According to the news reports on the recent net neutrality decision, we seem to have mostly done it right, not wrong. Here's why:
- The carriers will be treated as common carriers; in other words, like Fedex, UPS, etc. The carriers should have a right to offer premium service(s), including faster or lower-latency connections. Fedex does; you can pick how fast you want your package delivered, and pay accordingly. But Fedex CANNOT tell you what you can ship or where you can ship it to. (With a very few exceptions, mandated by law.) Their rates apply equally to anyone.
- Carriers who are also content providers will not be permitted to interfere with competitors who offer similar services. In other words, ATT cannot block Skype; Comcast cannot block Netflix.
- The carriers will be able, to some degree, to 'manage' or 'shape' traffic, and there is potential for abuse here. OTOH, some degree of traffic management is necessary. How else does one block Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks? And despite the claims of some who feel otherwise, users do not have the right to infinite bandwidth at zero incremental cost. Bandwisth is cheap, extraordinarily so, but not free.
The wireless side has been regulated more in favor of the carriers, and there is some cause for concern there. OTOH, the bandwidth currently available for wireless services in the US is hopelessly inadequate to meet even current demand, let alone the increasing amount of always-on media-rich service we have come to love. Until the FCC cuts loose some serious spectrum - hundreds of megahertz - it will reman a constrained medium, and will therefore require a price-driven market to efficiently allocate it.
The current rules don't discourage innovation. Netflix may, for example, choose to offer me superior connectivity for a fee, some of which goes to the carrier. I have no fundamental issue with that. A new startup can do the same, and faces no greater cost-of-entry because that startup can offer the same quality of service Netflix does, via the carrier.
I'll concede there are opportunities for carrier abuse. But there are also plenty of tech-savvy watchdogs who will be able to detect such shenanigans, and the law provides a path of redress.
Comments, anyone?
