network providers to override transport and application layer separation on the Internet would signal the decline of fundamental Internet standards and international consensus authority. Further, the legislation asserts that bit-shaping the transport of application data will undermine the transport layer's designed flexibility.Preventing pseudo-services
Alok Bhardwaj argues that any violations to network neutrality, realistically speaking, will not involve genuine investment but rather payoffs for unnecessary and dubious services. He believes that it is unlikely that new investment will be made to lay special networks for particular websites to reach end-users faster. Rather, he believes that non-net neutrality will involve leveraging quality of service to extract remuneration from websites that want to avoid being slowed down.End-to-end principle
Some advocates say network neutrality is needed in order to maintain the end-to-end principleEnd-to-end principle
The end-to-end principle is a classic design principle of computer networking which states that application specific functions ought to reside in the end hosts of a network rather than in intermediary nodes, provided they can be implemented "completely and correctly" in the end hosts...
. According to Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
and Robert W. McChesney
Robert W. McChesney
Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...
:
Under this principle, a neutral network is a dumb network
Dumb network
A dumb network is marked by using intelligent devices at the periphery that make use of a network that does not interfere with an application’s operation. The dumb network concept is the natural outcome of the end to end principle...
, merely passing packets regardless of the applications they support. This point of view was expressed by David S. Isenberg in his well-known paper, The Rise of the Stupid Network.
Contrary to this idea, the research paper titled End-to-end arguments in system design by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark argues that network intelligence
Network intelligence
Network Intelligence is a technology that builds on the concepts and capabilities of Deep Packet Inspection , Packet Capture and Business Intelligence...
doesn't relieve end systems of the requirement to check inbound data for errors and to rate-limit the sender, nor for a wholesale removal of "intelligence" from the network core.
Opponents
Opposition includes the Cato InstituteCato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
, the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit think tank founded on March 9, 1984 in Washington, D.C. by lobbyist Fred L. Smith, Jr to advance economic liberty and fight over-regulation by big government...
, the Goldwater Institute
Goldwater Institute
The Goldwater Institute is a Phoenix, Arizona-based conservative public policy research organization established in 1988. The president is Darcy A. Olsen. The Goldwater Institute advances public policies with emphasis on lower taxes, limited government spending, school choice, and a reduction in...
, Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform is an advocacy group and taxpayer group whose stated goal is "a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today. The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax...
, and the Ayn Rand Institute
Ayn Rand Institute
The Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism is a 501 nonprofit think tank in Irvine, California that promotes Ayn Rand's philosophy, called Objectivism. It was established in 1985, three years after Rand's death, by Leonard Peikoff, Rand's legal heir...
. Opponents of net neutrality include hardware companies and members of the cable and telecommunications industries, including major telecommunications providers.
A number of these opponents created a website called Hands Off The Internet to promote their arguments against net neutrality. (The website no longer exists). Principal financial support for the website comes from AT&T, and members include technology firms and pro-market advocacy group Citizens Against Government Waste
Citizens Against Government Waste
Citizens Against Government Waste is a 501 non-profit organization in the United States. It functions as a think-tank, 'government watchdog', and advocacy group for fiscally conservative causes...
.
Network neutrality regulations are opposed by some Internet engineers, such as professor David Farber
David J. Farber
David J. "Dave" Farber is a professor of Computer Science, noted for his major contributions to programming languages and computer networking. He is currently Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy at the School of Computer Science, Heinz College, and Department of...
and TCP
Transmission Control Protocol
The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...
inventor Bob Kahn
Bob Kahn
Robert Elliot Kahn is an American Internet pioneer, engineer and computer scientist, who, along with Vinton G. Cerf, invented the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol , the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet.-Career:After receiving a B.E.E...
.
Robert Pepper
Robert Pepper
Robert M. Pepper Ph. D is a specialist in communications policy.He received his BA. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. and held faculty positions at the University of Iowa, Indiana University, and Pennsylvania University, and was a research affiliate at Harvard University...
is senior managing director, global advanced technology policy, at Cisco Systems, and is the former FCC chief of policy development. He says: "The supporters of net neutrality regulation believe that more rules are necessary. In their view, without greater regulation, service providers might parcel out bandwidth or services, creating a bifurcated world in which the wealthy enjoy first-class Internet access, while everyone else is left with slow connections and degraded content. That scenario, however, is a false paradigm. Such an all-or-nothing world doesn't exist today, nor will it exist in the future. Without additional regulation, service providers are likely to continue doing what they are doing. They will continue to offer a variety of broadband service plans at a variety of price points to suit every type of consumer." Bob Kahn
Bob Kahn
Robert Elliot Kahn is an American Internet pioneer, engineer and computer scientist, who, along with Vinton G. Cerf, invented the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol , the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet.-Career:After receiving a B.E.E...
, another computer scientist, has said net neutrality is a slogan that would freeze innovation in the core of the Internet.
Farber has written and spoken strongly in favor of continued research and development on core Internet protocols. He joined academic colleagues Michael Katz, Christopher Yoo
Christopher Yoo
Christopher S. Yoo is a professor of Law, Communication, and Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and founding director of the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition. He is well known for his work on technology law, media law and copyright, in...
, and Gerald Faulhaber in an Op-Ed for the Washington Post strongly critical of network neutrality, stating, "The Internet needs a makeover. Unfortunately, congressional initiatives aimed at preserving the best of the old Internet threaten to stifle the emergence of the new one."
