On net neutrality

Net neutrality is again in the news.  For those non-geek the notion is that internet bandwidth providers can not tie the bandwidth to specific devices and can not block specific services.  This is sometimes characterized as the four freedoms:

• Access to any internet site
• Use of any application
•  Ability to hook up any device
• Transparency

The notion makes the internet open in the sense that anyone can use it without discrimination.  Generally net neutrality should apply to both wired and wireless internet services.  This last is an important point as with the advent of 4G wireless, wireless internet service will doubtless be much more common.

On the face of it, these notions appear reasonable and fair.  But are they?

One important consideration is bandwidth.  For those non-geek, bandwidth is the ability of the internet to carry data.  We've all seen bandwidth issues when using the internet.  "The internet is slow today" is a frequently heard complaint.  In fact sometimes the internet IS SLOW.  It's slow because there are more users than typically; or those users are using network intensive applications like video; or part of the internet infrastructure is currently unavailable because of maintenance or outage; or sun spot activity is high and radio communications are effected; or any number of other reasons.  The central point is that internet bandwidth is NOT LIMITLESS.  That's true of both wired and wireless internet.  Bandwidth is also NOT CONSTANT.  Bandwidth varies with time, the number of users, user applications, etc.  These are simply technical facts of life, technical realities that CAN NOT BE IGNORED.

Another consideration is that there are some fundamental differences between wire and wireless internet.  Generally, wire internet has much more bandwidth than wireless.  While 4G wireless brings much more bandwidth to the individual wireless cell and users in that cell, the available bandwidth remains much lower than that available to wire users in a wired internet head end distribution point (a similar technical constraint).  Try as one might, it's much easier technically to get bandwidth down a hard link like a cable or fiber optic line than it is over an RF channel.  Hard connects simply have more inherent non-conflicting bandwidth. 

A final consideration is that increasingly we are moving more and more communications based activities to the internet.  The applications we run on the internet today are far different than those we ran 30 years ago.  The ones we run tomorrow will be more different still.  Today we have video communications, telephony, and medical monitoring.  Who knows what we tomorrow's applications will be. 

What then of the "four freedoms?"

Access to any internet site: Seems like a reasonable idea but is it?  How about child pornography sites, or how to make a bomb?  Should these sites be accessible?  Common Sense says no.  There is content and there are applications that are simply unacceptable within a given society.  The argument can be made that it is the content, not access to the content that should be controlled.  That's certainly true but the internet is a transnational network.  The content may well originate from a rogue state or a state where the content is acceptable and thus not subject to control within the receiving state.  When the content can not be controlled then the remaining remedy is to control access.  That being the case the "access" freedom requires that we consider the question of how and who decides to block access.  In a free society this is a very thorny issue.  Should the bandwidth provider decide?  Common sense says no as the bandwidth provider has no particular legal or social more standing.  How about the government?  Common Sense is troubled by the notion of direct government control as there is a history of highly inappropriate and frequently illegal government blocking and control by classification.  Fundamentally Common Sense sees this as a free speech issue with all the attendant complexities.

Use of any application:  Again, it seems like a reasonable idea but is it?  What is the relative value of my nieces tweet compared say to the data stream from a heart patient?  Or how about a tweet compared to a fire alarm?  Or how about a call to 911 compared to a conversation with my brother?  NOT ALL DATA IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT!  NOT ALL APPLICATIONS ARE EQUALLY VITAL!  Bandwidth is limited and Common Sense says that some data and some applications deserve priority.  The question then becomes who decides?  Should the bandwidth provider decide?  Common sense says no since there are many examples of providers acting not in the interest of society at large but in their own financial interest.  How about a government agency?  Common Sense says perhaps as the FCC has been marginally effective at regulating similar issues, at least recently, though Common Sense is concerned about political (read corporate money) influence.  How about an independent entity like the IANA, internet assigned numbers authority.  Common Sense likes this notion since by and large the IANA has worked reasonably well.

Ability to hook up any device:  This freedom seems entirely reasonable to Common Sense.  One can go back to before telephone deregulation when there was a similar issue with regard to telephone handsets, answering machines, and other telephony equipment.  Initially AT&T did not allow such devices to be connected to the phone system.  History tells us that the reasons were not technical but business, an attempt by AT&T to maintain an iron grip on telephony.  But deregulation happened and today we have many choices of telephony equipment and the telephone network was not destroyed in the process.  Of course there had to be rules that insured compatibility between equipment and the network.  Common Sense thinks this is entirely reasonable.  

Transparency:  Common Sense thinks transparency is important.  But what kind of transparency?  When the other internet freedoms are constrained as Common Sense thinks is reasonable it is essential that those constraints be public and clearly stated.  But is this enough?  Common Sense thinks not!  Common Sense believes that when an internet freedom is constrained there must be a clear mechanism for challenging the constraint.  While Common Sense thinks that it is OK to block sites, Common Sense doesn't think that the NY Times should be blocked because it republished some Wikileaks material.  So if the Federal Government decided to block the NY Times or for that matter Wikileaks there must be a remedy that allows society as a whole to challenge.  Common Sense believes that constraints on freedoms must be transparent and that the transparency freedom must include a mechanism to challenge those constraints.

I was just starting my technical career when the internet was created.  I had a hand in some of the earliest internet development.  I've seen it grow from a private network between a handful of research labs with a limited number of applications to a ubiquitous communications environment with applications that were never imagined 40 plus years ago.  Common Sense thinks that regulation is both inevitable and necessary.  That said, the kind of regulation and the details of regulation are critical.  Common Sense believes that the internet has the potential to change not only the US society but the world society profoundly for the better.  Common Sense believes that inappropriate regulation can damage or perhaps destroy that potential.