While it’s quite possible that you are so involved in professional pursuits that you are oblivious to the latest political debate, one of significant importance involving the Internet may be of interest to you. By the time you read this, some preliminary decisions or regulations may be in the works. However, like the efforts to get approval to build a Wal-Mart down the street from me for the last two years, the telcos are persistent buggers. I suspect they will continue to fight until they run out of lobbyists or lawyers.

Specifically, I’m talking about net neutrality. Network neutrality is the term used to describe the debate over price discrimination on the Internet based on content. In truth, the topic arose because of forecasts of a substantial increase in bandwidth consumption as multimedia uses of the Internet expand. The ISPs want a bigger piece of the pie by having the content providers who create all this bandwidth-intensive multimedia traffic to pay them a premium for the added “pipe” capacity it will take. Advocates of this “non-neutrality” want to be able to examine data packets to and from their customers to determine which kind of applications/services they are using (such as VoIP or IP TV) and then route those packets through faster, less congested routes if the content provider had paid for “preferred” services by them or their business partners, or put it on a slow boat (more congested route) for non-customers (or conceivably even block it, I suppose). In effect, this would permit an ISP to favor certain packets over others based on the packet’s IP address, domain name, or other identifying features.

Neutrality advocates want ISPs to accept, transport, and hand off data packets on a more or less first-come, first-serve basis. Under this principle, the Internet would remain basically a dumb network passing packets. It would be insensitive to the specific applications except, as it is now, those regarding issues of latency that go toward the overall quality of service. They claim that the service impact on the end user who has purchased broadband access from a carrier, only to experience differing response times in interacting with various content providers (some of whom paid the carrier a “premium” and some who did not), is unacceptable. They argue for banning such financial arrangements, even if those payments might offset the total network operating costs ultimately charged to consumers. The claim that a company like Google is getting a free lunch because it uses so much bandwidth built on the economy of scale of a billion users is a two-sided argument. Content providers like Google already pay fees to their ISPs based how much data bandwidth they are sending. And, all of us users already pay fees to the ISPs to receive this web content.  The argument can be made that instead of the content providers, perhaps it is the ISPs who are looking for the free lunch by lobbying Congress to change the rules so that they can change the law to charge whatever the market will bear under the guise of system “investments.”

In my opinion, there are distinct advantages to not messing with a good thing. In the arguments about this subject, you hear lots of technical people describing the Internet as being very dumb. While this isn’t exactly true, to the content providers at the ends of all the wires, it appears simple enough to be aptly described as such. In truth, as presently configured, the real intelligence of the Internet is located at the ends of all these wires. What makes the Internet such a valuable resource are the people, applications, and services connected to it.

The true value of the “network” is its ability to efficiently move bits from point A to point B using what up until now can be optimally described as “best effort” in how it actually gets routed around the place. If best effort is discarded in favor of preferential routing based on profit incentive and special handling deals, I suspect we’re all going to suffer. I can’t see how collecting premiums from “preferred” customers doesn’t end up distorting the market for Internet applications in favor of larger and better-funded content providers. 

Unfortunately, sober policy formulation is impeded by emotional attachments to idealized notions of network architecture. The Internet may truly need enhancements to accommodate future real-time and multimedia applications, and it won’t happen if ISPs feel constricted by the onerous regulations proposed in the name of network neutrality. At the same time, I feel increasingly sensitive about being nickel and dimed to death by every new or revised communication feature, cell phone enhancement, and entertainment download from megacorporations with single-minded objectives. Too bad the alternatives aren’t any better. I have very little confidence that government makes the right decision on anything these days and whatever started as a call for net neutrality could too easily end up as a case of overly zealous regulation. The end result will be like most governmental decisions. You’re screwed either way.