tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/net-neutrality-1069/articlesNet neutrality – The Conversation2019-11-14T18:27:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1261702019-11-14T18:27:52Z2019-11-14T18:27:52ZCities and states take up the battle for an open internet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301382/original/file-20191112-178520-1dalirv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communities across the U.S. are taking network construction into their own hands.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/concept-network-troubleshoot-supporter-administrator-internet-507379189">T.Dallas/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon are <a href="https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/FA43C305E2B9A35485258486004F6D0F/%24file/18-1051-1808766.pdf">free to slow down, block or prioritize internet traffic</a> as they wish, without interference by the federal government. That’s the effect of an October ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-restoring-internet-freedom-order">upholding a 2017 ruling by the Federal Communications Commission</a> that reversed rules requiring what is called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-net-neutrality-10-essential-reads-71848">net neutrality</a>” – treating all internet traffic equally, regardless of where it’s from or what kind of data it is.</p>
<p>Giving corporate telecom giants this power is <a href="http://www.publicconsultation.org/united-states/overwhelming-bipartisan-majority-opposes-repealing-net-neutrality">wildly unpopular among the American people</a>, who know that these companies have <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/02/fcc-accuses-atandt-and-verizon-of-violating-net-neutrality/">overcharged customers</a> and <a href="https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/explainers/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history">interfered with users’ internet access</a> in the past. </p>
<p>However, people who advocate for an open internet, free of corporate roadblocks, might find solace in another aspect of the court’s ruling: States and local governments may be able to mandate <a href="https://qz.com/1721633/us-net-neutralitys-crushing-defeat-this-week-may-end-up-saving-it/">their own net neutrality rules</a>.</p>
<h2>The effort is underway</h2>
<p>Governors in six states – Hawaii, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont – have already signed executive orders enforcing net neutrality by prohibiting state agencies from doing business with internet service providers that limit customers’ online access. Four states have passed their own laws <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/net-neutrality-legislation-in-states.aspx">requiring internet companies to treat all online content equally</a>: California, Oregon, Washington and Vermont. A <a href="https://www.governing.com/news/headlines/GT-New-Hampshire-Bill-Will-Allow-Multi-Town-Broadband-System.html">New Hampshire bill</a> is in the works.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.freepress.net/news/press-releases/more-100-mayors-sign-pledge-protect-open-internet-fccs-net-neutrality-repeal">More than 100 mayors</a> representing both large urban centers such as San Francisco and small cities such as Edmond, Oklahoma, have pledged not to sign contracts with internet service providers that violate net neutrality. </p>
<p>These mayors are leveraging the lucrative contracts that their municipalities have with internet providers to wire public schools, libraries and local government buildings to pressure these companies into observing net neutrality throughout the city.</p>
<p>The emerging patchwork of local- and state-level net neutrality legislation could help ensure that millions of Americans have access to an open internet. However, people living outside of these enclaves will still be vulnerable to the whims of for-profit internet service providers. In our new book, “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300241402/after-net-neutrality">After Net Neutrality: A New Deal for the Digital Age</a>,” we argue that the best way to protect the public interest is to remove internet service from the commercial market and treat broadband as a public utility.</p>
<p><iframe id="KXdlE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KXdlE/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Corporations focus on profits</h2>
<p>Broadband giants have spent <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/net_neutrality/">millions of dollars</a> lobbying against federal open internet regulations since 2006. Industry-backed efforts even included funding a network of far-right online trolls <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jsvine/net-neutrality-fcc-fake-comments-impersonation">to spam the FCC’s website</a> with anti-net neutrality propaganda. These companies continue to want the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-04/youtube-and-netflix-throttled-by-carriers-research-finds">power to manipulate online traffic</a>, such as charging users and content providers like Netflix <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/20/netflix-blasts-isps-calls-for-strong-net-neutrality-and-explains-why-it-pays-comcast/">to access each other</a> – even though both are already paying for connections to the internet.</p>
<p>This history of manipulation highlights a recurring challenge to the ideal of net neutrality: Governments seek to reconcile the public’s interest in open, nondiscriminatory online communication with the profit interests of large internet service providers. The resulting policies only narrowly target corporations’ manipulative practices, while letting the companies continue to own and control the physical network itself.</p>
<h2>Cities build their own</h2>
<p>A different vision of how the internet could operate is already taking shape across the United States. In recent years, many cities and towns around the country have <a href="https://muninetworks.org/communitymap">built their own broadband networks</a>. These communities are often seeking to provide affordable high-speed internet service to neighborhoods that the for-profit network providers aren’t adequately serving.</p>
<p>One of the best-known efforts is in the city of <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/chattanooga-was-a-typical-post-industrial-city-then-it-began-offering-municipal-broadband/">Chattanooga, Tennessee</a>, which built its own high-speed fiber-optic internet network in 2009. </p>
<p>Chattanooga’s experiment has been an unequivocal success: According to <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne5k5m/consumer-reports-broadband-company-ratings">a 2018 survey</a> conducted by Consumer Reports, Chattanooga’s municipal broadband network is the top-rated internet provider in the entire U.S. </p>
<p>More than <a href="https://muninetworks.org/communitymap">500 other communities</a> around the country operate publicly owned internet networks. In general, these networks are <a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2018/01/communityfiber">cheaper, faster and more transparent in their pricing</a> than their private sector counterparts, despite lacking Comcast and Verizon’s gigantic economies of scale. Because the people operating municipal broadband networks serve communities rather than large shareholders on Wall Street, they have a vested interest in respecting net neutrality principles.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301571/original/file-20191113-77326-13rw9zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301571/original/file-20191113-77326-13rw9zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301571/original/file-20191113-77326-13rw9zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301571/original/file-20191113-77326-13rw9zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301571/original/file-20191113-77326-13rw9zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301571/original/file-20191113-77326-13rw9zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301571/original/file-20191113-77326-13rw9zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301571/original/file-20191113-77326-13rw9zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The city of Chattanooga has connected its residents and businesses with a municipally owned high-speed internet network.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-chattanooga-tennessee-tn-skyline-1173602353">Kevin Ruck/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Thinking bigger</h2>
<p>A number of much larger-scale public broadband initiatives have also been proposed to combat the power of the giant internet companies. In the 2018 election cycle, Democratic gubernatorial candidates from <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/could-vermont-become-the-first-state-with-universal-broadband/">Vermont</a> and <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/one-democrats-bold-plan-to-win-back-rural-trump-voters-cheap-internet">Michigan</a> proposed building publicly owned statewide internet networks. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ledgertranscript.com/What-presidential-candidates-are-saying-in-their-broadband-proposals-27938409">Several Democratic presidential candidates</a> have announced plans to build <a href="https://www.benton.org/blog/2020-candidates-offer-plans-extend-reach-broadband">thousands of miles of publicly owned high-speed internet</a> connections. They vary in the details, but all are responses to the concentration of corporate control over internet access – both in terms of who gets high-speed service in what locations at what price, and what content those connections carry. </p>
<p>Together, these initiatives reflect a growing understanding that Americans need a more expansive vision of an open internet to truly realize the <a href="https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence">democratic promise of an internet that reaches everyone</a>. </p>
