Net neutrality explained
On Feb. 26th in the midst of a controversial debate, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a new set of rules concerning the future of Internet access and usage.
The FCC voted to adopt a new 400-page document commonly referred to as “net neutrality.” It stated the commission’s case that internet access would be considered a public utility. This registers Internet service providers as “common carriers” under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. It also disables the ability of large Internet companies to selectively regulate bandwidth speed of content creators on the Internet.
Many struggle to understand the commotion created with the vote by the FCC.
Net neutrality is the term for the concept that essentially all legal data across the Internet, no matter where it comes from, is treated equally and fairly by those who provide the resources to send it.
“You can think of net neutrality as a completely agnostic distribution of content,” said Jesse Victors, a Utah State University graduate student with an undergraduate degree in computer science. “It’s a lot like the use of water. Dealing with a public utility, the water company can’t concern itself with how you use it. They can only really care about how much you’re using.”
For the last 20 years that the Internet has been in existence, this concept was applied and accepted with little to no regulation from government. Within the last few years the development of faster Internet servers require a larger amount of bandwidth.
The principle of net neutrality came under scrutiny when Comcast, one of the largest Internet service providers in the nation, realized that the cost of allowing companies full speed was too much to handle.
“Netflix consumes almost 25 percent of all of North America’s bandwidth, and Comcast saw that they couldn’t provide their promised speeds to their customers if this continued and argued that Netflix should pay more to reflect costs.” Victors said. “Netflix responded by saying it wasn’t their responsibility to which Comcast decided to slow down speed coming from the website until Netflix decided to pay more for top speeds.”
This created the possibility for Comcast and other internet providers to create a “fast lane” of the internet where companies and consumers pay more. Comcast maintains that it supports the FCC decision to uphold the principle of neutrality.
“While some have been led to believe something else, we support net neutrality,” said David L. Cohen, executive vice president and chief diversity officer in a press release. “And we have been consistent in expressing our strong support for an open Internet – in statements, speeches, blog posts, filings, and advertising.”
Netflix was in full support of the decision.
“The net neutrality debate is about who picks winners and losers online: Internet service providers or consumers. Today, the FCC settled it: Consumers win,” said Anne Marie Squeo, spokeswoman for the company in a press release from Netflix.
Since a large majority of USU students have and use the Internet, Victors stands with many who believe that access to the Internet could now be classified as a human right.
“The Internet is one of mankind’s greatest inventions of all time,” he said. “I believe that it is a fundamental right. We have enabled communication between literally billions of people, and I believe that it’s a right that we all should have access too because it enables us to do so much”.
Net neutrality received support, despite some thinking that classifying Internet as public utility, rather than a resource provided by private enterprise, gives the federal government power to regulate the Internet and take the incentive to innovate away.
“This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech,” said FCC chairman Tom Wheeler after the ruling. “They both stand for the same concept.”
Victors said he doesn’t completely agree.
“I believe it’s difficult to decide because it’s a hybrid of the two,” he said “I would lean towards saying that it is a public utility, but it’s not a black and white case.”
— clay.bmarsh@gmail.com