Property rights
Some opponents of net neutrality argue that net neutrality is a violation of the property rights of Internet service providers because they produce and own access to the Internet.Innovation and investment
Some opponents of net neutrality argue that prioritization of bandwidth is necessary for future innovation on the Internet. Telecommunications providers such as telephone and cable companies, and some technology companies that supply networking gear, argue telecom providers should have the ability to provide preferential treatment in the form of tiered services, for example by giving online companies willing to pay the ability to transfer their data packets faster than other Internet traffic. The added revenue from such services could be used to pay for the building of increased broadband access to more consumers. Opponents to net neutrality have also argued that net neutrality regulation would have adverse consequences for innovation and competition in the market for broadband access by making it more difficult for Internet service providers (ISPs) and other network operators to recoup their investments in broadband networks. John Thorne, senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Verizon, a broadbandBroadband Internet access
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is a high data rate, low-latency connection to the Internet— typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56 kbit/s modem or satellite Internet with inherently high latency....
and telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
s company, has argued that they will have no incentive to make large investments to develop advanced fibre-optic networks if they are prohibited from charging higher preferred access fees to companies that wish to take advantage of the expanded capabilities of such networks. Thorne and other ISPs have accused Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
of freeloading or free riding for using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build.
Counterweight to server-side non-neutrality
Those in favor of forms of "non-neutral" tiered Internet access argue that the Internet is already not a level-playing field: large companies achieve a performance advantage over smaller competitors by replicating servers and buying high-bandwidth services. Should prices drop for lower levels of access, or access to only certain protocols, for instance, a change of this type would make Internet usage more neutral, with respect to the needs of those individuals and corporations specifically seeking differentiated tiers of service. Network expert Richard Bennett has written, "A richly funded Web site, which delivers data faster than its competitors to the front porches of the Internet service providers, wants it delivered the rest of the way on an equal basis. This system, which Google calls broadband neutrality, actually preserves a more fundamental inequality."Tim Wu
Tim Wu
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School, the former chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate Magazine. He is also a former Bernard L. Schwartz and Future Tense fellow at The New America Foundation...
, though a proponent of network neutrality, claims that the current Internet is not neutral as, "among all applications", its implementation of best effort generally favors file transfer
File transfer
File transfer is a generic term for the act of transmitting files over a computer network or the Internet. There are numerous ways and protocols to transfer files over a network. Computers which provide a file transfer service are often called file servers. Depending on the client's perspective the...
and other non-time sensitive traffic over real-time communications.
Bandwidth availability
Since the early 1990s Internet traffic has increased steadily. The arrival of picture-rich websites and MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
s led to a sharp increase in the mid 1990s followed by a subsequent sharp increase since 2003 as video streaming and peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
file sharing
File sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
became more common. In reaction to companies including YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, as well as smaller companies starting to offer free video content, using substantial amounts of bandwidth, at least one Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
(ISP), SBC Communications (now doing business as AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
), has suggested that it should have the right to charge these companies for making their content available over the provider's network.
Bret Swanson from the Wall Street Journal said that YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and blogs are put at risk by net neutrality. Swanson says that YouTube streams as much data in three months as the world's radio, cable and broadcast television channels stream in one year, 75 petabytes. He argues that today's networks are not remotely prepared to handle what he calls the "exaflood" (see exabytes). He argues that net neutrality would prevent broadband networks from being built, which would limit available bandwidth and thus endanger innovation.
Opposition to legislation
Given a rapidly-changing technological and market environment, many in the public policy area question the government's ability to make and maintain meaningful regulation that doesn't cause more harm than good. Poorly conceived legislation could make it difficult for Internet Service Providers to legally perform necessary and generally useful packet filtering such as combating denial of service attacks, filtering E-Mail spamE-mail spam
Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
, and preventing the spread of computer viruses. Quoting Bram Cohen
Bram Cohen
Bram Cohen is an American computer programmer, best known as the author of the peer-to-peer BitTorrent protocol, as well as the first file sharing program to use the protocol, also known as BitTorrent...
, the creator of BitTorrent,"I most definitely do not want the Internet to become like television where there's actual censorship... however it is very difficult to actually create network neutrality laws which don't result in an absurdity like making it so that ISPs can't drop spam or stop... attacks." Some proposed pieces of legislation would even make fair queuing illegal as it requires prioritization of packets based on criteria other than that permitted by the proposed law.
Recent pieces of legislation, like The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, attempt to mitigate these concerns by excluding reasonable network management from regulation.
The Wall Street Journal has written that: "Government's role here, properly understood, is not to tell Comcast how to manage its network. Rather, it is to make sure consumers have alternatives to Comcast if they are unhappy with their Internet service."
George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
fellow Adam Thierer has argued that "any government agency or process big enough to control a major sector of our economy will be prone to influence by those most affected by it", and that consequently "for all the talk we hear about how the FCC's move to impose Net Neutrality regulation is about 'putting consumers first' or 'preserving Net freedom and openness,' it's difficult to ignore the small armies of special interests who stand ready to exploit this new regulatory regime the same way they did telecom and broadcast industry regulation during decades past."
