Net neutrality refers to a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. Precise definitions vary, but a broadband network free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached and the modes of communication allowed, and where communication was not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams would be considered neutral by most advocates.
Advocates of network neutrality contend that any non-neutral scheme could allow ISPs to unfairly discriminate and control which data they prioritize, such as data from their own sponsors or media interests. They also claim that collecting premium fees from certain "preferred" customers would distort the market for Internet applications in favor of larger and better-funded content providers and against small providers. They argue for banning such financial arrangements, even if those payments might offset total network operating costs ultimately charged to consumers.
Some claim that collecting premium fees from certain "preferred" customers would distort the market for Internet applications in favor of larger and better-funded content providers and against small providers. They argue for banning such financial arrangements, even if those payments might offset total network operating costs ultimately charged to consumers.
There is also the question of the service impact on the end user who has purchased broadband access from a carrier, only to experience differing response times in interacting with various content providers, some of whom paid the carrier a "premium" and some who did not.
Numerous commentors have cautioned that authorizing incumbent network providers to override the separation of the transport and application layers of the Internet signals the end of the authority of the fundamental Internet standards and indeed, of the standards-making processes for the Internet themselves.
Advocates of network neutrality observe that any practice that shapes the transmission of bits in the transport layer based on application designs will undermine the design for flexibility of the transport.
One specific aspect of the internet is that some advocates say network neutrality is needed in order to insure the end-to-end principle. Under this principle, a neutral network is a dumb network, merely passing packets according to the needs of applications. This point of view was expressed by David S. Isenberg in his seminal paper, The Rise of the Stupid Network to wit:
A new network "philosophy and architecture," is replacing the vision of an Intelligent Network. The vision is one in which the public communications network would be engineered for "always-on" use, not intermittence and scarcity. It would be engineered for intelligence at the end-user's device, not in the network. And the network would be engineered simply to "Deliver the Bits, Stupid," not for fancy network routing or "smart" number translation. . . . In the Stupid Network, the data would tell the network where it needs to go. (In contrast, in a circuit network, the network tells the data where to go.) In a Stupid Network, the data on it would be the boss. . . .End user devices would be free to behave flexibly because, in the Stupid Network the data is boss, bits are essentially free, and there is no assumption that the data is of a single data rate or data type.
These terms merely signify the network's level of knowledge about and influence over the packets it handles - they carry no connotations of stupidity, inferiority or superiority.
Critics charge that Isenberg reads too much of philosophical significance into a principle of a purely technical nature. The seminal paper on the End-to-End Principle, End-to-end arguments in system design by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark, actually argues that network intelligence doesn't relieve end systems of the requirement to check inbound data for errors and to rate-limit the sender, not for a wholesale removal of intelligence in the network core. End-to-end is one of many design tools, not the universal one:
The end-to-end argument does not tell us where to put the early checks, since either layer can do this performance-enhancement job. Placing the early retry protocol in the file transfer application simplifies the communication system, but may increase overall cost, since the communication system is shared by other applications and each application must now provide its own reliability enhancement. Placing the early retry protocol in the communication system may be more efficient, since it may be performed inside the network on a hop-by-hop basis, reducing the delay involved in correcting a failure. At the same time, there may be some application that finds the cost of the enhancement is not worth the result but it now has no choice in the matter.
The appropriate placement of functions in a protocol stack depends on many factors.
Savetheinternet.com has argued that the internet currently serves as a "level playing-field," in that end users and content providers are charged a flat fee for access to the entire highspeed infrastructure. They claim that regulations maintaining this dynamic would reward the best ideas rather than the most well-funded ideas. Amounts and type of bandwidth usage need not be specifically charged for, beyond the basic and minimally discriminatory fees for access to ISP servers.
Gary Bachula, Vice President for External Affairs for Internet2, asserts that specific QoS protocols are unnecessary in the core network as long as the core network links are "over-provisioned" to the point that network traffic never encounters delay. In Quality of Service engineering, this formulation is guaranteed by the admission control feature.
The Internet2 project found, in 2001, that the QoS protocols were probably not deployable inside its Abilene network with equipment available at that time. While newer routers are capable of following QoS protocols with no loss of performance, equipment available at the time relied on software to implement QoS. The Internet2 Abilene network group also predicted that "logistical, financial, and organizational barriers will block the way toward any bandwidth guarantees" by protocol modifications aimed at QoS. In essence they believe that the economics would be likely to make the network providers deliberately erode the quality of best effort traffic as a way to push customers to higher priced QoS services.
The Abilene network study was the basis for the testimony of Gary Bachula to the Senate Commerce Committee's Hearing on Network Neutrality in early 2006. He expressed the opinion that adding more bandwidth was more effective than any of the various schemes for accomplishing QoS they examined.