<p>High-quality, affordable, restriction-free internet access can come from publicly owned providers that answer directly to the people. In our view, and in the eyes of a growing number of Americans, the broadband industry uses its entrenched market power to serve itself, not the public.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Pickard is a board member of the media reform organization Free Press. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Elliot Berman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A recent federal court ruling lets big telecom companies censor the internet in ways that boost their own profits – but also allows local and state governments to outlaw censorship if they wish.David Elliot Berman, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of PennsylvaniaVictor Pickard, Associate Professor of Communication, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106722019-01-28T18:51:43Z2019-01-28T18:51:43ZThe end of web neutrality, the end of the Internet?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255876/original/file-20190128-108364-ygsgxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C69%2C5168%2C3375&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Optical fibres carry data from the web, these cables were previously neutral containers -- but not anymore.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pkirtz/15653529233/in/photolist-pRfqT4-vFdWbU-cFpCt-qN2mj2-cFpwP-89QvaY-cFpDU-4d8fzd-qvzmxF-cFpyJ-cFpvE-8crgPp-cFpAd-cFpxk-cFpt3-cFpuk-48d9An-7CnX7y-pUQXKF-mhXfd-k4wbS-pCvJA3-oY7vYr-7NhZ1D-4oRUFe-pUQZve-qvzsNB-pCvE6b-qvzoBv-oY4u8u-pUF4ZF-2ts6Qe-qvARLB-qKJvMY-55jo5L-qN2qzM-qMS84Z-6vt7yw-bFgroM-6voV7P-oY4t1E-4ph3Tn-qvztQg-2aGzgy-wwSRs-6RsqLj-dWAhx5-pCsJiJ-okt6j5-o3HtoX">Groman123/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A December 2017 decision by the Federal Communication Commission (<a href="https://www.fcc.gov/">FCC</a>), the American agency responsible for regulating the US telecom sector (equivalent of the French <a href="https://www.arcep.fr/">ARCEP</a> and the <a href="http://berec.europa.eu/">European BEREC</a>), has <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/net-neutrality-repeal-reasons-ajit-pai-trump-official-article-explanation-a8068091.html">changed the status of its Internet-service providers</a>. While Europe is protected because of the <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32015R2120&from=FR">law on open Internet access</a>, adopted in 2015, the change in the United States provides a good opportunity for reflecting on the neutrality of Internet services.</p>
<p>An Internet services provider (ISP in the United States, or FAI in France) provides services to subscribers. It is seen as a supplier of neutral services that should not influence how subscribers use the network. This contrasts with television channels, which have the right to manage their broadcasts as they wish and can therefore offer differentiated broadcasting services.</p>
<h2>A recurring issue in the United States</h2>
<p>In the United States, there has long been a call for deregulating the sector of Internet service providers. In the early 2000s, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_IP">Voice over IP</a> (VoIP) was introduced. Telephone communications were expensive in the United States at the time; this system, which made it possible to make free phone calls, therefore met great success. The same phenomenon can be seen today with the service provided by Netflix, which can freely provide its subscribers with streaming video content.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/11/so-the-internets-about-to-lose-its-net-neutrality/">Since 2013</a>, several attempts have been made to put an end to the legal notion of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier">“common carrier”</a> as applied to American Internet access providers.</p>
<p>This concept of American and English law requires the entities subject to this type of regulation to transport persons and goods without discrimination. Internet service providers are therefore required to transport network packets without any differentiation regarding the type or origin of service.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"615057499138445313"}"></div></p>
<p>This change does not have unanimous support, <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2017/11/29/fcc-should-not-give-broadband-providers-keys-your-Internet-freedom">including within the FCC</a>. It will allow American ISPs to manage traffic in a way that enables them to differentiate the data transport services they offer to customers.</p>
<p>There is therefore an opposition between service providers (the pipes) and content providers (the services, the most emblematic being the Big 5 Tech companies: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft). To summarise, the service providers complain that the content providers are taking advantage of the pipes, and even clogging them, without contributing to the development of the infrastructure. To which they respond that the service providers are funded by subscriptions, while the content they provide free of charge offers the network its attractiveness.</p>
<p>It is also important to note that some big-five tech companies are their own ISP. For example, Google is the ISP for Kansas City, and is also probably the largest owner of optical fibre in the world.</p>
<h2>A few figures</h2>
<p>Over the 10 ten years, the French operators indicate that they will need to invest 72 billion euros in developing their networks to support very high-speed connections and 5G (figure provided by Michel Combot, <a href="https://www.fftelecoms.org/en/">FFTelecoms</a>). In 2017, there were 28.2 million fixed network subscribers and 74.2 million SIM cards in France.</p>
<p>I estimate the average monthly costs for the fixed network subscriptions (excluding modem) at around 30 euros, those of mobile subscriptions at around 10 euros (excluding equipment, with an average cost including equipment of around 21 euros). If the investment is absorbed by the fixed subscriptions alone, this comes to around 21 euros per month, or two-thirds the cost of the subscription. If it is absorbed by all of the subscriptions, this amounts to a little less than 6 euros per month, which represents a small portion of the fixed subscription, but a significant portion of the mobile subscription.</p>
<p>Overall, the investment represents 38% of the revenue generated during this period, based on the assumptions above.</p>
<p>In conclusion, the investment appears sustainable, even in a European market that is significantly more competitive than the U.S. market, where the costs of Internet subscriptions are three times more expensive than European costs. It therefore appears possible for the ISP to maintain their level of investment.</p>
<p>However, it is also very clear that the growth in turnover for GAFAM companies is nowhere near that of telecom operators and ISPs. The issue of services is therefore very interesting, yet it cannot be limited to traffic management issues.</p>
<h2>Traffic management, a necessary evil</h2>
<p>The practice of managing traffic has long existed, for example to support offers for virtual private networks (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network">VPN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiprotocol_Label_Switching">MPLS</a>) for businesses.</p>
<p>These same mechanisms can be used to guide the responses of certain services (such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anycast">Anycast</a>) in order to fight <a href="https://blogrecherche.wp.imt.fr/en/2018/02/22/when-the-Internet-goes-down/">denial of service attacks</a>. They are also used to manage routing. In addition, they enable open connection sharing, enabling you to let guests use your modem without hindering your own use. In short, they certainly serve a purpose.</p>
<p>We can compare what is happening on the Internet to <em>road networks</em>. The ISPs manage the traffic lanes and the services manage the destinations. Since the road network is shared, everyone can access it without discrimination. However, there are rules of use in the form of a driver’s manual, for the Internet this is defined by the IP protocol. There are also temporary changes (traffic lights, detours, stop signs) that affect the flow of traffic. These are the mechanisms that are used to manage traffic.</p>
<p>Traffic management is a legitimate activity, and operators are making the most of it. They see traffic management as a significant cost. Therefore, in their opinion, it is unnecessary to have any regulation provided by an authority, because the economic aspect of managing networks necessarily results in their neutrality in terms of content. They therefore see no interest in modifying the traffic from an economic perspective.</p>
<p>This argument is hardly acceptable. We have already seen examples of these kinds of practices, and many of the tools have already been deployed in the network. Traffic management will continue to exist, but it should not be further developed.</p>
<h2>Regulating services</h2>
<p>Using this same analogy, Internet services can be compared to <em>cities</em>. Their purpose is to attract visitors. They reap economic benefits, in the form of the visitors’ spending, without contributing to the development of the national road network that enable visitors to access them. This system works because the state collects a large share of the tax and is the guarantor of the public good. It is therefore its duty to allow access to all the cities, without discrimination. The state also ensures that equal laws are established in the different cities; which I believe is missing in the Internet world.</p>
<p>Internet services have become common goods, with the Internet’s role as a universal platform making them just as indispensable as the “pipes” used to access them. It would therefore be wise to study the regulation of services to complement network regulations. Internet services suffer from very significant mass effects, in which the winner takes the majority of the market and almost all the profits.</p>
<p>This bias occurs through the analysis of behavioural data collected during interactions with these services. It is further <a href="http://www.ens-lyon.fr/DI/les-biais-dans-les-algorithmes/?lang=en">reinforced by algorithmic biases</a>, which reinforce our behavioural biases. We end up receiving from the Net only what we might like. Or worse, what the Net thinks of us.</p>
<h2>The problem of data</h2>
<p>This again brings us to the problem of data. Yes, statistical trends do enable us to predict certain future events. This is the basis for insurance. For many people, this makes sense, but for the Internet world, this involves building communities that gradually become isolated. This makes sense commercially for the GAFAM because social approval from one’s community increases impulsive buying phenomena. These purchases are made, for example, when Amazon sends you a message related to products you looked at a few days before, or when Google targets ads related to your e-mail.</p>
<p>In addition to the need for neutral pipes, it would therefore be worthwhile to reflect on the neutrality of services and algorithms. With the arrival of the <a href="https://www.cnil.fr/en/general-data-protection-regulation-guide-assist-processors">General Data Protection Regulation</a>, this should help strengthen our trust in the operation of the all the networks and services that we have become so dependent upon. This is all the more important since Internet services have become an increasing source of income for a significant percentage of the French population.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was translated from the original French by the <a href="https://blogrecherche.wp.imt.fr/en/2018/09/11/end-web-neutrality-end-internet/">Institut Mines-Télécom</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110672/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hervé Debar has received funding from the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme (H2020), the National Research Agency (ANR), the Directorate General for Enterprise (DGE) under the FUI and PIA programmes, the Essonne General Council (ASTRE programme), the Mines-Télécom Foundation and the Carnot TSN Institute. He represents Institut Mines Télécom on the "Digital Confidence and Security" steering committee of the System@tic pole and at the European CyberSecurity Organisation (ECSO).
