'Net Neutrality, Take Two...

Two companies, that is. Google and Verizon, the behemoth of Internet content and the leviathan of US mobile and fiber optic broadband.

Today they announced a proposed "legislative framework" around 'net neutrality. If you're not sure what this all about, here's a brief overview:

The Internet is a collection of networks that carry data between computers. This data is transported in the form of packets, where one logical communication, a video for example, is broken down into a series of packets that are carried from the sender to the receiver. This is a core feature of the Internet, and makes it very resilient because packets can be sent along many paths to get to their destination, so if in the middle of a transfer a cable gets cut somewhere the packets can immediately be re-routed over a different connection to get to the destination.

Now all of this is fine until there are more packets waiting to be sent than can be carried over any one segment of the network. When this happens, packets are delayed, like cars in a traffic jam, and the result is a slower download or choppy video. This can and does happen when there is not enough bandwidth or when bandwidth is shared across a number of users. To solve this problem companies can add more bandwidth by adding cables and equipment to the network; mobile companies might add more cell towers and backhaul circuits.

Another approach to solving this problem is to prioritize traffic, so that some packets get sent with a higher priority than others. Imagine a highway with bus or carpool lanes; while most cars sit in rush hour traffic, carpools and buses zip by at full speed. The network can be just like that, with certain bandwidth reserved for specific types of packets.

Where this gets interesting is that many of the companies that provide Internet connections and carry packets also provide data services. Consider your cable TV company — you can buy Internet service from them but they also provide video and voice services. What would happen if they protected the quality of their video and voice services by reducing the quality of Netflix and Skype? Would that be fair to these other companies?

This is the core argument for 'net neutrality; companies that carry Internet packets should not be allowed to prioritize some traffic at the cost of other traffic. If you prioritize, you are not neutral because you will make that prioritized service better than the non-prioritized service.

The concern is that without rules that require network companies to treat all packets equally, they will eventually resort to prioritizing their services and throttling those of competitors. The cable company wants you to use their video on demand, not Netflix or Hulu. The phone company wants you to use their voice service, not Skype or Fring. Thus, in the end, these alternative services won't get a fair chance because the network companies will choke them out and stifle competition.

I agree with a general policy that would prevent traffic prioritization, and think there ought to be a clear delineation between companies that transport packets and companies that provide data services like email, video, voice calling, and social networking. Without this, the Internet innovation engine will stall and we will return to the bad old days when a few big companies controlled all the information and communication services available to us. Even though there is no longer a telecommunications monopoly, over 97% of the US population gets mobile service from just four companies (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile) and a very large portion gets fixed line service from Verizon, AT&T, and a small number of major cable companies, so a small number of large companies have an awful lot of power.

However, in this announcement Google and Verizon take it upon themselves to define a framework where some traffic can be prioritized to allow broadband service providers to offer "differentiated services" whose packets could be prioritized over others. I think this loophole would be exercised to the maximum extent possible by the consumer fixed and mobile broadband companies in order to preserve their revenues at the expense of competitors.

What do you think?