In her recently published research, Aparna Watal, Legal Officer at Attomic Labs, puts forward three reasons for resisting any urge "to react legislatively to the apparent regulatory crisis". Firstly, she explains, "contrary to the general opinion, the Comcast decision does not uproot the Commission’s authority to regulate ISPs. Section 201(b) of the Act, which was cited as an argument by the Commission but not addressed by the Court on procedural grounds, could grant the Commission authority to regulate broadband Internet services where they render 'charges, practices and regulations for, and in connection with' common carrier services unjust and unreasonable." Secondly, she suggests, it is "undesirable and premature to legislatively mandate network neutrality or for the Commission to adopt a paternalistic approach on the issue...[as] there have been few overt incidents to date, and the costs of those incidents to consumers have been limited." She cites "prompt media attention and public backlash" as effective policing tools to prevent ISPs from throttling traffic. She suggests that it "would be more prudent to consider introducing modest consumer protection rules, such as requiring ISPs to disclose their network management practices and to allow for consumers to switch ISPs inexpensively, rather than introducing network neutrality laws." Finally, she explains that while "by regulating broadband services the commission is not directly regulating content and applications on the Internet; however, to say that content will remain unaffected by the reclassification is inaccurate. The different layers of the Internet work in tandem with each other such that there is no possibility of throttling or improving one layer's performance without impacting the other layers. If that was the case, then network neutrality would be maintained regardless of what happened at the transmission layer. To let the Commission regulate broadband pipelines connecting to the Internet and disregard that it indirectly involves regulating the data that runs through them will lead to a complex, overlapping, and fractured regulatory landscape in the years to come."
Mixed and other views on net neutrality
Washington Post columnist Jeffrey BirnbaumJeffrey Birnbaum
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum is an American journalist and television commentator. He previously worked for the Washington Post and Washington Times. He also regularly appears as a political analyst for the Fox News Channel and long appeared as a regular panelist on Washington Week...
has called the debate overhyped, saying the claims of both sides are "vague and misleading."
Author Andy Kessler has argued that, though network neutrality is desirable, the threat of eminent domain
Eminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...
against the telcos, instead of new legislation, is the best approach.
Columbia University Law School professor Tim Wu
Tim Wu
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School, the former chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate Magazine. He is also a former Bernard L. Schwartz and Future Tense fellow at The New America Foundation...
observed the Internet is not neutral in terms of its impact on applications having different requirements. It is more beneficial for data applications than for applications that require low latency
Latency (engineering)
Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured. Latencies may have different meaning in different contexts.-Packet-switched networks:...
and low jitter
Jitter
Jitter is the undesired deviation from true periodicity of an assumed periodic signal in electronics and telecommunications, often in relation to a reference clock source. Jitter may be observed in characteristics such as the frequency of successive pulses, the signal amplitude, or phase of...
, such as voice and real-time video: "In a universe of applications, including both latency-sensitive and insensitive applications, it is difficult to regard the IP suite as truly neutral." He has proposed regulations on Internet access networks that define net neutrality as equal treatment among similar applications, rather than neutral transmissions regardless of applications. He proposes allowing broadband operators to make reasonable trade-offs between the requirements of different applications, while regulators carefully scrutinize network operator behavior where local networks interconnect.
Law in the European Union
The European UnionEuropean Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
has begun a consultation to examine the possible need for legislation to mandate network neutrality, countering the potential damage, if any, caused by non-neutral broadband access. The European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
, within the proposals to amend the European regulatory framework for the electronic communications networks and services published on 13 November 2007, considers that prioritisation, or in other words product differentiation, "is generally considered to be beneficial for the market so long as users have choice to access the transmission capabilities and the services they want" and "consequently, the current EU rules allow operators to offer different services to different customers groups, but not allow those who are in a dominant position to discriminate in an anti-competitive manner between customers in similar circumstances." Furthermore, the European Commission thinks that the current European legal framework cannot effectively prevent network operators from degrading their customers. Therefore, it is proposed to empower the European Commission to impose a minimum quality of services in order to tackle this situation. In addition, an obligation of transparency is also proposed to limit network operators' ability to set up restrictions on end-users' choice of lawful content and applications.
The European Commission's proposal was reviewed by the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
at First Reading. In the summer of 2008, the lead committees in the European Parliament achieved their final draft reports. On 24 September 2008 the European Parliament held a plenary vote on the draft reports from those committees. At the next step the European Council will vote for its common position on the European Commission's legislative proposals on 27 November 2008. After that the negotiation between the European Parliament and the European Council will be made under the cooperation procedure. The adoption of these proposals is supposed to take place before the end of 2009.
A debate on net neutrality in the UK was held at Westminster on 20 March 2006, sponsored by AT&T. It was attended by the Government and Opposition trade secretaries, telecommunications regulators, industry figures and other experts in the field. Google, a noted supporter of net neutrality, declined an invitation to the debate, and then called it "biased". The conclusion was that Net Neutrality laws in the UK would be "extreme... unattractive and impractical" and that it was "an answer to problems we don't have, using a philosophy we don't share". Further debates at the Royal Society and Institute of Public Policy Research in 2006 came to different conclusions "Marsden C. Net Neutrality: Towards a Co-regulatory Solution at Chapter 1".
December 19, 2009, the "Telecoms Package
Telecoms Package
The Telecoms Reform Package is a law of the European Union, aimed at updating the EU Telecoms Rules of 2002 and unifying Europe's tele-communications market for all 27 EU member states...
