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The end of the net as we know it
Posted on 21 Jan 2011 at 13:34
The regulator also places great faith in the power of competition: the theory that broadband subscribers would simply jump ship to another ISP if their provider started doing beastly things – for example, cutting off services such as the iPlayer. It’s a theory echoed by the ISPs themselves. “If we started blocking access to certain news sites, you could be sure within about 23 minutes it would be up on a blog and we’d be chastised for it, quite rightly too,” said TalkTalk’s Heaney.
First and foremost, users should be able to access and distribute the content, services and applications they want
Yet, in the age of bundled packages – where broadband subscriptions are routinely sold as part of the same deal as TV, telephone or mobile services – hopping from one ISP to another is rarely simple. Not to mention the 18-month or two-year contracts broadband customers are frequently chained to. As the BBC pointed out in its submission to the regulator, “Ofcom’s 2009 research showed that a quarter of households found it difficult to switch broadband and bundled services”, with the “perceived hassle of the switching process” and “the threat of additional charges” dissuading potential switchers.
“Once you have bought a device or entered a contract, that’s that,” argued the Open Rights Group’s Jim Killock. “So you make your choice and you lump it, whereas the whole point of the internet is you make your choice, you don’t like it, you change your mind.”
The best hope of maintaining the status quo of a free and open internet may lie with the EU (although even its determination is wavering). The EU’s 2009 framework requires national regulators such as Ofcom to promote “the ability of end users to access and distribute information or run applications and services of their choice” and that ISPs are transparent about any traffic management.
It even pre-empts the scenario of ISPs putting favoured partners in the “fast lane” and crippling the rest, by giving Ofcom the power to set “minimum quality of service requirements” – forcing ISPs to reserve a set amount of bandwidth so that their traffic management doesn’t hobble those sites that can’t afford to pay.
It’s a concept enthusiastically backed by the BBC and others, but not by the ISPs or Ofcom, which doesn’t have to use this new power handed down by Brussels and seems reluctant to do so. “There doesn’t yet seem to us to be an overwhelming case for a public intervention that would effectively create a new industry structure around this idea of a guaranteed ‘best efforts’ internet underpinned by legislation,” said Ofcom’s Blowers.
It’s an attitude that sparks dismay from campaigners. “Ofcom’s approach creates large risks for the open internet,” said Killock. “Its attempts to manage and mitigate the risks are weak, by relying on transparency and competition alone, and it’s unfortunate it hasn’t addressed the idea of a minimum service guarantee.”
At least the EU is adamant that ISPs shouldn’t be permitted to block legal websites or services that conflict with their commercial interests. “First and foremost, users should be able to access and distribute the content, services and applications they want,” said European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes earlier this year.
“Discrimination against undesired competitors – for instance, those providing voice-over the internet services – shouldn’t be allowed.”Yet, Ofcom doesn’t even regard this as a major issue. “When VoIP services were first launched in the UK, most [mobile] network operators were against permitting VoIP,” Blowers said. “We now know that you can find packages from a number of suppliers that do permit VoIP services.
So I’m not as pessimistic as some may be that this kind of gaming behaviour around blocking services will be a real problem.”If the EU doesn’t drag the UK’s relaxed regulator into line with the rest of the world, it will be British internet users who have the real problem.
Author: Barry Collins
What will happen if broadcasters can pay for priority on the internet? The issue of "net neutrality" is interesting and I hope it's an issue we'll hear more of because, if we don't, it'll disappear by default.
This article covers both sides of the argument quite well. The problem with much writing about net neutrality is it comes from a US perspective. It's a much more important issue there because most people have very little choice of internet service provider.
However, as this PC Pro article points out, in other countries such as the UK, the choice can be somewhat illusory. For many consumers their ISP is also their phone and TV service.
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