Bachula's testimony has been cited by proponents of a law banning Quality of Service as proof that no legitimate purpose is served by such an offering. Of course this argument is dependent on the assumption that over-provisioning isn't a form of QoS and that it's always possible. Obviously, cost and other factors affect the ability of carriers to build and maintain permanently over-provisioned networks.
Opposing Arguments
Network neutrality regulations are opposed by a handful of the Internet's most distinguished engineers, such as professor David Farber and TCP inventor Bob Kahn.
Telecommunications companies claim the right under U.S. law to operate the network with minimal government interference. They claim that anti-tiering regulations may indirectly prevent the expansion and improvement of Internet access for their customers, who have used an increasing amount of bandwidth. The telecommunications corporations also claim that a lack of differentiated funding sources has slowed their own corporations' implementations of new technologies and also resulted in elevated prices for many of their customers.
Network neutrality regulations are also opposed by free market advocacy groups as well as minority advocacy groups such as the National Black Chamber of Commerce and LULAC, which receive financial support from telecommunications companies. The Communications Workers of America, the largest union representing installers and maintainers of telecommunications infrastructure, opposes the regulations.
Those in favor of forms of "non-neutral" tiered internet access argue that the Internet is already not a level-playing field: companies such as Google and Akamai achieve a performance advantage over smaller competitors by replicating servers and buying high-bandwidth services. Should prices drop for lower levels of access, or access to only certain protocols, for instance, a change of this type would make internet usage more neutral, with respect to the needs of those individuals and corporations specifically seeking differentiated tiers of service.
Tim Wu, though a proponent of network neutrality, claims that the current internet is not neutral as, "among all applications", its implementation of best effort generally favors file transfer and other non-time sensitive traffic over real-time communications.
Opponents of network neutrality regulations claim they would discourage investment in broadband networks:
"Sweeping and rigid net neutrality legislation could: hinder public safety and homeland security; complicate protecting Americans privacy; erode the quality and responsiveness of the Internet; limit consumers' competitive choices; and discourage investment in broadband deployment to all Americans."
Some argue that the Internet is in the midst of tremendous change due to fiber to the home, peer-to-peer applications, VoIP, and IPTV, and regulations offered to date are potentially damaging to network operation and investment.
Advocates of "non-neutrality" regulation (or allowance) point to advantages with respect to rationing what perhaps will be scarce bandwidth. Indeed, the topic was opened because of what may be a substantial increase in bandwidth consumption as multi-media uses of the Internet expand. Carriers want content providers who support bandwidth-intensive multi-media Internet traffic to pay the carriers a premium to support further network investments.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed described the amount of data produced globally in exabytes, calling the potential bandwidth crunch the "exaflood".
At times internet traffic has already caused internet services to fail (see congestion collapse and slashdot effect). In such cases, high latency connections result in interruption of services. An environment in which a content provider can provide a guaranteed quality of service to all customers could allow independent content providers to compete with traditional content providers in areas such as television and music broadcast, telephony, and video on demand.
Bram Cohen believes that the next generation of BitTorrent technology being developed by him and Cachelogic may violate some definitions of net neutrality.
One of the clearest examples of the need for a highly reliable, low latency, high bandwidth connection, is the developing technology of Remote surgery, where a surgeon can use robotics and communications technology to operate on a patient thousands of miles away. Using dedicated circuits is highly desirable in this situation as the penalty for a communications failure could be death, so they are used in all cases; if they weren't available, prioritized bandwidth would be preferred to normal bandwidth. In a similar category are emergency calls to fire and police.
Residential broadband providers such as Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T claim that as bandwidth-intensive peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent become commonplace, the traditional Internet congestion management system, which was not designed to handle continuous, high-bandwidth usage, may no longer be viable, so alternate methods may become necessary. These alternate methods include bandwidth limits and priority-based Quality of Service for voice and video.
The Bell companies and some major cable companies view non-discrimination as compelled speech prohibited by the First Amendment because they think that cases like Chesapeake and Potomac and even Turner Broadcasting v. FCC stands for the rule that Telcos and Cablecos are First Amendment speakers, and as such cannot be compelled to promote speech they disagree with.
Given a rapidly-changing technological and market environment, many in the public policy area question the government's ability to make and maintain meaningful regulation that doesn't cause more harm than good. For example, fair queuing would actually be illegal under several proposals as it requires prioritization of packets based on criteria other than that permitted by the proposed law. Quoting Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent,"I most definitely do not want the internet to become like television where there's actual censorship... however it is very difficult to actually create network neutrality laws which don't result in an absurdity like making it so that ISPs can't drop spam or stop... (hacker) attacks." Others argue that the Internet has been subject to regulation since its inception and that a light regulatory approach would allow the Internet to continue to flourish while preventing plans by the largest phone companies to implement new content tolls and take control of choice away from the end user.
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