" was published in the Official Journal of the European Union, and must be implemented in Member States' laws by May 2011. The new legislation requires European telecom and Internet service providers (ISPs) to tell their customers when any of their personal data has been breached. Before, these companies did not inform their customers of any personal privacy violations. Also, the legislation will make customers able to switch from a fixed land line to the new 3G service in one working day. In addition "spectrum reframing—where 3G services can be used in what is currently 2G radio spectrum—is also to be allowed, so as to allow a faster rollout of high-speed mobile Internet services". The commission is quoted saying, "Thanks to the new transparency requirements, consumers will be informed—even before signing a contract—about the nature of the service to which they are subscribing, including traffic management techniques and their impact on service quality, as well as any other limitations (such as bandwidth caps or available connection speed)". "This will increase the incentives for better protection of personal data by providers of communications networks and services," the Commission said. "In addition, the rules concerning privacy and data protection are strengthened, e.g. on the use of 'cookies' and similar devices."
The European Parliament had argued that one issue with the new package is that the guidelines for national regulators on investment in next-generation broadband have not been set.
European Citizens' rights groups have argued that the adoption of the Harbour Report would be the end of net neutrality. They claimed that the report was heavily influenced by US telecoms giants, including AT&T and Verizon, and was a sign of the European Parliament watering down its concerns in order to form a consensus with the European Council.
The existing 2002 regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services in the European Union is comprised by five directives, which altogether are referred to as "the Framework Directive and the Specific Directives". More specifically these directives are: (a) Directive 2002/19/EC of the European Parliament on access to, and interconnection of, electronic communications networks and associated facilities (Access Directive), (b) Directive 2002/20/EC of the European Parliament on the authorisation of electronic communications networks and services (Authorisation Directive), (c) Directive 2002/21/EC on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services (Framework Directive), (d) Directive 2002/22/EC (Universal Service Directive), and finally, (e) Directive 2002/58/EC (Directive on privacy and electronic communications).
Due to the technological and marketing developments, combined with the final users' continuously increasing needs and demands for better, faster, and more accessible services, the European Parliament and the Council recently amended all five directives as given above. More concretely, Directives 2002/22/EC and 2002/58/EC were amended by Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009, and Directives 2002/19/EC, 2002/20/EC and 2002/21/EC were amended by Directive 2009/140/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009. All these amendments are followed by the Commission's declaration of net neutrality (L 337, 18 December 2009, page 69).
On that ground, Regulation (EC) No 1211/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 established the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the Office Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications
Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications
The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications is the regulating agency of the telecommunication market in the European Union. It was created by the Telecoms Package which was passed in September 2009....
. BEREC's main purpose is to "promote cooperation between NRAs (national regulatory authorities) and between NRAs and the Commission" and "shall contribute to the development and better functioning of the internal market for electronic communications networks and services, by aiming to ensure a consistent application of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications" "carrying out its tasks independently, impartially and transparently". BEREC is neither a Community agency nor has legal personality and it is replacing the ERG (European Regulators Group). Whilst the Office, also established by the Directive mentioned above, is a Community Body with legal personality within the meaning of Article 185 of the Financial Regulation, and shall provide administrative and professional support services to BEREC.
Related events
- In February 2010, Cesar Alierta, CEO of Spain's telecommunications and Internet service provider TelefonicaTelefónicaTelefónica, S.A. is a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider in Europe and Latin America. Operating globally, it is the third largest provider in the world...
, expressed in a meeting in BilbaoBilbaoBilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
, SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
that his company will charge GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and other search engines for the use of the ISP's network. Mr. Alierta complained that such search engines were benefiting from the platform without contributing to the company's expenses and that such trend will change in the near future. Additionally, he said that Telefonica will seek to push its own content. Mr. Alierta, however, does not give details regarding whether customers will be the ones that will be kept from using such search engines should Google or Microsoft's Bing refuse to pay.
Law in Germany
On 3 April 2009, T-MobileT-Mobile
T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
, the largest German mobile telecommunication company, announced that it is blocking Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
, "even though," according to the international, pro-net-neutrality, OpenNet Coalition, "Skype is both a key application for voice communication on the Internet and is known to consume a small amount of bandwidth. Therefore it is obvious the decision was not based on any real need of traffic management or Quality of Service issue.".
Law in Italy
Since March 2009 in Italy there is a bill called:Proposta di legge dei senatori Vincenzo VITA (PD) e Luigi Vimercati (PD)
"Neutralita' Delle Reti, Free Software E Societa' Dell'informazione"
Senator Vimercati in an interview said that he wants "to do something for the network neutrality" and that he was inspired by Lawrence Lessig, Professor at the Stanford Law School.
Vimercati said that the topic is very hard, but in the article 3 there is a reference to the concept of neutrality regard the contents. It is also a problem of transparency and for the mobile connections: we need the minimum bandwidth to guarantee the service. We need some principle to defend the consumers. It's important that the consumer has been informed if he could not access all the Internet.
The bill refuses all the discrimination: related by the content, the service and the device. The bill is generally about Internet ("a statute for the Internet") and treat different topics like network neutrality, free software, giving an Internet access to everyone.
Law in The Netherlands
In June 2011 the majority of the parliament voted for new net neutrality laws which prohibits the blocking of Internet services, usage of deep packet inspectionDeep packet inspection
Deep Packet Inspection is a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part of a packet as it passes an inspection point, searching for protocol non-compliance, viruses, spam, intrusions or predefined criteria to decide if the packet can...
to track customer behaviour and otherwise filtering or manipulating network traffic. The legislation applies to any telecommunications provider.
