The Net debate

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.