FCC's
Net Neutrality rules require ISPs to not discriminate Internet access based on
content or applications. A media company cannot get preferential
access to users, and an Internet user cannot pay more
to get faster access to a specific publisher.
The rationale is that the carriers, given that they control the access pipes, should not get to play favorites amongst content publishers - or give preferential treatment to their own content portals.
However, access capacity is limited - and this limitation is clearly evident with wireless services. Phone calls over AT&T wireless in San Francisco frequently get dropped because of heavy iPhone usage of data-intensive apps. By treating all content alike, the ISPs do not have a way to manage heavy bandwidth applications, that hog up the access network at the expense of other kinds of content - and as a result, all content and applications suffer.
Here is a better alternative, that should encourage broadband adoption, investment, and keep users and media companies happy, is as follows: Allow ISPs to manage their network differently for different apps/content, but in exchange, require the ISPs to offer a basic tier of service for all users, in a neutral, free-for-all manner at a subsidized cost, and to offer the higher-tier access fairly across all content and application types.
Specifically, the FCC could allow ISPs to differentiate between various content/apps, as long as those ISPs (i) are impartial across various content owners, including their own content portals, in tapping into such higher-tier services, (ii) offer a basic tier of "neutral" bandwidth, that would not differentiate between different content/application types. This basic tier could comprise, say, the first 1.5 MBPS or 25% of edge capacity at a residential location for that ISP, whichever is higher, and (iii) subsidize the basic tier, enabling more people to get on to the broadband highway.
I
think that this may satisfy the needs of the ISPs (increased revenue opportunity.. and hopefully, incentives to invest in access capacity), the users who today can't afford broadband (lowered prices), the users who are willing to pay more so as to watch certain video sites in better quality, and the media companies (QoS access, better ability to compete with non-IP video delivery).
In conclusion, I believe that differentiated services, if structured thoughtfully, could enable fairer access to broadband. Net Neutrality, in the way it has currently been proposed by the FCC, by dumbing down all apps and data-types to the lowest-common-denominator is not necessarily the best way to realize such fairness.
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