Net Neutrality. If you don’t know what it is, you soon will.
Written by Paul Newnes
Possibly the most famous quotation from the Net Neutrality debate thus far is from US Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska):
‘(The internet) … it’s a series of tubes.”
You sort of know what he means and that the correct colloquial term for an internet connection is ‘pipe’ but the point he was trying to make actually was quite important. The internet has choke points that occur the closer you get to the user. Senator Stevens believes that consumer level ISPs should be able to charge content providers such as Yahoo!, Google et al. whatever they want notionally dependent on the priority that the traffic would take over the network. So, streaming video would be most expensive, buffered download video next, Voice over IP (VoIP), then coming in last compressed images and text (HTML).
On one level this might sound perfectly reasonable – after all, if YouTube’s content places more of a load on local internet connections than the New York Times, why shouldn’t the former pay more? There are two main reasons this is an absolutely horrendous idea:
1. The consumer will end up paying more. Inevitably if content providers are charged on a heterogenous basis for network access then your ISP will replicate the billing structure to you. Providers of pseudo-monopoly infrastructure, such as the phone or cable company adore complexity in billing. Look at your home phone or cellphone bill and the range of plans and billing structures for what is a utility service. Feel like you are getting screwed? That’s because you are and the incumbent phone companies and cable firms will look to do the same for internet access.
2. The local infrastucture duopoly of the phone and cable companies are content providers themselves. We are already hearing about the possibility of metered billing for internet access apparently to protect everyone from certain heavy-downloaders ‘abusing’ the flat price structure. As the English say – bollocks to that. The phone companies are installing fiber infrastructure and offering video service and the cable firms are upgrading their networks to offer better and more video services. The last thing they want are pesky video download services like Apple TV or Amazon Unbox to run on their networks without being able to charge a premium and price them out of the market.
So unless you think you should pay more for your internet access and only buy video services from one of two companies, then watch out for the political candidates in the election speaking about this. Yahoo! has some coverage here .
To follow – more on this topic and the impact on digital marketing.