Law in Belgium
Net neutrality was discussed in the parliament in June 2011. Three parties (CD&V, N-VA & PS) jointly proposed a text to introduce the concept of net neutrality in the telecom law .Law in France
On April 12, 2011 the Commission for economic affairs of the French parliament approved the report of MP Laure de La Raudière (UMP). The report contains 9 proposals. Proposition n°1 & 2 act on net neutrality.Law in the United States
There is ongoing legal and political wrangling in the U.S. regarding net neutrality. The FCC has asserted its jurisdiction (which is in dispute) over the issue and has laid down guideline rules that it expects the telecommunications industry to follow. On February 11, 2008, Rep. Ed MarkeyEd Markey
Edward John "Ed" Markey is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1976. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes most of Boston's northern and western suburbs, such as Medford and Framingham. Markey is the Dean of both the Massachusetts and New England House delegations...
and Rep. Chip Pickering
Chip Pickering
"Charles Willis Pickering" redirects here. For this former congressman's father, see Charles W. Pickering.Charles Willis "Chip" Pickering, Jr. is a politician in the U.S. state of Mississippi. He represented as a Republican in the United States House of Representatives...
introduced HR5353 "To establish broadband policy and direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a proceeding and public broadband summit to assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues relating to broadband Internet access services, and for other purposes." On August 1, 2008, the FCC formally voted 3-to-2 to uphold a complaint against Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
, the largest cable company in the US, ruling that it had illegally inhibited users of its high-speed Internet service from using file-sharing software. FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin said that the order was meant to set a precedent that Internet providers, and indeed all communications companies, could not prevent customers from using their networks the way they see fit unless there is a good reason. In an interview, Martin said, "We are preserving the open character of the Internet." The legal complaint against Comcast related to BitTorrent, a transfer protocol that is especially apt at distributing large files such as video, music, and software on the Internet. For 2009, Rep. Markey has reintroduced it. Comcast admitted no wrongdoing in its proposed settlement of up to 16 dollars per share in December 2009. On April 6, 2010, the United States Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia in Comcast Corp. v. FCC ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to force Internet service providers to keep their networks open to all forms of content.
On December 21, 2010, the FCC approved new rules banning cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
and telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
service providers from preventing access to competitors or certain web sites such as Netflix
Netflix
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...
. The rules would not keep ISPs from charging more for faster access. Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
in Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
plan to reverse the rules through legislation.
On September 23, 2011 the FCC released its final rules for Preserving a Free and Open Internet. These rules state that providers must have transparency of network management practices, not block lawful content, nor unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic. These rules are
effective November 20, 2011.
Law in the Russian Federation
Since September 2007, the Russian government's Resolution No 575 introduces new regulation rules of telematics services. Network operatorsInternet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
(ISPs) can now legally limit individual actions of the subscriber's network activity, if such actions threaten the normal functioning of the network. ISPs are obliged to exclude the possibility of access to information systems, network addresses, or uniform pointers which a subscriber informs the operator of communication in the form specified in the contract. The subscriber is obliged to take actions to protect the subscriber terminal from the impact of malicious software and to prevent the spread of spam
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
and malicious software
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
to its subscriber terminal. In reality, most Russian ISPs shape the traffic of P2P protocols
Peer-to-peer file sharing
P2P or Peer-to-peer file sharing allows users to download files such as music, movies, and games using a P2P software client that searches for other connected computers. The "peers" are computer systems connected to each other through internet. Thus, the only requirements for a computer to join...
(like BitTorrent) with lower priority (P2P is about of 80% of traffic there). Also, there is popular method, called retracker, for redirecting some of the BitTorrent traffic to the ISP's cache servers and other subscribers inside of a metropolitan area network
Metropolitan area network
A metropolitan area network is a computer network that usually spans a city or a large campus. A MAN usually interconnects a number of local area networks using a high-capacity backbone technology, such as fiber-optical links, and provides up-link services to wide area networks and the...
(MAN). Access to MANs is usually with greater speed (2x–1000x or more, specified in the contract) and better quality than the rest of the Internet.
Law in Chile
On 13 June 2010, the National Congress of ChileNational Congress of Chile
The National Congress is the legislative branch of the government of the Republic of Chile.The National Congress of Chile was founded on July 4, 1811...
, amended its telecommunications law in order to preserve network neutrality, becoming the first country in the world to do so. This came after an intensive campaign on blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s, Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
, and other social networks.
The law, published on 26 August 2010, added three articles to the General Law of Telecommunications, forbidding ISPs from arbitrarily blocking, interfering with, discriminating, hindering or restricting an Internet user's right to use, send, receive or offer any legal content, application, service or any other type of legal activity or use through the Internet. To that effect ISPs must offer Internet access in which content is not arbitrarily treated differently based on its source or ownership.
Law elsewhere in the world
Net neutrality in the common carrierCommon carrier
A common carrier in common-law countries is a person or company that transports goods or people for any person or company and that is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport...
sense has been instantiated into law in many countries, including Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. In Japan, the nation's largest phone company, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
, commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked the 31st in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and the second-largest in the world in terms of revenue....
, operates a service called Flet's Square over their FTTH high speed Internet connections. In South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, VoIP is blocked on high-speed FTTH networks except where the network operator is the service provider.
According to Thomas Lum, a specialist in Asian Affairs: "Since its founding in 1949, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has exerted great effort in manipulating the flow of information and prohibiting the dissemination of viewpoints that criticize the government or stray from the official Communist party view. The introduction of Internet technology in the mid-1990s presented a challenge to government control over news sources, and by extension, over public opinion. While the Internet has developed rapidly, broadened access to news, and facilitated mass communications in China, many forms of expression online, as in other mass media, are still significantly stifled. Empirical studies have found that China has one of the most sophisticated content-filtering Internet regimes in the world. The Chinese government employs increasingly sophisticated methods to limit content online, including a combination of legal regulation, surveillance, and punishment to promote self-censorship, as well as technical controls."
