One of the most important debates you may have never heard of is the debate over net neutrality. The concept that the Internet should be treated like a public good, with cable companies giving no privilege to certain sites over others, has been a hot topic issue for years. On Feb. 26, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will vote on whether to reclassify Internet use to telecommunications, ensuring net neutrality.
The term “net neutrality” was coined by Columbia University professor Tim Wu in 2003, but debate over the idea predates this year. There are many arguments both for and against net neutrality. Many proponents of the idea believe that cable companies want to be able to control which websites load faster and which load slower. They could then give priority to their own sites or the sites of people who pay them more money, while making their competitors’ sites load more slowly.
In their comments to the FCC, Netflix and Vimeo utilized the research of S.S. Krishnan and Ramesh Sitaraman, two computer scientists. They had found that Internet users accustomed to faster speeds will have less patience waiting for something slower to load, which implies that without net neutrality, users will only use faster-loading sites and continue to ignore the slower ones. Other proponents also claim that net neutrality provides more competition and innovation.
On the other side of the debate are different telecommunications providers and cable companies. They argue that without net neutrality, things are likely to continue on the way they are currently happening right now. They also think that prioritizing some websites over others might become necessary in the future to potentially prevent the overuse of bandwidth. John Thorne, the senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Verizon, has argued that if Verizon is not able to charge fees to companies, they will have no incentive to invest and make their service better.
David Farber, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, along with some of his colleagues, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing against net neutrality. Farber feels that if net neutrality becomes law, then it will be harder to overhaul or remodel the Internet in the future.
Part of what makes this debate so interesting is the army of huge companies that have come out of the woodwork to fight for one side or the other. Cable companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have come out on the side against net neutrality, while many Internet giants, including Reddit, Netflix, Twitter, Mozilla and Etsy, have lobbied for net neutrality.
Liba Rubenstein, the director of social impact and public policy at Tumblr, credits Tumblr’s users for the expected win. The cable companies that are using traditional lobbying means found themselves pitted against passionate Internet users who mobilized to gain support for net neutrality.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is passionately in favor of net neutrality, and the two Democratic commissioners, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, are expected to side with him, with Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly on the other side.
Ajit Pai is an outspoken opponent of the idea of net neutrality, claiming that it is a solution that won’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist. In an interview with Reason.com, he stated that he hasn’t seen any convincing evidence that there is a problem with the way the Internet functions now. He is also critical of U.S. President Barack Obama’s attempts to influence FCC decisions, since the FCC is supposed to be an independent agency.
On the other hand, Wheeler, the FCC chairman insists that there is simply not enough choice for Internet users. Right now, he asserts, there are not enough high-speed Internet options; there are usually only cable companies. Although the new FCC regulations will not ensure that new companies will be able to compete with cable companies, it will provide strict regulations to keep cable companies from abusing the market power that they already have.
In between the two extremes, Google has remained largely silent on net neutrality. Clyburn, one of the Democratic commissioners, has reportedly asked to remove the parts of the legislation that Google disagrees with.
Republicans, most of whom are not in favor of net neutrality and in fact have referred to this plan as “Obamacare for the Internet,” now openly admit that they are outnumbered on this issue and will have to concede. They had hoped to push back or curtail the vote by introducing new legislation, but after being stalled by Democrats, are now facing defeat. Obama is also a fan of the new legislation and actually suggested that the FCC reclassify the Internet as a form of telecommunications in November 2014.
As of right now, Wheeler’s exact plan is private, but if it passes the vote, it will be published in the Federal Register and become effective 30 days later. Although no one knows exactly what the plan contains, it is known that the documentation is 332 pages long.
However, the vote is not necessarily the end of the fight. After publishing their plan, the FCC could find itself in a drawn-out court battle with cable companies, and a Republican-led commission in the future could overturn the legislation. For right now, though, it looks like net neutrality is officially the way of the future.
Update: The FCC voted in favor of net neutrality.
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