Net Neutrality – Americans Finally Root for the FCC. Should They?

April 16, 2010 - By Phineas Delgado

Over the past few days, I’ve been contemplating a news item I came across recently about something I’d never heard of before: “Net Neutrality”. What I heard on the news report (on Bob and Tom no less, which should show how seriously I take getting my news) piqued my interest. I started looking into what Net Neutrality was and how it affected me. I mean it must be important, or Kristie Lee wouldn’t have talked about it, right? And being the intrepid purveyor of geek knowledge that I am, I decided to share with you, my loyal readers.

So to save you hours of reading, here’s what I discovered in one sentence: Net Neutrality is a myth. Fitting, really, considering that my last article talked about Perseus and Medusa, but this is a different kind of myth. It’s kind of like Centrifugal Force; it isn’t what we all think it is. Allow me to explain. First, we have to look at what Net Neutrality is supposed to be. The legal explanation is that it is the idea that a subscriber to a service should be allowed to use that service any way they see fit, at the full level of service promised based on the amount paid. The provider of that service, then, would not be allowed to discriminate against content or applications, or limit network usage based on such. For you and me, that means that if I pay Time Warner for 10 Megabit access, I should be able to use the full bandwidth to do whatever I want online with whatever applications I want.

Like me, some of you may be asking, “doesn’t that already happen?” Well, I’d like to think it does, for the most part, but when I see that my download of “Real Genius” is going to take 7d 3h 42m 12s, I begin to wonder. It’s common knowledge that the Internet Service Providers (ISP) limit the network access of P2P (Peer to Peer) programs, like BitTorrent, in an effort to curb sharing of music and movies. I suppose that isn’t the most evil idea ever, since it’s arguably against the law to do that anyway. Regardless, the FCC has since tried to impose fines for such limitations, like those imposed on CompuServe in 2007, but was recently told that it doesn’t have the authority to do so. This is a long standing and ongoing fight, too. The ISPs have threatened the FCC with derailing the national effort to have 100 Megabit service available to 200 Million Households by 2020 if it changes the rules to impose its idea of Net Neutrality.

What’s this mean for you and me? Not much. Net Neutrality doesn’t exist, remember? Sure the FCC is looking to regulate what access ISPs allow their users to have (which is something they deregulated just a few years ago). But even if the FCC wins, and it will win… it always wins… keep in mind this is the same FCC that curtails our freedom of speech on a daily basis. This is the same FCC that raised the fine for on-the-air profanity to astronomical levels because of a “wardrobe malfunction”. This is the same FCC that made it impossible to say “penis” after Lorena Bobbit so graciously opened those floodgates in 1993.  I wonder how long it would be before they imposed similar restrictions on Internet content. Most industry analysts agree that eventually the FCC will get what it wants, either by changing its charter in Congress, or by using its power to change the how Net Services are classified. I’m just afraid that if it DOES succeed, that the FCC will then impose its version of morality on us as well. I think I’d rather have slower P2P downloads, to be honest with you. That’s right I’m picking porn over piracy. Wouldn’t you?