End-to-end principle
The end-to-end principle is one of the central design principles of the InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, as well as in other protocols and distributed systems in general. The principle states that, whenever possible, communications protocol
Communications protocol
A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications...
operations should be defined to occur at the end-points of a communications system, or as close as possible to the resource being controlled. According to the end-to-end principle, protocol features are only justified in the lower layers of a system if they are a performance optimization, hence, TCP retransmission for reliability is still justified, but efforts to improve TCP reliability should stop after peak performance has been reached.
The concept was highlighted in a 1981 conference paper End-to-end arguments in system design by Jerome H. Saltzer
Jerome H. Saltzer
Jerome H. Saltzer is a computer scientist who has made many notable contributions.-Career:He received an Sc. D in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1966...
, David P. Reed
David P. Reed
David P. Reed is an American computer scientist, educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known for a number of significant contributions to computer networking....
, and David D. Clark
David D. Clark
David Dana Clark is an American computer scientist. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1966. In 1968, he received his Master's and Engineer's degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked on the I/O architecture of Multics under Jerry...
. They argued that reliable systems tend to require end-to-end processing to operate correctly, in addition to any processing in the intermediate system. They pointed out that most features in the lowest level of a communications system have costs for all higher-layer clients, even if those clients do not need the features, and are redundant if the clients have to re-implement the features on an end-to-end basis. This leads to the model of a "dumb, minimal network"
Dumb network
A dumb network is marked by using intelligent devices at the periphery that make use of a network that does not interfere with an application’s operation. The dumb network concept is the natural outcome of the end to end principle...
with smart terminals, a completely different model from the previous paradigm of the smart network with dumb terminals.
Data discrimination
Tim WuTim Wu
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School, the former chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate Magazine. He is also a former Bernard L. Schwartz and Future Tense fellow at The New America Foundation...
, though a proponent of network neutrality, claims that the current Internet is not neutral as its implementation of best effort generally favors file transfer
File transfer
File transfer is a generic term for the act of transmitting files over a computer network or the Internet. There are numerous ways and protocols to transfer files over a network. Computers which provide a file transfer service are often called file servers. Depending on the client's perspective the...
and other non-time sensitive traffic over real-time communications. Generally, a network which blocks some nodes
Node (networking)
In communication networks, a node is a connection point, either a redistribution point or a communication endpoint . The definition of a node depends on the network and protocol layer referred to...
or services for the customers of the network would normally be expected to be less useful to the customers than one that did not. Therefore for a network to remain significantly non neutral requires either that the customers not be concerned about the particular non neutralities or the customers not have any meaningful choice of providers, otherwise they would presumably switch to another provider with fewer restrictions.
While the network neutrality debate continues, network providers often enter into peering arrangements among themselves. These agreements often stipulate how certain information flows should be treated. In addition, network providers often implement various policies such as blocking of port 25 to prevent insecure systems from serving as spam relays, or other ports commonly used by decentralized music search applications implementing peer-to-peer networking models. They also present terms of service that often include rules about the use of certain applications as part of their contracts with users.
Most consumer Internet providers implement policies like these. The MIT Mantid Port Blocking Measurement Project is a measurement effort to characterize Internet port blocking and potentially discriminatory practices. However, the effect of peering arrangements among network providers are only local to the peers that enter into the arrangements, and cannot affect traffic flow outside their scope.
Jon Peha from Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
in his paper "The Benefits and Risks of Mandating Network Neutrality, and the Quest for a Balanced Policy" presents a challenge for policy makers to create policies that protect users from harmful traffic discrimination while allowing beneficial discrimination. Peha discusses the technologies that enable traffic discrimination, examples of different types of discrimination, and potential impacts of regulation.
Quality of service
Internet routers forward packets according to the diverse peering and transport agreements that exist between network operators. Many networks using Internet protocols now employ quality of service (QoS), and Network Service Providers frequently enter into Service Level Agreements with each other embracing some sort of QoS.There is no single, uniform method of interconnecting networks using IP
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
, and not all networks that use IP are part of the Internet. IPTV
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...
networks are isolated from the Internet, and are therefore not covered by network neutrality agreements.
The IP datagram
Datagram
A datagram is a basic transfer unit associated with a packet-switched network in which the delivery, arrival time, and order are not guaranteed....
includes a 3-bit wide Precedence field and a larger DiffServ Code Point that are used to request a level of service, consistent with the notion that protocols in a layered architecture offer services through Service Access Point
Service Access Point
A Service Access Point is an identifying label for network endpoints used in Open Systems Interconnection networking.When using the OSI Network Layer , the base for constructing an address for a network element is an NSAP address, similar in concept to an IP address...
s. This field is sometimes ignored, especially if it requests a level of service outside the originating network's contract with the receiving network. It is commonly used in private networks, especially those including WiFi
WIFI
WIFI is a radio station broadcasting a brokered format. Licensed to Florence, New Jersey, USA, the station is currently operated by Florence Broadcasting Partners, LLC.This station was previously owned by Real Life Broadcasting...
networks where priority is enforced. While there are several ways of communicating service levels across Internet connections, such as SIP
Session Initiation Protocol
The Session Initiation Protocol is an IETF-defined signaling protocol widely used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol . The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party or multiparty sessions...
