From indignant teenagers clamouring for ‘freedom of expression’ (read
half-hourly Facebook updates) to the neighbourhood auntie worried about her
calls to her son abroad turning dearer, almost everyone I know has taken the
issue of Net neutrality to heart. In fact, I won’t be surprised if my 4-year old
nephew starts asking whether his daily dose of Peppa Pig would turn a victim of this raging battle.
Much has been said (not to mention argued, screamed, bellowed) on an assortment of news media, but the lack of discernment on the
part of many jumping onto the NN debate is alarming.
Net Neutrality (NN) aims to treat the
internet as a simple carrier tube with no intelligence, no ability to
discriminate amongst the content that it carries, and no means to control
access points, speed or pricing. Sounds simple. At first. But do we understand what a completely neutral Net entails?
The NN debate has been given an irresistibly dramatic spin by the media – it’s been projected as a struggle for freedom of information and expression. However captivating the imagery of a citizen challenging corporate tyranny may be, the issue at hand isn’t so black-and-white. There are several interlinked issues, and we may be in danger of failing to give these due consideration in our hurry to sign mass petitions. Here are some of them:
§
Inherent
traffic management: The
current form of the internet isn’t particularly neutral. Some form of traffic
management is essential to give you the quality of service that you take for
granted- like prioritising your IPTV streams over e-mail delivery. Real time
data is essentially different from non-time sensitive data, and this
discrimination is key to intelligent service delivery.
§
Externalities: The economists’ favourite!
If your usage generates negative externalities for other users, should telecom
service providers (TSPs) be allowed to make you internalise the cost? Fair use
policies and bandwidth cap that reduce speeds for a particular user for
cornering prodigious amounts of bandwidth/breaching a set data limit may be
desirable to help maintain fair levels of service for all users. Indeed, why
should my weekend binge-watching of Game of Thrones degrade
the network for the student browsing Wikipedia pages?
§
Need
for speed: A
significant portion of the debate is focussed on creation of fast and slow
lanes. Quite obviously, a telecom service provider should by no means be
allowed to apportion the internet into fast and slow lanes based on
preferential treatment of certain content providers. However, there are some
applications where a fast lane is absolutely critical- think telemedicine. Is
it fair to axe this for NN?
§
Widening
the Net: We
are a country with less than 30% internet penetration, and the poorer sections
of society are yet to reap the benefits of being able to access to the
internet. I find it difficult to comprehend the opposition to data
packages designed to make the internet affordable to the economically weaker
strata. To a seasoned Internet user, to whom a ‘lite’ internet package smacks
of discrimination: feel free to subscribe to another package/TSP if you find
this restraining- it’s an open, free market. To a first-time internet user,
this is freedom unbound! Would you grudge him/her that?
§
Towards
a faster, better Internet:
As our dependence on the Internet increases, our expectations increase
too -exponentially. If we need a faster, better and reliable Internet, it means
that the service providers need to make significant investment in network
infrastructure. Ever spared a thought to who should bear these costs? I notice
that there is an aversion to encouraging content providers (apps/websites) to
pay to host their content- as owners of intellectual property, they seem
to be expected to have it their way on the information highway. Are providers
of service any less worthy? Is it wrong to ask Content and Application
Providers (CAPs) (who, incidentally, are recipients of PE funding) to play a
part? As long as there is no deliberate blocking of services of newbies to
favour deep-pocketed incumbents, innovative content-providers should find
themselves well-patronized. If TSPs are able to price services better (not just
to the consumer but also the content provider), won’t they be better
incentivised/paid to make performance-enhancing capital investments?
The unsavoury results of turning
away from Net neutrality have been given plenty of airtime. Many of the
concerns are bona fide, and we truly ignore them at our own peril.
A neutral net is easier to
regulate, is low on rules (save one- “keep it neutral”!), and hence may well
turn out to be the path of least resistance from the implementer’s perspective.
A non-neutral net, on the other hand, will necessitate a host of rules. To keep
TSPs from providing preferential treatment to CAPs to the detriment of users.
Anti-competition concerns. To detect and penalise deliberate degrading of lower-tier service with an intent to force the subscriber to switch to a premium plan.
Prevent abuse of fast and slow lanes by TSPs in a bid to favor CAPs who pay a premium.
Stop unwarranted blocking of sites. And so on.
Many of the concerns are likely
to be taken care of by natural competition. (Suspect your access to an e-commerce site is being throttled by your TSP in favour of the site’s
competitor? Switch to another provider!) In a free market, with rational
players, and a regulator with teeth, the doomsday scenario projected by some is
unlikely to materialise.
And while we rant about
deprivation of neutrality of access, don’t forget that there are other
gatekeepers of the Internet- what about device makers who don’t support certain
formats (Flash)? Or search providers who plan to rank mobile sites higher in search
results, irrespective of your preference. There’s data discrimination
everywhere; we need to choose our battles well and not let slapdash reports drive our thinking on this vital debate.
It needs a regulator with
foresight to identify possible sources of abuse in advance, detect
discriminatory behaviour on an ongoing basis, and ensure fair competition. And as users of the Internet, we need to understand all aspects of NN so that the level of debate is raised to address all underlying concerns - rather than swaying to popular narratives which espouse a rather superficial "all or nothing" approach.
There is certainly a
substantially large grey area – but then again, providing and managing services
through a behemoth such as the Internet is not expected to be a simple
task. Sadly, specious analogies and dramatized listicles that make stories newsworthy rarely display an appreciation of the finer details.
Net Neutrality (in its current, misunderstood form) may come to pass.
But after the celebrations die down…we may find ourselves in a very neutral world
indeed- where everyone is accessing a free, unfettered, uniformly slow net with
non-discriminatorily poor quality of service.
