Net
Neutrality
By
Mavis Osei

Fight for Net Neutrality
 What is “net neutrality”?
 Why should I care ?

What is Net Neutrality?
“Net neutrality simply means that service providers and government
treat all data online equally, by charging each user the same fee for the
use of content , sites, and applications and move at the same speed over
the network. The owners of the Internet’s wires cannot discriminate.
This is the simple but brilliant “end-to-end” design of the Internet that
has made it such a powerful force for economic and social good.”
Ask a Ninja’s “What is Net Neutrality?” video

Development of technology and services

Top Global Web Sites (2016)
Google
Facebook
YouTube
Yahoo!
Wikipedia
BlogSpot
Twitter
Amazon
Windows Live
MSN
LinkedIn

Some top ISPs in the USA (2016)
 Comcast
 Time Warner
 AT&T
 Cox
 Optimum
 Charter
 Verizon
Source: http://isp-
review.toptenreviews.com/
Cable operators
Telephone companies

Fight for the Net Neutrality
 Pros of net neutrality
 No Restrictions
 No throttling
 No Censorship
 Lower cost of internet
 Promotes innovation, drives
entrepreneurship, stimulates ISP
competition.
 Cons of net neutrality
 Higher expenditure of ISP
 Ease of access to certain sites
 No competition

ISP ARGUMENTS
 Infrastructure needs development
 Need funding for innovation
 Freedom of business

Consumer exploitation
 Force to use certain services
 Block all peer to peer technologies
 Exclusive deals with content providers
 Monitor all online activities.

Associated Legal & Corporate Issues
 While various pieces of legislation have been proposed,
nothing has received enough support to be made law.
 Telecom companies like AT&T and Time Warner have tried
various pricing strategies based on bandwidth consumption
however, none have met with success, either ending in public
outcry, or a ruling by the FCC.

Differing Perspectives
 Some companies which own the networks want to
inhibit P2P activity, claiming it slows their whole
network and is primarily used for illegal purposes.
 The most extreme proposals from such companies
suggest varying payment plans which provide limited
to complete access of the internet.

Differing Perspectives
Could any control at all lead to censorship?

Supporters of the Concept
 Organizations that support network neutrality include:
 Moveon.org
 Consumer Federation of America
 AARP
 American Electronics Association
 Gun Owners of America
 Public Knowledge
 the Media Access Project
 the Christian Coalition
 TechNet
 Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the World Wide Web) has also spoken out in favor
of net neutrality.
 ACLU

Barack Obama Supports Net Neutrality
 Net neutrality becomes part of the official Democratic
party platform in 2008
 Obama appointed Julius Genachowski as head of the FCC
in 2009
 American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 provides
$7.2 billion for broadband infrastructure and mandates
that the FCC prepare a National Broadband Plan

Genachowski Adds Two Items to
FCC Policy Statement of 2005
 “broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet
content or applications”
 • “providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their
network management processes.”
Video of Genachowski

Opposition to the Concept
 The free-market advocacy organizations Freedom Works Foundation, National Black
Chamber of Commerce, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Progress and
Freedom Foundation, high-tech trade groups (such as the National Association of
Manufacturers), and others oppose network neutrality.

KEEP SAFE ON THE INTERNET

The Opponents’ Perspective on Net Neutrality
 NCTA anti-NN ad
 Fox News coverage
 Glenn Beck
David Farber

Proponents’ Videos
 Tim Wu
 Save the Internet
 Vint Cerf

Arguments of Proponents
 End-to-end architecture of the Internet must be preserved
 This means preventing discrimination by conduit companies against content and
services that they do not control
 Conduit companies will reserve lots of bandwidth for services like cable
 Net neutrality guarantees constitute unnecessary regulation
 The threat of discrimination is overblown
 Cable and telephone companies need new revenues to build out the network
 Need to have “intelligent networks” to obtain “quality of service”
 Competition is sufficient to prevent abuses.

More Arguments of Proponents
 There is insufficient competition between cable operators and Telco's
to guarantee non-discrimination
 There is a potential for violations of freedom of speech in the
absence of net neutrality guarantees
Gigi Sohn Larry
Lessig
Tim
Berners-Lee

Social Issues with Network Neutrality
 End to end principle: the principle that communications protocol operations should be
defined to occur at the end-points of a communication system.
 Data discrimination: a claim that the current internet is not neutral as its implementation of
best effort generally favors file transfer and other non-time sensitive traffic over real-time
communications.

Social Issues with Network Neutrality (cont.)
3. Quality of service: There is no single, uniform method of interconnecting network using IP,
and not all networks that use IP are part of the internet. Thus IPTV networks such as
AT&T’s U-Verse service are isolated from the Internet, and are therefore not covered by
network neutrality agreements.
4. Over provisioning.
5. Peer-to-peer file sharing.
6. Pricing models.

The National Broadband Plan
 FCC announced intention to guarantee net neutrality in spite of
Comcast ruling in 2009
 Genachowski spoke of a “third way” between “heavy-handed
prescriptive regulation” and the “light-touch approach” of the past
 FCC would attempt to reclassify transmission component of broadband
as a “telecommunication service”

Comcast Throttling of Bit-
Torrent Traffic in 2007
 Robb Topolski discovers delays in delivery of Bit-Torrent files for his barber
shop quartet
 Topolski publishes this on Torrent Freak blog
 EFF and AP verify independently
 Comcast eventually admits that it was “traffic shaping” using an application
called Sand vine that prevents “seeding”
 The FCC told Comcast to stop doing this
 Comcast complied but appealed to courts

The Comcast Ruling of 2010
 US Circuit Court of Appeals of DC ruled on April 6, 2010, that the FCC
did not have the authority to regulate ISPs under the Telecom Act of
1996 (therefore Comcast was not bound to obey FCC rules regarding
traffic management)
 Ruling was based on FCC decision to reclassify cable modems and DSL as
information services

New FCC Chair
 New Chair, Ted Wheeler as of October 2013
 Telecom lobbyist background
 Hired Gigi Sohn for policy advice

SAVE THE INTERNET
 Net neutrality was framed by Republicans as a regulatory issue.
Democratic framing was confusing.
 Republicans and their supporters carried the day until June 2006 when the
political tide began turn against them.
 The 2006 and 2008 election results meant that Democrats and their allies
would attempt to pass legislation guaranteeing net neutrality.
 However, the Comcast ruling and strong Republican opposition to net
neutrality made legislative action very unlikely. It is still not clear whether
the FCC strategy to reclassify broadband transmission will work.