, RSVP
Resource Reservation Protocol
The Resource Reservation Protocol is a Transport Layer protocol designed to reserve resources across a network for an integrated services Internet. RSVP operates over an IPv4 or IPv6 Internet Layer and provides receiver-initiated setup of resource reservations for multicast or unicast data flows...
, IEEE 802.11e
IEEE 802.11e
IEEE 802.11e-2005 or 802.11e is an approved amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard that defines a set of Quality of Service enhancements for wireless LAN applications through modifications to the Media Access Control layer. The standard is considered of critical importance for delay-sensitive...
, and MPLS
Multiprotocol Label Switching
Multiprotocol Label Switching is a mechanism in high-performance telecommunications networks that directs data from one network node to the next based on short path labels rather than long network addresses, avoiding complex lookups in a routing table. The labels identify virtual links between...
, the most common scheme combines SIP and DSCP. Router manufacturers now sell routers that have logic enabling them to route traffic for various Classes of Service at "wire-speed".
With the emergence of multimedia, VoIP, IPTV, and other applications that benefit from low latency, various attempts to address the inability of some private networks to limit latency have arisen, including the proposition of offering tiered service
Tiered service
Tiered service structures allow users to select from a small set of tiers at progressively increasing price points to receive the product or products best suited to their needs. Such systems are frequently seen in the telecommunications field, specifically when it comes to wireless service, digital...
levels that would shape Internet transmissions at the network layer based on application type. These efforts are ongoing, and are starting to yield results as wholesale Internet transport providers begin to amend service agreements to include service levels.
Alok Bhardwaj has argued that net neutrality preservation through legislation is consistent with implementing quality of service protocols. He argues legislation should ban the charging of fees for any quality of service which would both allow networks to implement quality of service as well as remove any incentive to abuse net neutrality ideas. He argues that since implementing quality of service doesn't require any additional costs versus a non-QoS network, there's no reason implementing quality of service should entail any additional fees. However, the core network hardware needed (with large number of queues, etc.) and the cost of designing and maintaining a QoS network are both much higher than for a non-QoS network.
Xipeng Xiao covers the relationship between QoS and Network Neutrality in the book Technical, Commercial and Regulatory Challenges of QoS: An Internet Service Model Perspective.
Traffic shaping
Traffic shapingTraffic shaping
Traffic shaping is the control of computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, and/or increase usable bandwidth for some kinds of packets by delaying other kinds of packets that meet certain criteria...
is the control of computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency
Latency (engineering)
Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured. Latencies may have different meaning in different contexts.-Packet-switched networks:...
, and/or increase usable bandwidth
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
by delaying packets that meet certain criteria. More specifically, traffic shaping is any action on a set of packets (often called a stream or a flow) which imposes additional delay on those packets such that they conform to some predetermined constraint (a contract or traffic profile). Traffic shaping provides a means to control the volume of traffic being sent into a network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
in a specified period (bandwidth throttling
Bandwidth throttling
Bandwidth throttling is a reactive measure employed in communication networks to regulate network traffic and minimize bandwidth congestion. Bandwidth throttling can occur at different locations on the network. On a local area network , a sysadmin may employ bandwidth throttling to help limit...
), or the maximum rate at which the traffic is sent (rate limiting
Rate limiting
In computer networks, rate limiting is used to control the rate of traffic sent or received on a network interface. Traffic that is less than or equal to the specified rate is sent, whereas traffic that exceeds the rate is dropped or delayed...
), or more complex criteria such as GCRA
Generic cell rate algorithm
The Generic Cell Rate Algorithm is an algorithm that is used in Asynchronous Transfer Mode networks to measure the timing of cells on Virtual Channels and or Virtual Paths against bandwidth and jitter limits contained in a traffic contract for the VC or VP to which the cells belong...
.
Over-provisioning
If the core of a network has more bandwidth than is permitted to enter at the edges, then good QoS can be obtained without policing. For example the telephone network employs admission control to limit user demand on the network core by refusing to create a circuit for the requested connection. Over-provisioning is a form of statistical multiplexingStatistical multiplexing
Statistical multiplexing is a type of communication link sharing, very similar to dynamic bandwidth allocation . In statistical multiplexing, a communication channel is divided into an arbitrary number of variable bit-rate digital channels or data streams. The link sharing is adapted to the...
that makes liberal estimates of peak user demand. Over-provisioning is used in private networks such as WebEx and the Internet 2 Abilene Network, an American university network.
David Isenberg believes that continued over-provisioning will always provide more capacity for less expense than QoS and deep packet inspection
Deep packet inspection
Deep Packet Inspection is a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part of a packet as it passes an inspection point, searching for protocol non-compliance, viruses, spam, intrusions or predefined criteria to decide if the packet can...
technologies.
Pricing models
Broadband Internet access has most often been sold to users based on Excess Information Rate or maximum available bandwidth. Some argue that if Internet service providers (ISPs) can provide varying levels of service to websites at various prices, this may be a way to manage the costs of unused capacity by selling surplus bandwidth (or "leverage price discriminationPrice discrimination
Price discrimination or price differentiation exists when sales of identical goods or services are transacted at different prices from the same provider...
to recoup costs of 'consumer surplus). However, purchasers of connectivity on the basis of Committed Information Rate
Committed Information Rate
Committed information rate or CIR in a Frame relay network is the average bandwidth for a virtual circuit guaranteed by an ISP to work under normal conditions. At any given time, the bandwidth should not fall below this committed figure...
or guaranteed bandwidth capacity must expect the capacity they purchase in order to meet their communications requirements.
