Steven Levitt Official Home Page and Blog

So there has been a rather large “save the internet” or “save the internets” campaign on many sites lately. The gist of this debate in my humble opinion is that the Major Telco’s are petitioning congress to modify the structure of the Internet which will put control of how various sites and applications peform for you and I. From the website http://www.savetheinternet.com :

“Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet’s First Amendment — a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you — based on what site pays them the most. If the public doesn’t speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.”

Having spent a few years working for similar companies, I submit that what they are looking to do is not good for consumers, or the open nature of the Internet. I felt it important to write something about it here on my small forum.

By way of background. Telecom companies such as AT&T are faced with a difficult challenge and one that is frankly in direct opposition to consumers’ best interests. Network Proivders are faced with the constant challenge of meeting wall street expectations for profits while trying to grow their infrastructure to meet customer demands for bandwidth which requires intensive capital outlay. Higher bandwidth applications like Peer-to-Peer (aka napster, eDonkey, Bittorrent) and free Teleconferencing (NetZero Voice, Skype, AOL Chat) are stressing the current networks of these providers, at a rate faster than they can build out.

Network proivders to date have not had a method for distinguishing traffic types on their networks, they have no visibility or control as to what types of Internet applications are used on their networks so they cannot “throttle back” or classify they types of traffic they carry. Furthermore this prevents them from being able to “rate” the type of traffic you send “voice”, “video”, “software” etc. From http://www.savetheinternet.com:

“Net Neutrality ensures that all users can access the content or run the applications and devices of their choice. With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service. Net Neutrality prevents the companies that control the wires from discriminating against content based on its source or ownership.”

So what are the providers doing about it? Again from savetheinternet.com:

“The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road”.

This new bill will do a couple of things as I understand it:

1. Re-structure the top levels of the internet peering arrangement. As much as we like to think it is, the Internet is not flat, its heirarchical. A few large networks “peer” and “interconnect” with other networks and trade traffic destined for eachothers customers. This would change allowing providers to charge differnet rates for types of traffic and types of businesses. They would also have the ability to rank who they interconnect with and prioritize traffic. This, in a nutshell, gives the backbone providers the ability to provide lower quality of service to some customers.

2. Enable large telcos to classify your data. They would be able to classify data you send as voice, web, file transfer and could prevent you from seeing sites they dont want you to, block applications like Voice Over Internet Protocol (voip) from their competitors and eventually charge you based on the type of traffic you send. Today i pay one price for my 3mb connection to the Internet. In the future I may have to pay one price for web access and a surchage for Voice and yet another for file transfers. I believe a free market economy will prevent this pricing structure from taking hold, its more likely that these companies and the government will use this a foundation for Internet tax.

3. Create preferential status for some providers. No longer will all network traffic be handled in the same way. It will allow these companies to create peering relationships that are high speed and low speed based on types of traffic. today that does not happen. It opens the door for network providers to show preferential treatment to particular websites or application providers based on commercial terms versus user desires. IE: verizon may have the ability to make it faster for you to access one retail site over another or even block one site all-together.

I have worked in this industry and really enjoy what the Internet has become, how it has permeated our lives. I write this out of desire to ensure that we all have the same access to this great resource and the control of it continues to remain in the hands of all of us. I would like to see the major telcos continue to thrive and prosper, we are dependant on them to maintain this infrastructure and innovate products that we all need and want. Lets ensure that they continue to stay focused on us, the customer.

So What can you do?

1. Educate yourself. Read the following Whitpaper on Net Neutrality.

2. Go to http://www.savetheinternet.com and sign the online peition.

3. contact your congressperson. You can do this from the site listed above.