Adebate raging on Capitol Hill over so-called ""network neutrality"" could change the way we use and pay for the Internet.
At its core is a simple question that comes out of elementary microeconomics: As the Internet becomes more and more costly to operate, how should Internet Service Providers pass costs on to consumers?
The term ""network neutrality"" was coined by Columbia University law professor Tim Wu to describe computer networks that process information without regard to the type of application requsting access.
Technically, the Internet has never been truly neutral. The underlying protocols and communication technologies were primarily designed for non-real-time applications, such as transferring files from one computer to another. This was done due to the (initial) unreliability of any particular link in the chain between computers.
However, as the ‘net has matured, real-time applications have proliferated despite the underlying technical difficulties. Now, for example, many phone calls are transferred through the internet alongside requests for web sites using a technology called Voice-over-IP.
The rise in recent years of online gaming, peer-to-peer file sharing and streaming video has also drastically increased the amount of traffic that must be routed in real-time, and ISPs have been forced to invest in an ever expanding infrastructure in order to provide a consistent level of service.
These days, the Internet functions rather like a toll way, with users paying for the bandwidth they use without regard for how they're using it.
Consumers usually purchase Internet access by choosing the maximum amount of data they want to transfer per second, while companies like Google and Blizzard Entertainment (which hosts the popular online RPG World of Warcraft) pay a fee for each unit of information that is transmitted.
Currently proposed legislation would in essence prevent ISPs from charging for ""Quality-of-Service"" packages, while still allowing the current amount-of-service differentiation. The proposed law would also prevent ISPs from censoring legal content such as pornography while absolving them from responsibility for certain kinds of copyright violations.
Backers of network neutrality legislation, including Google, eBay and consumers rights groups believe that without regulations, ISPs could decide to charge companies different amounts for the same total bandwidth. For example, an ISP could decide to slow Google's search traffic unless Google gave the ISP a share of its advertising revenue.
Others fear that large compies could encourage ISPs to limit the traffic of competitors, stymieing the open environment present in the web application market.
University Housing residents already experience a form of type-of-service regulation. ResNet employs a software package known as a packet shaper to slow peer-to-peer traffic between Housing residents and the internet at large.
Opponents of network neutrality legislation claim that it 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 [infrastructure].""
While this might not be a hot-button issue such as abortion, the discussion of network neutrality has the potential to affect everyone's use of the internet for years to come.
Keaton Miller is a junior majoring in economics and mathematics. He isn't neutral about network neutrality himself, but hopes that this overview wasn't too biased. Send comments, complaints, and malformed TCP/IP packet headers to keatonmiller@wisc.edu.
