Net Neutrality Wins! But who are the real winners and losers in the long run?

By: Bandwidth and High Speed Internet Access (HSIA) for Events Workgroup

The Open Internet or Net Neutrality is big news again as the FCC recently took steps to protect it.

But what is Net Neutrality? Net Neutrality is the concept that Internet Service Providers (ISP) should enable access to all data on the Internet without any discrimination— each website, user and application should be treated equally. It’s been the basis of the Internet since its inception and it means that ISPs can’t slow down some traffic (say Netflix for example) in favor of their own video streaming service – everyone has a level playing field.

For a light-hearted look at the problem, check out John Oliver’s take on things. After this video was first broadcast in June 2014, four (4) million Americans to made comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding net neutrality.

Net Neutrality is still big news and recently, the FCC took steps to protect it. How? Well, in short, the FCC just granted itself powers to set rules around the conduct of Internet Service Providers by using the 1934 Telecommunications Act – something called Title II reclassification. Supporters of this position say that the FCC isn’t looking to make a lot of changes except to prevent ISPs from moving to a "pay to play" model for content providers and that the FCC had to do it this way, based on a 2010 court case that prevented the FCC from taking this step under the old rules. Opponents of reclassification call it government overreach. The truth as always is somewhere in the middle. Nothing changes immediately. FCC merely gave itself the authority to set the rules – but didn’t actually set any... yet. They did give us some insight though as to what those rules will be:

No Blocking: broadband providers may not block access to legal content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
No Throttling: broadband providers may not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
No Paid Prioritization: broadband providers may not favor some lawful Internet traffic over other lawful traffic in exchange for consideration – in other words, no "fast lanes." This rule also bans ISPs from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates.

For the meetings industry this initially looks like good news since the alternative would have meant venue selection to include specific research on the venue’s ISP and which content deals they made; an almost impossible task.

The ISPs on the other hand say that the rules stifle their ability to invest in their networks in order to keep up with the huge extra demand placed on them (for no additional compensation) from companies like Netflix and Facebook and are over burdensome.

Overall the change raises more questions than it does answers:

Will FCC only enact the minimum of rules to keep data neutral? Or will it use it to introduce a new tax on data?
Will ISPs continue to invest and will they increase prices to consumers to do it if they can’t get money from the content providers?
Will Congress step in and modify the FCCs approach?
Will hotels have to abide by the same rules when delivering bandwidth to their customers? Will they be allowed to throttle based on content – even if it’s desirable to save the meeting from overusing bandwidth?

The answer, as always, is wait and see. In the meantime, take some time to read up on Net Neutrality, as this issue will not only affect you in your personal life, but very possibly impact the way you have to do business in the future.

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