</span></em></p>Until last December, Internet service providers were required to respect the principle of web neutrality. This is no longer the case in the United States. What are the consequences?Hervé Debar, Directeur de la Recherche et des Formations Doctorales à Télécom SudParis, Télécom SudParis – Institut Mines-TélécomLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/987512018-07-10T10:41:28Z2018-07-10T10:41:28ZAT&T-Time Warner, net neutrality and how to make sense of the media merger frenzy<p>Last month, the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/12/media/att-time-warner-ruling/index.html">Department of Justice lost its suit</a> to prevent AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner. </p>
<p>The agency had brought the case out of <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-challenges-attdirectv-s-acquisition-time-warner">concern</a> that the acquisition would reduce competition and in turn result in higher prices for consumers as well as less innovation. </p>
<p>Although the Justice Department <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/12/justice-department-will-appeal-time-warner-att-merger-approval-dow-j.html">is appealing</a> the ruling, the June decision encouraged a <a href="https://deadline.com/2018/07/disney-should-win-fox-analysts-say-1202420556/">still-ongoing bidding war</a> between Disney and Comcast for most of the assets of 21st Century Fox. It also prompted business <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/hundreds-of-millions-in-fees-at-stake-in-media-merger-frenzy-1528928459">journalists</a> to predict a coming <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/healthtrending/atandt-time-warner-and-the-entire-media-merger-frenzy-explained/vi-AAyyphQ">frenzy</a> of mergers.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/we-now-disrupt-broadcast">research</a> tracks how the media business has changed over the last two decades and what that change means for consumers. I’ve learned that not all mergers are alike, and some are more consequential than others. As I’ll show, allowing mergers like AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner will profoundly reshape the American media landscape, even more so because of the elimination of net neutrality.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226545/original/file-20180706-122247-1a91qu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226545/original/file-20180706-122247-1a91qu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226545/original/file-20180706-122247-1a91qu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226545/original/file-20180706-122247-1a91qu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226545/original/file-20180706-122247-1a91qu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226545/original/file-20180706-122247-1a91qu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226545/original/file-20180706-122247-1a91qu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actress Yara Shahidi stars in ‘Black-ish’ on ABC. Disney’s purchase of ABC in 1995 was a so-called horizontal merger because it combined content companies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/-Black-ish-FYC-Event-Arrivals/39fd49f482fc4695a87cca00b9361557/97/0">Invision/AP/Richard Shotwell</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>All media businesses are not the same</h2>
<p>The first thing to understand about these mergers is that not all “media” companies do the same thing.</p>
<p>Some media companies create content – they decide what to produce, fund its creation and organize it as a schedule of programming for a channel. Content companies then negotiate with cable/internet and satellite businesses that distribute that content to millions of homes that pay them to provide programming or internet access. </p>
<p>Until 2011, a logic of keeping content and distribution companies distinct guided the organization of the media industry, what legal scholar Tim Wu terms a “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Information-Empires-Borzoi/dp/0307269930">separations principle</a>.” The businesses that create content and the cable/internet companies that enable it to reach viewers were, for the most part, different entities. </p>
<p>The reason AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner is so significant is that it allowed a major distribution company to purchase a large content company. </p>
<p>Consumers pay <a href="https://www.att.com/Common/about_us/pdf/att_btn.pdf">AT&T</a> to receive mobile phone (159 million in the U.S. and Mexico), video (47 million) and internet services (15.8 million). Time Warner is mostly a content creation company. Its holdings include Warner Entertainment, Turner Broadcasting and HBO. </p>
<p>This type of “vertical” integration – the joining of companies that perform different aspects of the supply chain – has not been as much a concern for <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/public-statements/2018/01/vertical-merger-enforcement-ftc">antitrust regulators</a> as “horizontal” mergers, which they often try to prevent. That’s because horizontal deals allow a merger of two companies that do the same thing – creating a monopoly in the most extreme – and might give them considerable competitive advantage over others. </p>
<h2>Fox’s suitors and the end of ‘separations’</h2>
<p>But the competitive dynamics of media aren’t like other industries. </p>
<p>Distributors often have considerable power because they face limited and sometimes no competition. Normal marketplace dynamics have not operated because <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Communications-Policy-Principles-Communication/dp/1572733438">U.S. policy</a> – in acknowledgment of the infrastructure required to wire a nation – has offered these services protections that have allowed them to operate as monopolies or with minimal competition. This has given consumers very <a href="http://theconversation.com/americas-broadband-market-needs-more-competition-71676">little choice</a> in providers and has led to the many <a href="http://carseywolf.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Lotz_ChannelBundles.pdf">aspects of service</a> that frustrate them.</p>
<p>When looking at the acquisition of Fox – a content company – its two suitors create different concerns. </p>
<p>Like Fox, Disney is mostly a content company. Their merger would provide Disney with greater market power in negotiating with cable/internet companies and reduce the employment marketplace for creative talent. It’s a classic horizontal tie-up, the kind antitrust investigators often oppose, but less concerning than a vertical deal because of the conditions of the U.S. media marketplace.</p>
<p>Comcast is a cable/internet company, which would make its acquisition of Fox a vertical merger and raise the same concerns as the AT&T-Time Warner deal. Such concerns derive from particular features of media, like the way their content isn’t perfectly substitutable and plays important democratic and cultural functions. </p>
<p>Since <a href="https://variety.com/2013/biz/news/pay-tv-prices-are-at-the-breaking-point-and-theyre-only-going-to-get-worse-1200886691/">90 percent</a> of professionally produced U.S. television is created by just nine companies, the net result is a dysfunctional marketplace that makes vertical mergers concerning.</p>
<h2>A new media landscape</h2>
<p>The U.S. television industry has been in the midst of constant, precipitous change for the last 20 years in response to the arrival of the internet as a new technology for delivering video. </p>
<p>During that time, new competitors have arisen – such as Netflix – while others that dominated cable and broadcast distribution have developed internet-distributed services – think HBO Now and CBS All Access. Yet, these new “competitors” rely on the same content creators that make shows for cable and broadcast, so the current ecosystem is multifaceted with many entities that are as complementary as competitive.</p>
<p>For consumers, it will be difficult to distinguish the implications of the erosion of the separations principle from the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/11/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-explained/index.html">abandonment of net neutrality</a> policy, a change that became official the same week as the ruling in the AT&T-Time Warner case in June. </p>
<p>The elimination of net neutrality allows internet service providers to require companies that distribute content over the internet to pay for prioritization – what has been described as a “fast lane” – to be readily available to customers. Imposing those fees on companies such as Netflix and Hulu will most likely lead them to hike fees to subscribers. </p>
<p>Consumers are likely to see these implications sooner – within the year – than they are to notice changes to the competitive landscape of U.S. media because of the AT&T-Time Warner merger. But the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/06/11/618928905/net-neutrality-has-been-rolled-back-but-its-not-dead-yet">end of net neutrality</a> magnifies the impact of this deal. </p>
<p>That is, AT&T will be able to treat its own content favorably – for example, HBO won’t have to pay to receive fast-lane access on AT&T’s internet service – but AT&T will likely require competing services such as Netflix to pay up. AT&T might also make HBO very expensive for those who do not receive its internet service in order to encourage subscribers to switch providers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226548/original/file-20180706-122268-49x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226548/original/file-20180706-122268-49x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226548/original/file-20180706-122268-49x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226548/original/file-20180706-122268-49x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226548/original/file-20180706-122268-49x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226548/original/file-20180706-122268-49x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226548/original/file-20180706-122268-49x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Netflix, one of the newer competitors on the TV landscape, airs ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ the company’s most viewed original show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Netflix-s-Orange-Is-the-New-Black-Season-Five-/2d73c7b78aea4ddd99481d44df59bd31/84/0">Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>Like the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Empires-Entertainment-Industries-Deregulation-1980-1996/dp/081355053X/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529705521&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=empires+of+entertainmnet">series of mergers in the early-to-mid 1990s</a> that completely reconfigured media into the conglomerated structure Americans now face, the AT&T acquisition of Time Warner similarly signals the dawn of a new competitive field. </p>
<p>The implications of those mergers weren’t immediately evident in the 1990s either. It took five to 10 years for strategies and industrial practices to shift, and when they did, it was rarely obvious that the root cause was the new ownership structure. This will likely be the case now too. </p>
<p>The abandonment of the separations principle means distribution companies like AT&T can use access to exclusive content as a strategy to drive consumers to purchase their service. That may be a reasonable strategy if most consumers had more than one or two options for internet service, but the reality is Americans do not. </p>
<p>As a result, consumers with specific tastes – those who want NFL football, HBO and AMC dramas like “The Walking Dead” – may find themselves paying much more if their internet/cable provider doesn’t own all the content they desire. </p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to reflect new information.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Lotz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of the media business tries to make sense of the flurry of merger news lately, and why the contested tie-up between AT&T and Time Warner will profoundly reshape the American media landscape.Amanda Lotz, Fellow, Peabody Media Center; Professor of Media Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/963232018-05-15T22:58:54Z2018-05-15T22:58:54ZQuayside Toronto project proves that smart city talks must be transparent<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218709/original/file-20180513-34006-dk5b61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Toronto could learn a lot from Brazil following the flawed and opaque consultation process to develop parts of the city's waterfront.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On May 3, six months into what was initially billed as a year-long public consultation process, Sidewalk Toronto held only its second public meeting on its smart city Quayside development plans.</p>
