On the topic of Net Neutrality

Today is the Day of Action on Net Neutrality.

I am most definitely for net neutrality.  The frustrating thing is, everyone claims to be for an open and neutral internet--people just disagree on what it means.  AT&T is joining the net neutrality protest, which is basically like protesting against yourself.  So, I feel that comments to the FCC or congress demanding net neutrality be maintained will result in the response of, "No problem!  That's what we're already doing!" while the FCC eliminates the rules that protect the parts most people actually care about.  I feel that a greater degree of specificity is necessary to be effective, and for opponents to not just dismiss a comment as uninformed or not actually against what they are doing.

So, what do I consider net neutrality?  Why is it important?  Why are ISPs and the current head of FCC against it and do they have legitimate points?  And what exactly is the FCC planning to do that sites are protesting against?

For me, net neutrality is about treating all uses of internet, regardless of source, the same.  It doesn't mean a user can't prioritize different types of traffic.  You probably want your real time video conferencing traffic to be prioritized over a huge download that is going to take a few hours.  Net neutrality does not stop this.  But it means an ISP can't block or slow down, say, Netflix, but allow full access to Hulu.

This is important to me because the internet allows for disruptive innovation.  The rise of online video streaming and voice communication is a premier example.  Without net neutrality rules, there's nothing stopping Comcast from blocking or slowing down Netflix, which competes directly against their cable business.  Comcast has already refused to upgrade their connection with Netflix's ISP, Level 7, forcing Netflix to pay for connectivity with Comcast's network directly.  AT&T blocked Apple's video conferencing software, FaceTime, until enough people complained to the FCC, since it's an obvious threat to its own voice plans.

Without net neutrality rules, ISPs can pick losers and winners in the internet.

What is the bad thing about to happen that is causing people to shout that net neutrality is about to die?  The FCC, under chairman Ajit Pai, plans on reclassifying ISPs away from being common carriers such that Title II of the Communications Act no longer applies to them.  Without this classification, it doesn't seem like the FCC has any authority to prevent blocking or throttling of sites, or to maintain net neutrality at all.

Why does Ajit Pai want to do this?

1. The argument that current regulations around net neutrality are old and expensive to adhere to, based on a law made in 1934.
   
   That regulations are unnecessarily complex and antiquated is an argument I am sympathetic to, having experienced bureaucratic rules and inefficiency and crazy tales from people who used to work for the government.  I don't know if this is the case for Title II, but it wouldn't surprise me if many parts of it are overly burdensome.  If it is the case, the solution is to fix the rules, not eliminate them.
   
   The FCC actually tried for some time to have a looser regulatory hand, with an approach that seemed to be that anything goes until enough people complain, until Verizon sued that they didn't have the authority to enforce their open internet rules.  The courts decided that this was indeed true unless FCC reclassified ISPs to be regulated by Title II, which courts agreed that the FCC did have the authority to do.
   
   So, I feel like ISPs more or less brought it upon themselves to have stricter rules apply to them, having left the FCC with no other recourse to enforce open internet principles.
2. There's an argument to be made that an open internet violates the First Amendment.
   
   As far as I can tell, Ajit Pai appears to be against not allowing ISPs to block sites on the basis that the ISPs shouldn't be forced to transmit information they themselves are against.
   
   This argument is not at all persuasive to me because I don't visit websites expecting that the ISP has established an opinion of any of it at all, so it's hard to argue that a user is attributing any content to the ISP, or describing any of it as the ISP's speech.
   
   It's also not persuasive because I'm explicitly paying ISPs to provide me the content I request, and if they don't want to do that, they should not be in that line of business.  This is more or less how I feel about pharmacists that refuse to fulfill prescriptions due to religious reasons when there's not another pharmacist who can right there.
3. That open internet rules prevents several innovative business practices, such as fast lanes, zero rating, or free access to specific sites.
   
   One thing ISPs wanted to experiment with is enabling "fast lanes" for certain sites.  That is, instead of slowing down sites they don't like below that of your normal speed, they'll speed up specific sites they do like possibly beyond the speed you are nominally paying for.  This doesn't seem too bad on initial look for customers--who wouldn't mind getting speeds faster than what one is paying for, even if limited to only a few sites?  But it aligns incentives for the ISP the wrong way.  In order to extract more money from sites for buying access to fast lanes, there's much less incentive to upgrade the now slow lanes.  It might not be picking both winners and losers, but it certainly feels like picking winners.
   
