A Cracked Pot

With the rumored deal between Verizon and Google supposedly being announced this coming Monday, Net Neutrality is about to go front and center again in the media.

There are two issues with NN. First, is the issue that companies who can afford to pay for premium speeds are going to end up effectively blocking out the little guys who can’t afford to pay. That means blogs, personal websites, and even websites owned by most small businesses, won’t get priority online and will load slower for their visitors. It’s a real threat to free speech, depending on how far it goes. After all, if I can load Ebay instantly but have to wait 30 seconds for Etsy to load, I might be more likely to go to Ebay.

Legislation restricting this kind of business practice is something I’m in favor of. I think the Internet should remain a fair playing field for all content providers, regardless of their ability to pay.

But there’s a flip side to all this, and something most of the legislation proposed to date ignores. Bandwidth hogs can be detrimental to other internet users. I have friends who are literally downloading things almost 24 hours a day. They set a download queue before they go to bed, with enough things lined up to keep downloading straight through till morning. As it stands now, their internet usage does little to effect those users sharing resources, as their ISPs throttle their bandwidth. Limits are placed on their download speed so that others sharing the same access aren’t significantly affected by their downloading practices.

With most of the NN laws, bandwidth throttling, especially throttling based on particular types of content or from particular sites (like file sharing sites) will be illegal. My friends who download things constantly will have unfettered bandwidth access. That means if I happen to be unlucky enough to share a cable internet connection with them, my access speeds are going to be so negatively affected that the internet, for me, will become unusable.

It makes sense for ISPs to throttle bandwidth based on content or application. It’s a simple, effective way to make the internet more usable for all their customers. If they limit the bandwidth available for torrents or other file sharing sites (or video streaming sites, or other sites that use a lot of bandwidth), it frees up bandwidth for other, less-resource-hungry online activities. It keeps the internet relatively fast for all users, and minimizes extreme ups and downs in download and upload speeds.

Here’s a better solution: make it illegal for companies to enter into agreements about bandwidth usage. That means an ISP can manage bandwidth however they see fit and best for their customers. If they want to throttle bandwidth from a particular user, group of users, or website because it’s hogging resources and damaging the experience of their other users, then they can do so.

What they can’t do, though, is take a payment or enter into a “partnership” or other agreement with a company or organization to provide faster speeds for a particular site or sites. I also think transparency should be required for their throttling and bandwidth management activities, so users know how their usage is being limited and to help prevent backroom deals.

Congress needs to stop trying to pass laws they don’t understand and think through the possible repercussions of the bills they write. Industry experts as well as independent experts need to be more thoroughly consulted on technical matters that are beyond the scope of understanding of most of our people in Congress. Net Neutrality is not a cut-and-dry issue, at least not as it’s been presented.