<p>The proposed Quayside community was supposed to be a global showcase for what a smart city, “built from the internet up,” would look like.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/05/03/details-on-sidewalk-labs-waterfront-tech-district-remain-fuzzy.html">But by all accounts</a>, the latest meeting did <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/bianca-wylie/sidewalk-labs-toronto-plans-transparency_a_23428379/">little to clarify crucial issues</a>, such as how Sidewalk Labs, the Google sister company partnering with the Waterfront Toronto tri-governmental agency on this project, <a href="https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/05/10/1525932000000/Google-fication--continued/">would make its money</a>. Most crucially for a project that is all about data collection and implies ubiquitous surveillance, their data governance plans remain unclear.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218837/original/file-20180514-100697-2xazhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218837/original/file-20180514-100697-2xazhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218837/original/file-20180514-100697-2xazhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218837/original/file-20180514-100697-2xazhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218837/original/file-20180514-100697-2xazhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218837/original/file-20180514-100697-2xazhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218837/original/file-20180514-100697-2xazhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff shake hands in Toronto in October 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More to the point, negotiations between Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto remain shrouded in secrecy, and in the absence of a clearly structured true consultation, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to believe Sidewalk Toronto’s Dan Doctoroff and Will Fleissig’s <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/11/01/the-neighbourhood-of-the-future-starts-with-your-ideas.html">commitment to work with</a> “the city and the local community” in “co-creating” Quayside. </p>
<p>Rather, the process resembles a public relations campaign, a suspicion not allayed by Sidewalk Toronto’s <a href="https://sidewalktoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Sidewalk-Toronto-Public-Engagement-Plan.pdf">public engagement plan</a>’s inclusion of consultative measures such as a “YMCA-Sidewalk Toronto Summer Kids Camp” for nine-to-12-year-olds.</p>
<h2>‘Last century’ consultation process</h2>
<p>For such a forward-thinking, data-driven project, Sidewalk Toronto’s consultation process is very last century. This became clear to us during interviews we recently conducted with Brazilian internet and knowledge experts.</p>
<p>In 2009, Brazilians were thinking about how to regulate the internet to address issues such as net neutrality and privacy rights. Like data governance today, these important issues generally were not well-understood, and were of great interest to economically influential officials.</p>
<p>The consultation process they came up with in response to this situation both demonstrates the inadequacy of the Quayside process and offers a better way forward.</p>
<p>So what did they do?</p>
<p>First, they ran a two-stage process. The first stage solicited public input, which responded to clearly stated topics set by subject experts, designed to be partly educational. Crucially, this was not just a one-way street: They used an online platform to allow for collaboration among contributors.</p>
<p>In the second stage, the public responded to a draft legal text, which they could compare to the first-stage discussions.</p>
<p>Second, the process was fully transparent. Everyone — from the largest telecommunications company on down — was required to put their views on the record via this consultation. This had the effect of increasing the relative influence of less-powerful groups at the cost of the large corporations.</p>
<p>Third, although internet regulation touches on issues that include as rights, security, and economics, the government made it very clear that it saw internet rights as human rights.</p>
<p>Eventually, the process yielded the <a href="http://infojustice.org/archives/31272">Brazilian <em>Internet Bill of Rights</em></a> (or <em>Marco Civil da Internet</em>), a law that enjoys a very high degree of legitimacy based on our discussions with people in business, academia, government and civil society; many of them credit this very process for that legitimacy.</p>
<h2>Lessons for Waterfront Toronto</h2>
<p>The <em>Marco Civil</em> consultations contain several lessons for Waterfront Toronto, which, as the lead government agency, is ultimately responsible to the public:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Ditch the arbitrary 12-month deadline. As <a href="https://www.techresetcanada.org/">Tech Reset Canada</a> co-founder <a href="https://medium.com/@biancawylie/sidewalk-toronto-public-meeting-2-time-to-start-over-extend-the-process-a0575b3adfc3">Bianca Wylie notes</a>, Waterfront Toronto isn’t stuck with Sidewalk Labs. This project is too important not to get it right, and if Sidewalk Labs thinks it’s worth doing, it will wait. Or Waterfront Toronto can work with someone else.</p></li>
<li><p>Hold two-stage consultations. As with the <em>Marco Civil</em>, Waterfront Toronto should consult experts to help design a consultation aimed at educating the public on data and privacy issues and to encourage actual collaboration within a structured conversation. This would be an excellent job for Waterfront Toronto’s <a href="https://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/nbe/wcm/connect/waterfront/055f67fd-ffb0-4f5c-be38-61d2566fa2b3/20180427+-+Digital+Strategy+Advisory+Panel+-+release+final+-+042718.pdf">recently formed Digital Strategy Advisory Panel</a>. Only once the consultations have been concluded should a draft plan be created; it, too, must be open to consultation.</p></li>
<li><p>Consultations must be fully transparent. Waterfront Toronto cannot create a plan in the public interest that enjoys real legitimacy if it is engaged in secret negotiations with a supplier (for example, Sidewalk Labs). Companies like Sidewalk Labs should react to the demands and needs of the community and not be granted a privileged place at the table.</p></li>
<li><p>The consultations and plan must recognize that digital rights are human rights. Economic innovation is important, but the economy and the city should be the servants of humanity, not the other way around.</p></li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218842/original/file-20180514-100719-mmlfbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218842/original/file-20180514-100719-mmlfbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218842/original/file-20180514-100719-mmlfbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218842/original/file-20180514-100719-mmlfbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218842/original/file-20180514-100719-mmlfbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218842/original/file-20180514-100719-mmlfbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218842/original/file-20180514-100719-mmlfbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The site of Toronto’s proposed Sidewalk Labs’ smart city.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sidewalk Labs)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Getting these consultations right is important. Although digital data collection is becoming increasingly central to economic, social and political life, policymakers, academics and governments are still trying to understand the full implications of what it means to live in a world of ubiquitous data collection and surveillance.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-quayside-has-taught-us-about-smart-cities-and-data-governance-93905">What Quayside has taught us about smart cities and data governance</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There are conflicting economic, geopolitical and human rights interests at stake.</p>
<p>Policymakers around the world are watching this project. What Waterfront Toronto does here will have significant impact on similar projects around the world. </p>
<p>If the community does not have a significant role in shaping this project, it’s hard to see how it will either be seen as legitimate or reflect the wider public interest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blayne Haggart receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Tusikov receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council and has received funding from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada Contributions Grant.</span></em></p>Toronto’s Quayside smart city project needs a new, truly consultative process. An innovative method used by Brazil to develop its landmark Internet Bill of Rights may be the answer.Blayne Haggart, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock UniversityNatasha Tusikov, Assistant Professor, Criminology, Department of Social Science, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/950302018-04-27T10:44:32Z2018-04-27T10:44:32ZThe internet is designed for corporations, not people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216545/original/file-20180426-175035-vyoh03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Conversations on Facebook ethics are part of a bigger conversation about information architecture.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alastair Grant</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Urban spaces are often <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cities-use-design-to-drive-homeless-people-away/373067/">designed</a> to be subtly hostile to certain uses. Think about, for example, the seat partitions on bus terminal benches that make it harder for the homeless to sleep there or the decorative leaves on railings in front of office buildings and on university campuses that serve to make skateboarding dangerous. </p>
<p>Scholars call this <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cities-use-design-to-drive-homeless-people-away/373067/">“hostile urban architecture.”</a> </p>
<p>When a few weeks ago, news broke that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/mark-zuckerberg-testify-congress.html">Facebook shared millions of users’ private information</a> with Cambridge Analytica, which then used it for political purposes, I saw the parallels. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZiL1i4kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar</a> of the social and political implications of technology, I would argue the internet is designed to be hostile to the people who use it. I call it a “hostile information architecture.” </p>
<h2>The depth of the privacy problem</h2>
<p>Let’s start with Facebook and privacy. Sites like Facebook <a href="https://theconversation.com/fragmented-us-privacy-rules-leave-large-data-loopholes-for-facebook-and-others-94606">supposedly protect user privacy</a> with a practice called “notice and consent.” This practice is the business model of the internet. Sites fund their “free” services by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/opinions/data-company-spying-opinion-schneier/index.html">collecting information</a> about users and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/opinion/facebook-cambridge-analytica.html">selling that information</a> to others. </p>
<p>Of course, these sites present privacy policies to users to notify them how their information will be used. They ask users to “click here to accept” them. The problem is that these policies are <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobody-reads-privacy-policies-heres-how-to-fix-that-81932">nearly impossible to understand</a>. As a result, no one knows what they have consented to. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216550/original/file-20180426-175047-oc20oj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216550/original/file-20180426-175047-oc20oj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216550/original/file-20180426-175047-oc20oj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216550/original/file-20180426-175047-oc20oj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216550/original/file-20180426-175047-oc20oj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216550/original/file-20180426-175047-oc20oj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216550/original/file-20180426-175047-oc20oj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Users are also unable to protect themselves, as opting out of sites like Facebook and Google isn’t viable for most.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/privacy-settings-web-page-computer-screen-308763962?src=2f2sgR6d21LV5AkGj81wMQ-1-57">David M G/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But that’s not all. The problem runs deeper than that. Legal scholar <a href="https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.overview&personid=28509">Katherine Strandburg</a> has <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol2013/iss1/5/">pointed out</a> that the entire metaphor of a market where consumers trade privacy for services is deeply flawed. It is advertisers, not users, who are Facebook’s real customers. Users have no idea what they are “paying” and have no possible way of knowing the value of their information. Users are also unable to protect themselves, as opting out of sites like Facebook and Google isn’t viable for most. </p>
