Network Neutrality: Fact vs. Fiction

http://www.freepress.net/files/nn_fact_v_fiction_final.pdf

The Net Neutrality: Fact vs. Fiction article I’m reviewing was written by the American Free Press, The Consumer’s Union, and the Consumer Federation of America in combination. The article was written to combat claims by anti net neutrality organizations and lobbyists who want to see network neutrality taken away. The writers attempt to refute 12 statements by the anti net neutrality organizations over the course of the article.

The issue of network neutrality has been around since the internet became public. Network neutrality is the basic idea that all content flowing over the internet has the same rights no matter who sends it. The idea that if a person sends an email over the internet, that email will be treated with the same priority as someone else sending another email and there will be no discrimination. The writers argue that if the baseline protection of network neutrality is taken away, the internet will enter an anti-competitive marketplace with only a few network companies allowed to make decisions.

The reason why the network companies want control of their own pipes is because they don’t have control of who they give internet to. They were given land grants and public funding to make the internet lines, but the internet service providers pay the network providers to use their network and the network company provides the bandwidth to the internet service providers. Then the consumers pay the internet service providers. This keeps it so the internet service providers and the network providers can’t bully the consumers by discriminating over bandwidth or jack up prices.

The basic fear expressed by the article is that if network neutrality is taken away, the broadband companies would be able to control everything about the internet. They could partner up and charge extreme prices that would put strain on regular consumers who needed the internet. They could control all of the data going down the internet whenever they wanted. They could also give increased internet access to certain people and companies if they controlled everything.

The article also focuses on claims made by lobbyists to the government that the writers interpret as false. These claims include claims by AT&T that they own the “pipes” in which the internet goes through, that companies won’t construct new networks, and that there is a lot of competition among the network companies, just to name a few. The writers get very emotionally involved in this bringing up facts about how the government granted most of the land where the companies build their pipes because it was under the assumption that they were doing a public service to the whole of the United States. They also refute the claims of widespread competition by claiming that the internet has become an irreplaceable commodity and there is always a demand for internet. To deal with the companies saying they won’t have any incentive to build new networks if there is still network neutrality, the writers say that there will always be a demand for faster and more reliable internet so they will always have to build new networks.

This article is obviously written from consumer’s point of view and does a good job in backing up the statements it makes against the network providers. But it is a completely biased article, so to say that they are necessarily right without knowing the whole story would be wrong. The article brings up many good points against network providers’ claims, and it would be interesting to see the writers of this article go up against representatives of the network companies in a debate.