Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality Ian M. Kenway Informatics Research Group Seminar

1. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality Ian M. Kenway Informatics Research Group Seminar 21 March 2011

2. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality Schema • Background • The Nub of It All • Precedents • The First Warning (The End to End-to-End) • Real and Potential Problems • Advocates’ Arguments • Critics’ Arguments • Divergence: Two Examples • Concluding Remarks Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

3. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

4. Net Neutrality: Background The rise in internet traffic is putting an ever growing burden on the infrastructure of the net. Relaxing net neutrality could allow communications firms to replace it with a tiered system that would prioritise certain types of traffic for those able to pay. However, this could mean consumers would either have to pay for premium services if they want full bandwidth access or accept a degraded service. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

5. Network Neutrality: The Nub of It All At the heart of the debate is the central philosophical question: Is the web a simple utility? If not, then: • Should consumers pay internet service providers to get a service which is basically the same for all users, or should ISPs be allowed to offer commercial entities privileged access? • How far should ISPs should be allowed to actively manage the bandwidth available to certain websites based on the type of content they provide? Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

6. Network Neutrality: Precedents • The Telegraph • Electric Grid Such networks are “end-to-end neutral”. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

7. The End of End-to-End: Preserving the Architecture of the Internet in the Broadband Era Mark A. Lemley Stanford Law SchoolLawrence Lessig Stanford Law School Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

8. Abstract 1/2 “In this paper, we address the question of ‘open access’ and its relationship to the architecture of the Internet. It is our view that the extraordinary growth and innovation of the Internet depends crucially upon this architecture. Changes in this architecture should be viewed with skepticism, as they may in turn threaten this innovation and growth.” Lemley & Lessig Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

9. Abstract 2/2 “Many cable companies have recently adopted or threatened a policy of bundling high-speed cable modem service with ISP service. This bundling threatens to compromise an important architectural principle of the Internet: the Internet's "End-to-End" design. In our view, this change could have profound implications for the future of growth and innovation on the net…” Lemley & Lessig Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

10. Net Neutrality: Potential Problems • Blocking • Terminal Monopoly Pricing • “Playing Favourites” or MFN (Most Favoured Network?) violations • Transparency Failures Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

11. Blocking Blocking is the worst deviation from neutrality. Some economists might think it justified, but the basic problem is a distortion of competition between blocked and unblocked companies. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

12. Termination Monopoly Pricing Since broadband service providers have a "termination" monopoly over the end user, they can use that to charge termination fees to those who wish to get access to the user. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

13. “Playing Favourites” or MFN (Most Favoured Network?) violations Where carriers offer exclusive, preferential treatment to one application provider over others. This is also distorting, though obviously less so than blocking. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

14. Transparency Failures Where carriers fail to tell customers and application developers what, as far as they know, service they offer – i.e., estimated bandwidth, latency, etc. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

15. Battle Line: The Advocates of Net Neutrality Who are They? A loose coalition of consumer advocacy groups, content providers, and some of the “founding fathers” of the internet such as Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

16. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

17. http://www.inquisitr.com/94393/2011-net-neutrality-a-couple-of-misconceptions-and-realities/ ,retrieved 130311 Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

18. Battle Line: The Advocates of Net Neutrality What are their arguments? • Major concern is about the plurality of the internet • Everyone has a right to free and open access • In some countries, such a right has become enshrined by law as a human right. • Any attempt to restrict this right would be an attack on the very principle the internet was founded upon. • Concern that any erosion of net neutrality would pave the way for a tiered service • Telecommunication companies would become "gate-keepers" of the internet forcing users to pay for a premium service as well as squeezing out competition Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

19. Comment 1 “The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. “The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation.” Vint Cerf, 2005 Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

20. Comment 2 “There are a lot of companies who would love to be able to limit what web pages you can see, and governments would love to be able to slow down information going down to particular sites”. “The moment you let net neutrality go, you lose the web as it is. You lose something essential – the fact that any innovator can dream up an idea and set up a website at some random place and let it just take off from word of mouth. You can end up helping humanity and make a profit out of it once you’ve got a domain name.” Tim Berners-Lee, 2010 Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

21. Battle Line: The Critics of Net Neutrality Who are They? Many internet service providers (ISPs), telecommunications firms and mobile network operators, along with a number of US think tanks such as the Cato, Goldwater, and Competitive Enterprise institutes. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

22. Battle Line: The Critics of Net Neutrality What are their Arguments? • The exponential growth in web usage, particularly bandwidth intensive video applications, along with the rise in infrastructure costs, means that their business has become more costly. • The growth of peer-to-peer file sharing - both legal and illegal - has also placed a significant burden on networks. • Being able to control the data rates for different types of content, choking the pipeline for individual users or at particular times, will allow allocation of bandwidth to more urgent applications. • Legislation to enforce the concept of net neutrality would “would freeze innovation in the core of the internet”. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

23. Battle Line: The Critics of Net Neutrality Practical Concerns • Property rights • Innovation and investment • Counterweight to server-side non-neutrality • Bandwidth availability • Opposition to Legislation Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

24. Battle Line: The Critics of Net Neutrality Net Neutrality and Nostalgia “The real problem with Net neutrality advocacy is that it tries to preserve the Internet as it looked in the mid-1990s–the wild open frontier that captivated so many of us, that inspired the first generation of e-commerce and informational Web sites, and that launched the great Internet bubble and the stock market’s “irrational exuberance” that burst in April 2000, the day a federal judge first ruled that Microsoft’s browser dominance violated federal antitrust law.” Larry Downes, Dec. 2010 Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

25. Example USA: The Google-Verizon Pact • ISPs cannot discriminate against any service in an anti-competitive way. • ISPs cannot block consumers from any legal service. • ISPs have the right to manage and prioritise web traffic. • ISPs must be transparent about how they are managing services. • The FCC would enforce on a case-by-case basis, and have its regulatory powers over broadband services restored. • A fixed part of all phone fees would be dedicated to investment in broadband networks. • ISPs can introduce new and different internet services, such as 3D. • Wireless services are exempt from all these proposals, apart from the condition of transparency. Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

26. Example UK: BT’s Content Connect Content Connect allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that use BT's network to charge content firms for high-speed delivery of video. “BT supports the concept of net neutrality, but believes that service providers should also be free to strike commercial deals should content owners want a higher quality or assured service delivery.” Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality

27. Concluding Remarks • The Ideal of Utility and Social Cohesion • Infrastructure Renewal and Commercial Pressures • Regulatory Cultures – Cultural Variations and Effectiveness • Maintaining the Freedom of the Internet Bytes and Bias: Understanding Net Neutrality