I’d like to take a moment to look at neutrality through the lens of how the Internet was designed to work under TCP/IP protocol. The short version of how the Internet works is that devices connected to the Net all have an address, and send information to other devices including the home and desired address. Routers along the network, which are aware of other nearby machines and routers, pass the information along until it reaches the desired destination. Part of the address (the subnet) tells the router generally which direction to send the information to get to another subnet on the Internet (where the destination machine resides). Since the network is redundant, and the routers only know which nearby networks are live, things are quite reliable. This simple design is why the network might be called “dumb,” and this model (putting the intelligence in applications instead of routing) is what has made the Internet a success—and removing neutrality in some ways could put this in jeopardy. I start with this argument because, again, I feel it is most important and largely lost in the overall debate. To take away neutrality would destroy this design.
Turning to market arguments, I apologize for not being able to find hard evidence of the limited choice for broadband service (although one article in the Washington Post argues that for many “geography still dictates their choice of Internet Service Providers” even in a large city like Washington D.C., “On the Web Where You Live,” May 13, 2005). Even assuming that there is consumer choice in broadband service, I still believe there are a number of market reasons to promote neutrality. An understanding of how the Internet works might show that the changes that are being proposed might happen in higher layers of networking (specifically, the transport layer). It’s conceivable that a non-neutral network would operate just as transparently to the user (for example, if a content provider pays for better access, the user may have no indication of this because the fact would be hidden by the network). Essentially, this is creating a separate “market” for content provider access to high-speed lines. This has great potential to lock out future innovators of Internet technologies, and possibly limit one’s ability to be a personal content provider (such as a popular video blogger). Additionally, again taking from an understanding of the existing architecture and building on the first argument, I would say that markets do a terrible job of creating what made the Internet successful: standards. As anyone who has to deal with multiple digital video formats may know, incompatibilities between the various types and systems can be a true pain. The TCP/IP non-neutral standard has created a commons where headaches like this just don’t happen. While the providers seem to be on the same page for moving away from neutrality (this oligopoly is another argument against the effectiveness of the market), there is no indication that they could agree on a common standard for a non-neutral Internet.
I’m not arguing against the market; rather that it may not be entirely effective in this case. Another historical view of network regulation (“Rules From Truth,” Bar and Sandvig, 2000) offers further insight into prior reasons for regulating communication networks. They point out that network externalities and “increasing returns” often increase the power of the network owners and move towards a natural monopoly, and argue that we have traditionally considered access to communication a fundamental right. They conclude that maintaining the “ability to design” is a crucial part to our previous communication policy, which has driven innovation because of the openness and transparency of the network. They explain this drive well: “Network users invented new patterns of communication and implemented them on a network infrastructure where their ability to design was promoted by open TCP/IP standards and open access to some of the telephone network’s building blocks.”
If I didn’t say it before, thanks again for the comments. I apologize if this has started to sound more like a paper than a blog, but this is turning into an enjoyable debate. As Stanley Fish said of his time traveling with Dinesh D’Souza debating the politics of education, “Neither of us, I think, changed the other’s mind on the issues we debated, but it is fair to say that both of us sharpened our arguments in the course of the … [debates].”