Net Neutrality

I wrote the following on a forum when someone was asking about Net Neutrality and someone else confused it with the Fairness Doctrine. I thought I’d also post it here so I wouldn’t lose it.

Net Neutrality has nothing to do with the Fairness Doctrine. Net Neutrality involves the “packets” of data on the internet and how ISPs send them over their networks. A “neutral” internet would have all ISPs treat all packets equally and pass them along their networks on to the packet’s destination. Some ISPs such as Comcast have been in trouble with the FCC for showing preference to a certain type of packet or blocking packets without letting the customers know about it.

For example, if an ISP offered VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services, they might want to ensure their packets make it through quickly, and degrade the packets from competitors like Skype. Another one is if an ISP offers video downloads, they could degrade or block access to sites that stream video like Netflix or Hulu.

Recently Comcast got in trouble interferring with Bittorrent (a form of P2P filesharing). It was proven by two independant groups when they tried to transfer a copy of the King James Bible, which is completely in the public domain, and saw that Comcast was sending their Bittorrent clients a packet that shut down the transfer. Bittorrent is used for many illegal purposes, but is simply a technology for transferring large files quickly and is used for many legitimate uses including distributing Linux CD and DVD images, World of Warcraft in-game patches, and the Bittorrent.com online media store.

The marriage of ISPs and content providers such as Comcast and Time Warner is raising many fears in the industry. The ISPs have stated that they would like to charge sites to guarantee that their traffic gets through quickly. The ISPs, just like consumers already pay for their access to the Internet. They pay for a specific amount of bandwidth and should have unlimited access to the net at the speeds they pay for. They should not have to pay Comcast, Time Warner, or any other ISP an additional fee to ensure their users get to use their sites. It is extortion, plain and simple.

Tags: bittorrent, comcast, fairness, internet, isps, net neutrality, neutral