Various studies have sought to provide network providers the necessary formulas for adequately pricing such a tiered service
Tiered service
Tiered service structures allow users to select from a small set of tiers at progressively increasing price points to receive the product or products best suited to their needs. Such systems are frequently seen in the telecommunications field, specifically when it comes to wireless service, digital...
for their customer base. But while network neutrality is primarily focused on protocol based provisioning, most of the pricing models are based on bandwidth restrictions.
See also
- ClearwireClearwireClearwire Corporation is a wireless internet service provider serving markets in the United States, Belgium, and Spain...
- Common carrierCommon carrierA common carrier in common-law countries is a person or company that transports goods or people for any person or company and that is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport...
- Competition LawCompetition lawCompetition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, is law that promotes or maintains market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies....
- Concentration of media ownershipConcentration of media ownershipConcentration of media ownership refers to a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media...
- Deep packet inspectionDeep packet inspectionDeep Packet Inspection is a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part of a packet as it passes an inspection point, searching for protocol non-compliance, viruses, spam, intrusions or predefined criteria to decide if the packet can...
- Digital rightsDigital rightsThe term digital rights describes the permissions of individuals legitimately to perform actions involving the use of a computer, any electronic device, or a communications network...
- Economic RentEconomic rentEconomic rent is typically defined by economists as payment for goods and services beyond the amount needed to bring the required factors of production into a production process and sustain supply. A recipient of economic rent is a rentier....
- Fairness DoctrineFairness DoctrineThe Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission , introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, honest, equitable...
- HughesNet
- National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet ServicesNational Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet ServicesNational Cable & Telecommunications Association et al. v. Brand X Internet Services et al., 545 U.S. 967 , is a case in which the United States Supreme Court declared 6-3 that a cable Internet provider is an "information service," and not a "telecommunications service" and as such competing...
- Industrial information economyIndustrial information economyIndustrial information economy is a term coined by Harvard University Professor Yochai Benkler. Benkler discusses this the term is in-depth in his 2006 book The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom....
- Information freedom
- Network neutrality in CanadaNetwork neutrality in CanadaNetwork neutrality in Canada is a hotly debated issue. In Canada, Internet service providers generally provide Internet service in a neutral manner, some notable exceptions being Bell Canada's, Eastlink's, and Rogers Hi-Speed Internet's throttling of certain protocols and Telus' censorship of a...
- Network neutrality in the United StatesNetwork neutrality in the United StatesNetwork neutrality in the United States is a hotly debated issue subject to regulatory and judicial contention among network users and access providers...
- Quality of ServiceQuality of serviceThe quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...
(QoS) - Search neutralitySearch neutralitySearch neutrality is a principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance...
- Series of tubesSeries of tubes"Series of tubes" is a phrase coined originally as an analogy by then-United States Senator Ted Stevens to describe the Internet in the context of opposing network neutrality. On June 28, 2006, he used this metaphor to criticize a proposed amendment to a committee bill...
- Switzerland (software)Switzerland (software)Switzerland is an open source network-monitoring utility developed and released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Its goal is to monitor network traffic between two systems running Switzerland to see if the user's internet service provider is violating network neutrality, like Comcast does...
- Telecoms PackageTelecoms PackageThe Telecoms Reform Package is a law of the European Union, aimed at updating the EU Telecoms Rules of 2002 and unifying Europe's tele-communications market for all 27 EU member states...
- Traffic congestionTraffic congestionTraffic congestion is a condition on road networks that occurs as use increases, and is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. The most common example is the physical use of roads by vehicles. When traffic demand is great enough that the interaction...
External links
- Save the Internet
- Model Net Neutrality Legal Ordinance for Communities
- Internet Policy: Who's Pulling the Strings against network neutrality in the United StatesNetwork neutrality in the United StatesNetwork neutrality in the United States is a hotly debated issue subject to regulatory and judicial contention among network users and access providers...
- FCC Chair Proposes Net Neutrality Rules to Protect a Free and Open Internet - video report by Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
- NNSquad The Network Neutrality Squad, an open-membership, open-source effort, enlisting the Internet's users to help keep the Internet's operations fair and unhindered from unreasonable restrictions
- Professor Dr. Mario Martini Wie viel Gleichheit braucht das Internet? Netzneutralität zwischen kommunikativer Chancengleichheit und Infrastruktureffizienz, Antrittsvorlesung an der DHV Speyer vom 8.6.2011
- NNSquad Italia Italian team following NNSquad policy and goals
- Freedom of Communication
- IPtegraty
- Neutrality.ca
- Network Neutrality Information Guide From Middletown Thrall Library. Topics include: Definitions and Issues, Government Information, Network Neutrality News, Neutrality Advocates and Opponents, and library catalog subject headings for further research.
- La Quadrature du Net Complex Dossier (22 pages) and Links about Net Neutrality
- Video: Appeals Court Rules FCC Lacks Authority to Enforce Net Neutrality
- Verizon & Google Enter Reported Deal for Tiered Internet Use, Is Net Neutrality in Jeopardy? video report by Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
- Article: How Does Net Neutrality Affect You?
- nthWORD Magazine, Net Neutrality: Preserving Democracy, Issue #7, August 2010
- SaveOurNet.ca
- U.S. regulator adopts Internet traffic rules The Globe and Mail
- What is Net Neutrality? Simple explanation