Tech Corner
What is net neutrality?
Editor's Note: This is part 1 of a two-part series on the growing debate on net neutrality.
By TERRE PORTER
| Article published on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 |
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Federal lawmakers will not be adding net neutrality to a bill to regulate broadband service. A Senate committee tie vote of 11-11 on June 28, essentially killed the amendment.
To understand what the new bill without net neutrality could mean to people and businesses, some knowledge of how the Internet works is needed.
Everyone ready for class? When a Web page is visited, the browser sends a request to the Web site and the site sends the browser the page. When the browser asks the Web site for a Web page the request is sent across several different companies' networks. Various different companies own the networks and this is where net neutrality comes into play.
The whole issue of net neutrality boils down to the FCC reclassification of cable broadband modem service in 2005 as an "information service" and not as a "telecommunications service" under the 1996 Act. The change meant that cable modem service was no longer subject to the common-carrier regulation.
What does that mean? It's similar to Verizon being required to allow AT&T to offer long distance service to Verizon's customers. Brand X Internet service wanted to do something much the same with Internet service. The company wanted to offer broadband Internet service through existing cable companies' network, which would have been OK before the reclassification. The result was a court case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Search for Brand X Internet on Google or Yahoo for more information.
How did all this affect the Internet? The Internet is growing fast, and new services and features are becoming easier to get. Today we can watch TV, stream music, play games, surf Web sites and more. The use of all of these services and features takes more and more of the bandwidth from the Internet. Generally, bandwidth is the how fast the content or data is delivered to the user's computer.
Think of bandwidth as a water hose, the information as the water, and the grass being watered the Web browser, video game or video player. The faster the water comes out of the hose, the more bandwidth. The new services, such as streaming TV and movies, take a lot more bandwidth. The need for more bandwidth requires an upgrade to a larger hose, in this example bigger would be comparable to getting a fire hose to water your yard.
The cost of building the next generation of the Internet - one that includes such upgrades as a bigger hose - should be passed to the users and the providers of Internet services, in other words, Web site hosting companies and Internet users. However, not everyone agrees.
Net neutrality would guarantee the ability to pass information or send Web sites, for example, across AT&T's network to an Internet user. Currently, in my not-a-lawyer understanding, AT&T could block online content from Web sites.
The question is: would they?
According to an interview on BusinessWeek.com, dated Nov. 7, 2005, AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre said, "Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital, and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?"
Shortly after, the company released a statement, informing the public that they would not and never have degraded or blocked sites from being viewed.
In a March 21, 2006, article from NetworkingPipeline.com Whitacre is quoted from a keynote speech, "Any provider who blocks access to the Internet is inviting customers to find another provider. It's bad business." He then emphatically stated that AT&T would not block independent services, "nor will we degrade (Internet access). Period, end of story."
Terre Porter is vice president of Webpage Builders Inc. Tech Corner questions can be sent to him by e-mailing tporter@webpage-builders.com.
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Article published on Wednesday, July 5, 2006
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