The One Minute Case Against “Net Neutrality”
What is “net neutrality?”
To borrow Senator Ted Stevens’s infamous analogy of the Internet to a series of tubes, imagine a network of pipes connected by switching stations. The width of a pipe (bandwidth) determines the volume of messages (packets) than can be sent through it. Packets arriving at a switching station wait in a queue until they can be forwarded to their destination. The pipe’s diameter and the volume of traffic determines the total time (latency) that messages take to reach their destination.
Advocates of “net neutrality” argue against the right of the owners of the pipes (Internet Service Providers) to discriminate between different messages or to charge recipients of messages. So for example, an ISP would not be able to favor telephone calls sent over the net over movie downloads, or charge Google extra for the traffic sent their way, or to block a business if it competes with their own services, or to block malicious or illegal websites. Implementation of such regulations would require government surveillance of Internet traffic and FCC approval of new technologies and services which might violate “neutrality.”
Regulation stifles innovation
The limitations of the original Internet protocols became apparent as it transitioned from a monopoly network designed for government use to a competitive and decentralized marketplace. One limitation is the lack of ability to prioritize certain kinds of traffic. Different kinds of communications have different bandwidth requirements. Watching movies over the web is bandwidth-intensive, but not time-critical. Teleconferences are both bandwidth intensive and time critical. Some applications like remote surgery and other time-critical services are simply impossible over the public Internet with current technology.
Advances in technology are beginning to allow traffic to be analyzed in the process of transmission, so certain traffic, such as real-time video can be prioritized, while other traffic such as file sharing or spam can be given a lower priority or dropped. Along with dramatic increases in speed and performance, technological innovation is making entirely new kinds of services possible.
Net neutrality advocates want the government to regulate how ISP’s may and may not route traffic. Pressure groups such as consumer activist groups, major websites, small ISPs, and Internet backbone providers are fighting for controls that favor them. Once the precedent of regulation is established, competition will shift to passing the most favorable legislation rather than providing the best technology and service.
Regulations breed more regulations
While communications technology has experienced exponential growth, heavily regulated and monopolized consumer phone and cable providers have been slower to improve services. Consumers fed up with expensive cable and DSL services are demanding more government controls over the pricing and behavior of their ISP’s. They argue that regulations are necessary because telecommunications companies receive monopoly privileges and other benefits from the government. But the lesson they should learn is the opposite – regulations create the need for more regulations. The solution is to abolish coercive monopolies for cable and phone service providers and allow free and open competition.
The Internet is possible because many private networks find it in their mutual self-interest to cooperate and share traffic loads. When inequalities arise, networks compensate each other for the extra load. “Neutrality” regulations force companies to act against their self-interest, inevitably leading them to complain to Congress to impose ever more detailed controls to maintain “fairness.”
The Internet is private property
The Internet is not public property. Telecommunications companies have spent billions of dollars on network infrastructure all over the world. They did so in the hope of selling communications services to customers willing to pay for them. The government has no right to effectively nationalize ISP’s by telling them how run their networks.
Proponents of net neutrality love to invent hypothetical scenarios of ways companies could abuse customers. It is true that a free society gives people the freedom to be stupid, wrong, and even malicious. The great thing about capitalism is that it also gives people the freedom to decide whom they want to do business with. A socialized Internet takes away that freedom and turn it over to politicians and lobbyists. Why do “net neutrality” advocates ridicule politicians for comparing the Internet to a “series of tubes,” and then trust them to regulate it?
Further reading:
- “A rational debate on Net Neutrality” by George Ou
- “Who Owns the Internet?” by Tim Swanson
- HandsOff.org: Hands Off the Internet
- NetCompetition: Debunking Net Neutrality Myths: A Series of One-Pagers
Please. ISPs are making money hand over fist now, all based on technology developed using public money. No extra federal surveillance is needed to ensure net neutrality as you claim. All that’s needed is to keep things exactly the way they are.
June 12th, 2007 | #
“Please. ISPs are making money hand over fist now…” Good, when someone “makes” money it usually means they deserve it since they provided a service which people gladly paid for.
“…all based on technology developed using public money.” That sounds like a good reason to disallow the government to invest public money into anything.
“No extra federal surveillance is needed to ensure net neutrality as you claim.” Good thing you brought all those facts to counter his claim, rather than just asserting an opposing claim.
June 30th, 2007 | #
“Please. ISPs are making money hand over fist now…” OHHH NOOOOO! People making money, wow imagine if we lived in a place where people never made money like the Soviet Union back in the day. I bet we would get awesome service there…wait why did it collapse again?
Usually if someone “makes” money it means they provided a service someone thought was worth paying for. Good job ISPs.
“all based on technology developed using public money.” Sounds like someone is angry the government misinvested his funds. Hmm maybe we should focus our efforts on that instead of enslaving ISPs to rules that will cut their ability to profit and provide good service.
“No extra federal surveillance is needed to ensure net neutrality as you claim.” Whew, for a minute there I thought you were going to counter his claim with facts. Silly me. What would be the point of passing Net Neutrality if the government didn’t surveill traffic?
“All that’s needed is to keep things exactly the way they are.” Then why pass the law?
June 30th, 2007 | #
[...] “Net neutrality” is the new fairness doctrine for the Internet. [...]
September 27th, 2007 | #
“Regulation stifles innovation” — Good, we don’t want innovation
“Regulations breed more regulations” — Slippery slope
“The Internet is private property” — Private property can be regulated.
February 25th, 2008 | #
Your post addresses two related, but quite different issues.
“Net Neutrality” debate is not (at least, not within the ‘circles’ I move in, nor it ‘ought to be’) about ‘cheap’ or ‘flat rate’ Internet access. As far as I am concerned, that is a ‘non-issue’: I pay for a service, I am willing to pay for the service, and I expect to receive service appropriate to the rate I pay. No problems there.
“Net Neutrality” is about something else altogether: it is about preventing ISP providers from exercising undue control over the content (not quantity - if properly paid for).
Let me give you an example:
Most ISP have divisions that provide services other than just the ‘Internet pipeline’. My internet provider is one of these: they have a division which rents movies and videos. Now, there is a company which has established a completely legal, copyright-obeying business which sells movies over the internet - and which (once paid for) can be downloaded using the BitTorrents protocol.
Even though I pay for the highest level of service, and am willing to pay extra if I use more bandwidth than the ‘upper limit’, I am prevented from using this legal online service, because my ISP has chosen to modulate their traffic by disrupting BitTorrents - protocol messages (which, by the way, may include impersonating my computer, sending out false flags that end the transmission).
In effect, my ISP’s ‘pipeline’ division is successfully preventing me from legally purchasing a service (even if I wish to pay them to deliver it) from a direct competitor of my ISP’s ‘movie rental’ division…..
That would be sort of like the post office which deliveres letters deciding arbitrarily that it will only deliver letters (even though they contain the correct stamps and the postage has been paid according to rules) that are in the envelopes its outlets sell, because it wants to boost its stationery sales. Any properly mailed letters in other types of envelopes woud simply be discarded….and then did not tell anyone about it - people would only find out when their letters went missing…
It is THESE practices that the “Net Neutrality” debate is addressing - and they do need to be addressed….
May 21st, 2008 | #