WG/Strategies/Ideas/Network Neutrality

Advocates of network neutrality fear that the Internet is quickly following the same fate as television and radio. According to the political activist organization Common Cause, network neutrality is:

“the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content they choose and use any applications they choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by their Internet service provider. For example, if you are shopping for a new appliance online you should be able to shop on any and all websites, not just the ones with whom your provider has a preferred business relationship. Or if you want to use your high-speed Internet connection to make phone calls, your provider should not be able to impede your ability to do so.”

In essence, Network neutrality contends that the Internet should remain very much in its current form and fears that oligopolistic control wielded by Internet providers will eradicate its defining and revolutionary hallmark, openness. There are three major areas of concerned outlined by Common Cause.

· Discriminating Against Competitors' Services: A provider could make sure that preferred content or applications load faster and more efficiently while competing services are slow or spotty. That would effectively create a tiered Internet - with a fast lane for those who will pay, and a slow lane for everyone else.

· Limiting Diversity of Content: A provider can enhance its own web content and services by featuring prominent menus, program guides, start screens, etc. while systematically excluding competing content.

· Favoring Commercial Services: The nonprofit and noncommercial sector could be distinguished from the for-profit sector of the online community in terms of services offered, and would suffer because they cannot compete in an environment where they have to pay for better service.

If the government does not step in to ensure the continued existence of network neutrality, it is only a matter of time before the major players in the Internet service industry (i.e. Comcast) kill another revolutionary media medium, effectively placing its immense power into the hands of a select few. And before long Internet will all too closely resemble the dull, homogenous, biased content we have come to see on television.