<p>As I have <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2533057">argued in an academic journal</a>, the main thing notice and consent does is subtly communicate to users the idea that their privacy is a commodity that they trade for services. It certainly does not protect their privacy. It also hurts innocent people. </p>
<p>It’s not just that most of those whose data made it to Cambridge Analytica did not consent to that transfer, but it’s also the case that Facebook has vast troves of data even on those who <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/internet-privacy/facebook-tracking-me-even-though-im-not-facebook">refuse to use</a> its services. </p>
<p>Not unrelated, news broke recently that thousands of Google Play apps – probably illegally – <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2018/04/android_mobile_apps_track_children_study.html">track children</a>. We can expect stories like this to surface again and again. The truth is there is too much money in personal information. </p>
<h2>Facebook’s hostile information architecture</h2>
<p>Facebook’s privacy problem is both a symptom of its hostile information architecture and an excellent example of it. </p>
<p>Several years ago, two of my colleagues, <a href="http://www.celinelatulipe.com/">Celine Latulipe</a> and <a href="https://webpages.uncc.edu/richter/">Heather Lipford</a> and I published <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=1427546">an article</a> in which we argued that many of Facebook’s privacy issues were problems of design. </p>
<p>Our argument was that these design elements violated ordinary people’s expectations of how information about them would travel. For example, Facebook allowed apps to collect information on users’ friends (this is why the Cambridge Analytica problem impacted so many people). But no one who signed up for, say, tennis lessons would think that the tennis club should have access to personal information about their friends. </p>
<p>The details have changed since then, but they aren’t better. Facebook still makes it very hard for you to control how much data it gets about you. Everything about the Facebook experience is very carefully curated. Users who don’t like it have little choice, as the site has a virtual monopoly on social networking. </p>
<h2>The internet’s hostile architecture</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.lessig.org/about/">Lawrence Lessig</a>, one of the leading legal scholars of the internet, <a href="http://codev2.cc/">wrote a pioneering book</a> that discussed the similarities between architecture in physical space and things like interfaces online. Both can regulate what you do in a place, as anyone who has tried to access content behind a “paywall” immediately understands.</p>
<p>In the present context, the idea that the internet is at least somewhat of a public space where one can meet friends, listen to music, go shopping, and get news is a complete myth. </p>
<p>Unless you make money by trafficking in user data, internet architecture is hostile from top to bottom. That the business model of companies like Facebook is based on targeted advertising is only part of the story. Here are some other examples of how the internet is designed by and for companies, not the public.</p>
<p>Consider first that the internet in the U.S. isn’t actually, in any legal sense, a public space. The hardware is all owned by telecom companies, and they have <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-already-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/">successfully lobbied</a> 20 state legislatures to ban efforts by cities to build out public broadband. </p>
<p>The Federal Trade Commission has recently declared its intention to undo Obama-era <a href="http://theconversation.com/understanding-net-neutrality-10-essential-reads-71848">net neutrality</a> rules. The rollback, which treats the internet as a <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2117497">vehicle for delivering paid content</a>, would allow ISPs like the telecom companies to deliver their own content, or paid content, faster than (or instead of) everyone else’s. So advertising could come faster, and your blog about free speech could take a very long time to load. </p>
<p>Copyright law gives sites like YouTube very strong legal incentives to <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=1577785">unilaterally and automatically, without user consent, take down</a> material that someone says is infringing, and very few incentives to restore it, even if it is legitimate. These takedown provisions include content that would be protected free speech in other contexts; both President Barack Obama and Senator John McCain campaigns had material removed from their YouTube channels in the weeks prior to the 2008 elections. </p>
<p>Federal requirements that content-filtering software is installed in public libraries that receive federal funding <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=1288090">regulate</a> the only internet the poor can access. These privately produced programs are designed to block access to pornography, but they tend to sweep up other material, particularly if it is about LGBTQ+ issues. Worse, the companies that make these programs are under no obligation to disclose how or what their software blocks.</p>
<p>In short, the internet has enough seat dividers and decorative leaves to be a hostile architecture. This time, though, it’s a hostile information architecture.</p>
<h2>A broader conversation</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216553/original/file-20180426-175074-k4z9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216553/original/file-20180426-175074-k4z9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216553/original/file-20180426-175074-k4z9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216553/original/file-20180426-175074-k4z9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216553/original/file-20180426-175074-k4z9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216553/original/file-20180426-175074-k4z9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216553/original/file-20180426-175074-k4z9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What should be included in today’s conversations about Facebook?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So let’s do have a conversation about Facebook. But let’s make that part of a bigger conversation about information architecture, and how much of it should be ceded to corporate interests. </p>
<p>As the celebrated urban theorist and activist <a href="https://www.pps.org/article/jjacobs-2">Jane Jacobs</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cit.html?id=P_bPTgOoBYkC">famously wrote</a>, the best public spaces involve lots of side streets and unplanned interactions. Our current information architecture, like our heavily surveilled urban architecture, is going in the opposite direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95030/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gordon Hull does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert explains how Facebook’s privacy issues are linked to a bigger problem – a ‘hostile information architecture,’ largely controlled by corporate interests.Gordon Hull, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director of Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/886232018-04-27T10:44:15Z2018-04-27T10:44:15ZInternet openness pits collaborative history against competitive future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216026/original/file-20180423-94160-wuj2ns.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two views of the internet collide in the net neutrality debate.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-male-hands-about-shake-over-72451381">The Conversation composite from Malyugin and AAR Studios/Shutterstock.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The debate about how open the internet should be to free expression – and how much companies should be able to restrict, or charge for, communication speeds – boils down to a conflict between the internet’s collaborative beginnings and its present commercialized form.</p>
<p>The internet originated in the late 1960s in the <a href="https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/">U.S. Department of Defense’s ARPANET project</a>, whose goal was to enable government <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/ARPANET">researchers around the country to communicate</a> and coordinate with each other. When the general public was allowed online in the early 1990s, intellectuals saw an opportunity to include all mankind in the collaborative online community that had developed. As internet rights pioneer John Barlow wrote, “<a href="https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence">We are creating a world that all may enter</a> without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs.” </p>
<p>Even today, many of the people who contribute to the technical evolution of the network continue to view the internet as a place to share human knowledge for self-improvement and the betterment of society. As a result, <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-net-neutrality-10-essential-reads-71848">many people are troubled</a> when internet companies try to charge more money for faster access to digital commodities like streaming videos.</p>
<p>As a researcher in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lFnZ7RkAAAAJ&hl=en">computer networks and security</a>, I note that the problems are not just philosophical: The internet is based on technologies that complicate the task of commercializing the online world.</p>
<h2>The ‘true’ internet</h2>
<p>In practice, the designers of the technology at the foundation of the internet were not really attempting to enforce any particular philosophy. One of them, David Clark, wrote in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/52324.52336">1988 paper</a> that early internet architects did consider commercial features, such as accounting. Being able to keep track of how much data – and which data – each user is sending is very useful, if those users are to be charged for connectivity. However, most of those commercial features didn’t get included because they weren’t needed for a government and military network.</p>
<p>These decisions decades ago echo through the years: There is no effective and universal way to distinguish between different types of internet traffic, for example, to give some priority or charge extra for others. If whoever produces the traffic actively tries to evade restrictions, separating content gets even more difficult.</p>
<h2>Using old tools in new ways</h2>
<p>One of the few sources of information about how internet companies handle this challenge comes from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-fccs-proposed-internet-rules-may-spell-trouble-ahead-82561">recent research at Northeastern University</a>. It suggests that they may be using a technique called “<a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-deep-packet-inspection-works">deep packet inspection</a>” to identify, for example, video traffic from a particular streaming service. Then internet companies can decide at what speed to deliver that traffic, whether to throttle it or give it priority.</p>
<p>But deep packet inspection was not developed for this type of commercial discrimination. In fact, it was developed in the internet security community as a way of identifying and blocking malicious communications. Its goal is to make the internet more secure, not to simplify billing. So it’s not a particularly good accounting tool.</p>
<p>Like many other researchers working on deep packet inspection, I learned that its algorithms <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/319709.319710">may fail to correctly identify different types of traffic</a> – and that it can be fooled by a data sender dedicated to avoiding detection. In the context of internet security, these limitations are acceptable, because it’s impossible to prevent all attacks, so the main goal is to make them more difficult.</p>