   Zero-rating is not considering some traffic to count against a bandwidth limit.  It's actually not explicitly prohibited as far as I can tell, and some companies already do this.  For example, T-Mobile has a program called "Binge On" that allows you to stream some things without counting against your limits.  The interesting thing about T-Mobile's program is that theoretically any video provider can opt into this program without paying them money--they just need to adhere to specific rules like not providing video above 480p resolution.
   
   This particular form of zero rating (if it were actually implemented the way T-Mobile described, which it is not) does not violate my definition of net neutrality since it doesn't matter where the traffic is from, it just matters how it behaves.
   
   However, it does have some threat to disruptive innovation--T-Mobile could refuse to raise data caps in the future and refuse to zero-rate a new technology, say holographic projection, that jeopardizes its voice services.  Ultimately, though, T-Mobile's stance is that Title II does not actually prohibit this, and I'm less against it.  I would be against zero-rating that forces a site to pay for it, or is otherwise not generally open--again, it aligns the incentive structure for the ISP the wrong way.
   
   The last business practice that Title II seems to prevent is actually one I do think regulations should not prohibit, and that's free internet access to certain sites.  If Facebook wants to allow free access to only some sites, such as their own, without the customer paying for anything, I think that should be allowed.  The relationship between Facebook and a customer would be pretty clear if the customer were not actually paying for internet access.
4. Ajit Pai says reclassifying ISPs to be common carriers was an unnecessarily heavy-handed move considering that there were no problems that needed to be fixed.
   
   I consider this statement demonstrably untrue.  There's quite a history of net neutrality violations, and it's unclear to me if Ajit Pai believes these things should be allowed, or if he feels that the FCC would be able to stop them without reclassification.  The clearest cut examples include:
   
   
   1. The AT&T blocking VOIP (e.g. Skype and FaceTime), since it competed with its own voice services.
   2. Comcast blocking peer-to-peer file sharing protocols. A lot of this was illegal file-sharing, but it also blocked legal file-sharing, such as downloads of Linux distributions.
   3. MetroPCS blocked all video streaming sites except YouTube.
   4. AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon blocked access to Google Wallet, since they were developing a competitor called Isis
   Now, all of these were undone by the FCC, but with the recent court ruling that the FCC doesn't have the authority to do this unless the ISPs are classified to be common carriers, I don't know what other choice there is.
5. Net neutrality rules have a chilling effect on investing in improving the network.
   
   I feel like this a common Republican talking point--if you allow companies to extract more money more easily, companies will surely grow faster in order to do this and competition will keep things cheap for the customer.
   
   This can be true in some situations.  Just as it's possible to extract more tax revenue by reducing taxes in certain situations.  But does it apply to the current situation?
   
   At least one study (from an admittedly biased source) indicates that investment has not been chilled.  I'm not aware of any counterpoint studies that state otherwise--just the companies themselves.  And even if it did dampen broadband investment, a careful look should be taken to see what sort of chilling effect the lack of net neutrality rules have on the next Netflix.

Now, I'm generally in favor of less bureaucracy when possible.  The great thing about the free market, when it's actually competitive, is that it leads to efficient results.  I like simple systems where the natural tendency is towards good things.  But the ISP market is far from free due to needing either radio wave spectrum or physical lines, both of which are natural monopolies, and most ISPs are either video or voice providers and have a conflict of interest in enabling websites that compete with their own services.  Roads and utilities are more examples of natural monopolies that most people agree should be heavily regulated.

Thus, I am strongly in favor of retaining the classification of ISPs as common carriers to maintain net neutrality.  It might not be necessary if there were regulations that allowed customers to meaningfully choose between dozens of ISPs, but since that's not the case, common carrier classification it is.

If you support maintaining common carrier classification for ISPs or at least some of the definitions of net neutrality I outlined above, please write a comment to the FCC.  I've certainly done so.  Former FCC commissioner Gigi Sohn outlines what makes an effective comment and how to file it.