<p>But deep packet inspection is not reliable enough for internet service providers to use it to discriminate between types of traffic. Inaccuracies may cause them to throttle traffic they didn’t intend to, or not to throttle data they meant to slow down. </p>
<h2>Breaking the cycle</h2>
<p>The Northeastern team found that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2940136.2940140">T-Mobile seems to throttle YouTube videos</a>, but not ones from Vimeo – likely because the company does not know how to identify Vimeo traffic. As the researchers pointed out, this could lead sites like YouTube to disguise their traffic so it also does not get identified. The peril comes if that pushes internet companies to step up their deep packet inspection efforts. The resulting cat-and-mouse game could affect traffic from other sources.</p>
<p>As internet companies experiment with what they can achieve within their technical limitations, these sorts of problems are likely to become more common, at least in the short term. In the long term, of course, their influence could force <a href="https://harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html">changes in the technical underpinnings</a> of the internet. But, in my view, the internet’s current architecture means throttling and traffic discrimination will be at least as difficult – if not more so – as it is today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88623/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorenzo De Carli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The internet developed as a place for open collaboration; there are technical limits on its transformation into a commercial marketplace.Lorenzo De Carli, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/916162018-03-06T11:39:53Z2018-03-06T11:39:53ZFor tech giants, a cautionary tale from 19th century railroads on the limits of competition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208956/original/file-20180305-146655-1l0ia1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Southern Pacific steam engine No. 1364 in 1891.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATrain_at_Arcade_Station%2C_1891_(00031881).jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Late 19th-century Americans loved railroads, which seemed to eradicate time and space, moving goods and people more cheaply and more conveniently than ever before. And they feared railroads because in most of the country it was impossible to do business without them.</p>
<p>Businesses, and the republic itself, seemed to be at the mercy of the <a href="https://archive.org/details/railwaysandrepu00hudsgoog">monopoly power</a> of railroad corporations. American farmers, businessmen and consumers thought of competition as a way to ensure fairness in the marketplace. But with no real competitors over many routes, railroads could charge different rates to different customers. This power to decide economic winners and losers threatened not only individual businesses but also the conditions that sustained the republic.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208953/original/file-20180305-146650-3i9vpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208953/original/file-20180305-146650-3i9vpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208953/original/file-20180305-146650-3i9vpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208953/original/file-20180305-146650-3i9vpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208953/original/file-20180305-146650-3i9vpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208953/original/file-20180305-146650-3i9vpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208953/original/file-20180305-146650-3i9vpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208953/original/file-20180305-146650-3i9vpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1882 political cartoon portrays the railroad industry as a monopolistic octopus, with its tentacles controlling many businesses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Curse_of_California.jpg">G. Frederick Keller</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That may sound familiar. As <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-republic-for-which-it-stands-9780199735815?cc=us&lang=en&">a historian of that first Gilded Age</a>, I see parallels between the power of the railroads and today’s internet giants like Verizon and Comcast. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/technology/right-and-left-net-neutrality.html">current regulators</a> – the Federal Communications Commission’s <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-restoring-internet-freedom-order">Republican majority</a> – and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-isps-competition-net-neutrality-ajit-pai-fcc-2017-4#-3">many of its critics</a> both embrace a solution that 19th-century Americans tried and dismissed: market competition.</p>
<h2>Monopolies as natural and efficient</h2>
<p>In the 1880s, the most sophisticated railroad managers and some economists argued that railroads were “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/natural_monopoly.asp">natural monopolies</a>,” the inevitable consequence of an industry that required huge investments in rights of way over land, constructing railways, and building train engines and rail cars. </p>
<p>Competition was expensive and wasteful. In 1886 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the Missouri Pacific Railroad both built railroad tracks heading west from the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in Kansas to Greeley County on the western border, roughly 200 miles away. The tracks ran parallel to each other, about two miles apart. Charles Francis Adams, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, called this redundancy the “<a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-34237-6/">maddest specimen of railroad construction of which</a>” he had ever heard. And then his own railroad built new tracks into western Kansas, too. </p>
<p>After ruinous bouts of competition like this, rival railroad companies would agree to cooperate, pooling the business in certain areas and setting common rates. These agreements effectively established monopolies, even if more than one company was involved. </p>
<h2>Monopolies as unfairly subsidized</h2>
<p>Anti-monopolists who opposed the railroads’ power argued that monopolies originated not as a result of efficient investment strategies, but rather <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-34237-6/">from special privileges afforded by the government</a>. Railroads had the ability to condemn land to build their routes. They got subsidies of land, loans, bonds and other financial aid from federal, state and local governments. Their political contributions and favors secured them supporters in legislatures, Congress and the courts.</p>
<p>As stronger railroads bought up weaker companies and divided up markets with the remaining competitors, the dangers of monopoly became more and more apparent. Railroad companies made decisions on innovation based on the effects on their bottom line, not societal values. For instance, the death toll was enormous: In 1893, 1,567 trainmen died and 18,877 were injured on the rails. Congress enacted the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2010/07/02/2010-16153/railroad-safety-appliance-standards-miscellaneous-revisions">first national railroad safety legislation</a> that year because the companies had insisted it was too expensive to put automatic braking systems and couplers on freight trains.</p>
<p>But a monopoly’s great economic and societal danger was its ability to decide who succeeded in business and who failed. For example, in 1883 the Northern Pacific Railway raised the rates it charged O.A. Dodge’s Idaho lumber company. The new rates left Dodge unable to compete with the rival Montana Improvement Company, reputedly owned by Northern Pacific executives and investors. Dodge knew the game was up. All he could do was ask if they wanted to buy his company.</p>
<p>For anti-monopolists, Dodge’s dilemma went to the heart of the issue. <a href="https://archive.org/details/railwaysandrepu00hudsgoog">Monopolies were intrinsically wrong</a> because they unfairly influenced businesses’ likelihood of success or failure. In an 1886 report on the railroad industry, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Interstate Commerce agreed, stating clearly that the “<a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1982-09-14/pdf/FR-1982-09-14.pdf">great desideratum is to secure equality</a>.”</p>
<h2>Turning to regulators for help</h2>
<p>To achieve equality, anti-monopolists wanted more government regulation and enforcement. By the late 1880s, some railroad executives were <a href="https://archive.org/details/railroadtranspo03hadlgoog">starting to agree</a>. Their efforts at cooperation had failed because railroads treated each other no better than they did their customers. As Charles Francis Adams put it, his own industry’s “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/books/review/book-review-railroaded-by-richard-white.html">method of doing business</a> is founded upon lying, cheating, and stealing: all bad things.” </p>
<p>The consensus was that the railroads needed the federal government to enforce the rules, bringing greater efficiency and ultimately lower rates. But Congress ran into a problem: If an even, competitive playing field depended on regulation, the marketplace wasn’t truly open or free.</p>
<p>The solution was no clearer then than it is now. The technologies of railroads inherently gave large operators advantages of efficiency and profitability. Large customers also got benefits: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Standard-Oil-Company-and-Trust">John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil</a>, for example, could guarantee large shipments and provide his own tank cars – so he got special rates and rebates. Newcomers and small enterprises were left out.</p>
<p>Some reformers suggested accepting monopolies, so long as their rates were carefully regulated. But the calculations were complex: Charges by the mile ignored the fact that most costs came not from transport but rather from loading, unloading and transferring freight. And even the best bookkeepers had a hard time <a href="https://archive.org/details/accountstheirco02colegoog">unraveling railway accounts</a>.</p>
<h2>Managing power</h2>
<p>The simplest solution, advanced by the Populist party and others, was the most difficult politically: <a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5361/">nationalize the railroad routes</a>. Turning them into a publicly owned network, like today’s interstate highway system, would give the government the responsibility to create clear, fair rules for private companies wishing to use them. But profitable railroads opposed it tooth and nail, and skeptical reformers did not want the government to buy derelict and unprofitable railroads.</p>
<p>The current controversy about the monopolistic power of internet service providers echoes those concerns from the first Gilded Age. As anti-monopolists did in the 19th century, advocates of an open internet argue that regulation will advance competition by creating a level playing field for all comers, big and small, resulting in more innovation and better products. (There was even a radical, if short-lived, proposal to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-administration-idea-for-nationalized-5g-falls-flat1/">nationalize high-speed wireless service</a>.)</p>
<p>However, no proposed regulations for an open internet address the <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/06/net-neutrality-missing/">existing power</a> of either the service providers or the “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-15/the-big-five-could-destroy-the-tech-ecosystem">Big Five</a>” internet giants: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Like Standard Oil, they have the power to wring enormous advantages from the internet service providers, to the detriment of smaller competitors.</p>
<p>The most important element of the debate – both then and now – is not the particular regulations that are or are not enacted. What’s crucial is the wider concerns about the effects on society. The Gilded Age’s anti-monopolists had political and moral concerns, not economic ones. They believed, as many in the U.S. still do, that a democracy’s economy should be judged not only – nor even primarily – by its financial output. Rather, success is how well it sustains the ideals, values and engaged citizenship on which free societies depend.</p>
<p>When monopoly threatens something as fundamental as the free circulation of information and the equal access of citizens to technologies central to their daily life, the issues are no longer economic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard White receives funding from Stanford Humanities Center, Huntington Library.
They gave me money but neither is connected to this subject.</span></em></p>Efforts to curb railroads’ monopoly power in the 19th century hold lessons for 21st-century policymakers and internet giants alike.Richard White, Professor of American History, Stanford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/896442018-01-18T23:23:06Z2018-01-18T23:23:06ZThe data war behind net neutrality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201694/original/file-20180111-101508-dojgri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C5230%2C3479&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ajit Pai, former Verizon lawyer turned head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), rolled back President Barack Obama's net neutrality policy in December.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the social and political saga surrounding the question of net neutrality, what is often overlooked is the data war going on behind the scenes. The real fuel behind the debate is the enormous volume of data we generate with each search and click.</p>
<p>As a marketable commodity, large-scale audience data has completely transformed the global economic landscape in less than a decade. The emergence of GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) germinated a disruptive new business model that capitalizes on what many consider to be the <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21721656-data-economy-demands-new-approach-antitrust-rules-worlds-most-valuable-resource">new oil</a>: Data. </p>
<p>Based on a study published by <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/Chart/Top-10-Brands-Worldwide-Ranked-by-Brand-Value-2006-2017-billions/209438">eMarketer in September 2017</a>, we can see how user-data companies (UDC) now hold the top five positions among the largest brands in the world.</p>
<iframe id="datawrapper-chart-zavPu" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/zavPu/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important;" height="323" width="100%"></iframe>
<p>In 2006, five of the top 10 brands were retailers. By 2017, nine of the top 10 brands in the world were UDCs. </p>
<h2>The business of user data</h2>
<p>The nature of the data business model can be understood by the relationship between its three core pillars: The internet user, who generates the data; the content publisher, who offers the internet user a service (often free) in exchange for personal data; and the advertiser, who buys data from content publishers in order to run more effective marketing campaigns. </p>
<p>The schema below attempts to illustrate the nature of this internet user data paradigm:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201057/original/file-20180107-26139-g7ude4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201057/original/file-20180107-26139-g7ude4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201057/original/file-20180107-26139-g7ude4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201057/original/file-20180107-26139-g7ude4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201057/original/file-20180107-26139-g7ude4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201057/original/file-20180107-26139-g7ude4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201057/original/file-20180107-26139-g7ude4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Credit: Adviso Conseil Inc.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Clearly, the winners in the 2017 repeal are the large U.S. telecommunications companies, who happen to be the glue, as internet providers, between the internet user and the publisher (Google, Facebook). They stand to gain an <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718716000023">enormous strategic advantage with the end of net neutrality</a>. </p>
<p>By having more control over an individual’s internet usage, those companies are in a position to adjust prices in ways that could significantly benefit their bottom line. For example, AT&T could decide that from now on, given the large bandwidth used by Netflix, the latter would have to pay a usage fee to maintain its regular website streaming speed. </p>
<p>Conversely, the internet service provider (ISP) could just as well charge internet users an extra fee to maintain their Netflix streaming at a regular or faster speed. In an extreme case of greed, the ISP could overcharge both Netflix and its user. </p>
<p>But there is more to it than that.</p>
<h2>The real reason Verizon bought AOL and Yahoo!</h2>
<p>In 2015, <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/06/24/verizon-gains-aol/">Fortune</a> purported what it deemed to be the “real reason Verizon bought AOL.” In that article, journalist Kevin Fitchard observed:</p>
<p><em>“Verizon isn’t trying to create an Internet powerhouse with this investment. It’s likely just trying to gain some type of foothold in the changing online industry, as its traditional communications business slows down.”</em></p>
<p>Fitchard is alluding to the dominance of the data business model that gave rise to GAFA. As such, we can see why telecom companies like Verizon that control the internet channels through which the data is transmitted would also want to control — and take advantage of — the data itself. As Fitchard further observes in the same article: </p>
<p><em>“While AOL may be most known for its dial-up services and growing content empire — which includes The Huffington Post, Engadget and TechCrunch — it also has put together a sophisticated suite of advertising technologies for online and traditional media that no other company (aside from Google and Facebook) can match.”</em></p>
<p>The advertising technology in question, commonly referred to as <a href="http://www.adviso.ca/en/blog/2014/11/04/lachat-programmatique-1ere-partie/">programmatic advertising</a>, uses advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) on the data generated by online user behaviour, and tracked by browser cookies or device IDs stored in mobile applications. Much of the advertising performance offered by Google, Facebook, AOL and others is largely attributed to their investments in this kind of technology, which Verizon can now leverage. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/big-tech-can-use-ai-to-extract-many-more-ad-dollars-from-our-clicks/">described in an email by John Cosley</a>, director of marketing for Microsoft search advertising, digital ads are “perhaps by far the most lucrative application of AI [and] machine learning in the industry.” </p>
<h2>The birth of a super entity</h2>
<p>To maximize the power of these advertising algorithms, companies need to secure big data. Since internet users are the prime generators of this precious raw material, publishers need to continually increase the number of visitors coming to their websites or mobile applications. </p>
<p>In a move to secure that expansion, shortly after its acquisition of AOL, Verizon bought Yahoo!, Google’s competitor in the search engine market. Yahoo! also has access to the entire Microsoft advertising network and its user data. </p>
<p>In order to assess the impact of this streak of acquisitions on total user reach of Verizon vs Google and Facebook, we used <a href="https://www.comscore.com/">comScore</a> data from May 2017, made available courtesy of Adviso Conseil. The comScore platform is essentially an audience analytics software used to track the data coming from most of the large desktop and mobile publishers in the world.</p>
<p>The data pulled for this graphic shows the distribution of unique visitors across all the top platforms in the United States. The chart clearly shows Yahoo! and Microsoft competing closely with Google and Facebook in terms of user reach. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201828/original/file-20180113-101518-1d9r7q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201828/original/file-20180113-101518-1d9r7q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201828/original/file-20180113-101518-1d9r7q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201828/original/file-20180113-101518-1d9r7q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201828/original/file-20180113-101518-1d9r7q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201828/original/file-20180113-101518-1d9r7q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201828/original/file-20180113-101518-1d9r7q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">comScore data for the United States (June 2017)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The competitive advantage of this merger — now a super-entity called <a href="https://www.oath.com/">Oath by Zerizon</a> — stands out immediately when one looks at the combined reach of AOL, Huffpost and Yahoo!. </p>
<h2>The U.S. and the rest of the world</h2>
<p>The best way to illustrate the direct relationship between data and net neutrality is to simply ask the following question: </p>
<p>If a telecommunication company like Verizon were in a position to compete with Google and Facebook for data dollars, what happens if it also controls the data pipeline used by its competitors?</p>
<p>The answer is obvious. If U.S. telecoms can capriciously control internet access, while also controlling platforms that compete with GAFA, what stops them from impeding the pipeline of their competitors? Absolutely nothing. </p>
<p>Back in 2014, German Chancellor <a href="http://vilaingeek.com/merkel-prend-position-contre-neutralite-net/">Angela Merkel spoke out against net neutrality</a>. We expect the recent decision in the U.S. to further affect the polarity of opinions on net neutrality in that region and in the rest of the world.</p>
<p>We should also note that Google, in an obvious preemptive response to the end of net neutrality, launched its own ISP infrastructure in 2010 called <a href="https://fiber.google.com/about/">Google Fiber</a>. </p>
<p>In the end, with the reigning status of the global top 10 brands on the line, the data war is undoubtedly what drives the debate over net neutrality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Lemire receives funding from the National Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicolas Scott and Roger Kamena do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Repealing net neutrality regulations in the United States will be disastrous for the rest of the world.Roger Kamena, Principal Consultant, Digital Media and Data Science, Université TÉLUQ Daniel Lemire, Professor, Université TÉLUQ Nicolas Scott, Université de MontréalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/896482018-01-10T11:40:22Z2018-01-10T11:40:22ZDefanged regulations have big media licking their chops<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201405/original/file-20180109-36009-qhta6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Consolidation is happening at a rapid pace. But who will bear the brunt of the costs?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/businessman-suit-tv-instead-head-keeping-756496138?src=pHgQ7avrqq46SC82CSqcUQ-2-12">Khakimullin Aleksandr/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The year 2017 ended with a flurry of news affecting all aspects of the media industry. A shift in net neutrality policy and Disney’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/disneys-potential-21st-century-fox-merger-continues-troubling-trend-of-media-consolidation-89229">planned purchase</a> of several Fox assets capped a year that also witnessed the pending merger between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media.</p>
<p>As someone who teaches and <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/we-now-disrupt-broadcast">writes</a> about the media industry, I’ve been following these developments closely. Whether you’re simply concerned about your cable and internet bill, or you’re wondering how the elimination of net neutrality will influence access to your favorite websites, here are some key stories and developments you should tune into in 2018.</p>
<h2>Buckle up for ‘fast lanes’</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/with-fccs-net-neutrality-ruling-the-us-could-lose-its-lead-in-online-consumer-protection-88816">The repeal of net neutrality</a> – the rules that prevent internet service providers from charging websites to secure preferential treatment – hasn’t gone into effect just yet, and legal challenges are in the works. But if the rollback goes through, as it’s expected to do, it will likely affect companies and consumers in a couple of ways.</p>
<p>First, the business models of internet-reliant services such as Netflix and Spotify have always assumed that they would have free, unfettered use of the internet. They are among the first places that ISPs could target with fees, and these sites would feel compelled to fork over the money in order to reach consumers at the fastest speeds. At the same time, to offset these new costs, these internet-reliant services will likely pass these costs on to their customers. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, if paid “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/fcc-prepares-to-unveil-plan-to-gut-net-neutrality/">fast lanes</a>” become standard practice, consumers will also notice that accessing sites that don’t or can’t pay – such as government, education, libraries and other non-commercial sites – might seem slower or more difficult to use.</p>
<p>Also, expect to see internet service companies leverage the content they’ve purchased to encourage more subscribers. Companies that own content – whether it’s TV channels or film franchises – will be able charge lower prices than those that license it. (This is at the heart of the AT&T-Time Warner merger discussed below.) For example, if AT&T succeeds in buying Time Warner – which includes HBO – it will likely offer HBO to AT&T subscribers at rates well below what their competitors like Comcast will charge, because these competitors must pay AT&T before they can offer HBO’s content.</p>
<h2>Investments and mergers galore</h2>
<p>Though we’re in the midst of an unpredictable regulatory environment, it seems likely that <a href="http://www.multichannel.com/news/sports/disney-pulls-fox-trigger/417071">Disney’s purchase of Fox assets</a> will proceed. </p>
<p>This won’t immediately bring big changes for consumers. As a content company, Disney’s primary goal is to maintain and accumulate content assets: television series, films and brands like Star Wars, Marvel and DC. The more it owns, the better positioned it is to negotiate with companies such as Comcast and AT&T that make most of their money from distributing content (via internet, phone, cable service), but are also increasingly purchasing content of their own. </p>
<p>Companies built on owning content don’t want to be left behind, so their goal is to be able to possess content so valuable that consumers demand that all distributors offer it. Just as <a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-dont-explain-espns-subscriber-decline-76843">Disney has long used</a> used the popularity of ESPN to secure access for less popular channels like ESPN Classics or Disney XD, the more essential content Disney owns, the more leverage it has to charge high fees and ensure distribution for content that’s less in demand. </p>
<p>The mergers likely to have a greater impact on consumers are the Sinclair-Tribune and AT&T-Time Warner mergers. <a href="http://www.multichannel.com/news/transactions/discovery-buy-scripps-networks-146-billion/414315">Sinclair and Tribune</a> aren’t household names, but they do own several local television stations. Sinclair already owns the most television stations in the U.S. – <a href="http://sbgi.net">193 stations in 89 markets</a> that reach 40 percent of American households. Buying Tribune’s stations would enable it to reach 72 percent of American households, even though current rules cap national reach at 40 percent. </p>
<p>The Federal Communications Commission – with its current makeup geared toward deregulation – has <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/fcc-national-ownership-cap-sinclair-tribune-1202620605/">signaled its intention</a> to revise ownership rules to enable the merger to proceed. This scale of broadcast ownership is unprecedented in the United States and reminiscent of the late 1990s, when limits on national radio station ownership were eliminated and <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-07-3470A6.pdf">massive consolidation occurred</a>. </p>
<p>Many have <a href="https://www.salon.com/2001/06/28/telecom_dereg/">since decried</a> this shift in radio ownership rules. The consolidation led to local job losses, and a recent <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/fcc-rule-change-could-help-tv-and-radio-stations-abandon-local-communities/">change in rules</a> allows conglomerates to operate without local studios. Sinclair has already been criticized for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/.../sinclair-broadcast-komo-conservative-media.html">forcing all its stations</a> to air the same editorials. This is contrary to broadcast policy that has long prioritized upholding the right of local stations to deliver programming attuned to the interests of their audiences.</p>
<p>The AT&T-Time Warner merger has been in the news for over a year now. The Department of Justice <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/20/the-justice-department-just-sued-att-to-block-its-85-billion-bid-for-time-warner/?utm_term=.3cbd72a2a731">announced plans</a> to sue to prevent the merger in November 2017 and the deal awaits court consideration. This merger deserves a closer look, because like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-comcast-nbc/comcast-completes-nbc-universal-merger-idUSTRE70S2WZ20110129?irpc=932">Comcast’s 2011 purchase of NBCUniversal</a>, it allows a distribution company (AT&T) to own content: Time Warner’s assets include HBO, CNN and the Turner networks. The Comcast merger was ultimately permitted, but it included a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-allows-comcast-nbcu-joint-venture-proceed-conditions">number of provisions</a> to maintain a competitive marketplace. </p>
<p>Although much has been made of <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/11/24/is-trump-blocking-a-major-merger-because-of-his-cnn-vendetta_partner/">President Trump’s hostility towards CNN</a> as a possible reason for the Department of Justice lawsuit, the potential anti-competitive actions AT&T could take as owner of Time Warner’s most lucrative asset – HBO – is a much better explanation. AT&T could refuse to allow competing services such as Comcast to offer HBO, or make it far more expensive to consumers that subscribe to a different ISP. </p>
<p>Over the next year, we’ll see media conglomerates continue to bid for assets and push to roll back rules in an effort to accumulate more power and profit. At the same time, ISPs – many of which already operate as local <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-broadband-still-no-isp-choice-for-many-especially-at-higher-speeds/">monopolies or with limited competition</a> – now have permission to delegate access and raise fees. </p>
<p>If history is a guide, consumers will be the big losers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Lotz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the coming year, media companies will be adjusting to a new reality – one that ultimately leaves consumers with fewer choices.Amanda Lotz, Fellow, Peabody Media Center; Professor of Media Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/895212018-01-05T16:05:10Z2018-01-05T16:05:10ZNet neutrality may be dead in the US, but Europe is still strongly committed to open internet access<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200885/original/file-20180105-26151-sgjya7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/475354096?size=huge_jpg&src=lb-59856941&sort=newestFirst&offset=3">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The belief that unrestricted internet access is vital to modern life is not necessarily a view held by all businesses that provide internet services. And now that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/14/net-neutrality-fcc-rules-open-internet">net neutrality</a> – the equal treatment of all data sent and received without differential charges and service quality – has come to an end in the US, how will this affect the rest of the world?</p>
<p>The idea that all internet service providers (ISPs) treat all data and users equally is, in theory, the best deal for customers as well as for businesses. Net neutrality allows businesses to compete on service quality, and provides users with a choice across the range of all providers.</p>
<p>But on December 14, 2017, the US <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/what-we-do">Federal Communications Commission</a> (FCC) effectively <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/after-fcc-vote-net-neutrality-fight-moves-to-courts-congress/">reneged</a> on its own 2015 <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf">Open Internet Order</a>, which was devised to allow open and fair access to the internet. This decision was made even though users and many technology companies and content providers such as Google, Facebook and Netflix <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42096185">remained strongly in favour</a> of net neutrality.</p>
<h2>The loss of net neutrality</h2>
<p>At the time, pioneering internet tech experts <a href="https://pioneersfornetneutrality.tumblr.com">warned against</a> removing net neutrality rules, effectively accusing the FCC of not understanding how the internet works. This ruling means that in the US, providers will be able to slow down data traffic to and from certain websites, give preferential treatment to other websites and charge differently for different types of content, such as web access, video streaming, social media and so on.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former counsel for communications giant Verizon, Ajit Pai is now Chairman of the FCC which voted in December to abolish net neutrality in America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai#/media/File:Ajit_V._Pai_headshot.jpg">Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With net neutrality gone, there are fears that some content, services and applications may be completely <a href="https://www.tomsguide.com/us/net-neutrality-free-speech,news-18792.html">blocked</a> by some ISPs. <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progress-reports/2016-broadband-progress-report">Not everyone</a> in the US has a wide choice of broadband providers, so it is not easy for some citizens to “take their business elsewhere” if they are not satisfied with their provider.</p>
<p>Among other things, supporters of net neutrality fear a <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/gop-net-neutrality-bill-would-allow-paid-fast-lanes-and-preempt-state-laws/">loss of consumer protection</a>. However, supporters of the FCC ruling say that it could encourage ISPs to <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/internet-isps-competition-net-neutrality-ajit-pai-fcc-2017-4">invest in new infrastructure</a> by allowing them more flexibility in the services they offer. This could enable improved access for many, as well as increased competition that would benefit users.</p>
<h2>Impact beyond the US</h2>
<p>So how does this decision in the US affect the UK and continental Europe? In the UK, net neutrality is currently protected by <a href="https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/8fdf5d08-93fc-11e5-983e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en">EU policy 2015-2120</a> in support of a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/open-internet-net-neutrality">Digital Single Market</a> – Brexit fallout aside. Potentially, after Brexit, the UK government could choose to revoke this policy, although this is unlikely because it has already committed to a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/broadband-universal-service-obligation-consultation-on-design">Universal Service Obligation</a> (USO), effectively making broadband access a legal requirement, as it has been <a href="https://www.lvm.fi/en/-/more-speed-for-broadband-universal-service-796925">in Finland</a> for many years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">OFCOM has announced proposals to issue considerable fines to internet companies providing poor service.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/no-internet-webpage-design-concept-vector-682027510">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Additionally, ISPs are held to account by the UK communications regulator <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/what-is-ofcom">OFCOM</a>, which is tasked with ensuring fair play and protecting consumers from poor service. There has been widespread criticism that OFCOM has been <a href="https://diginomica.com/2016/07/26/bt-wins-uk-loses-as-spineless-regulator-ofcom-fails-to-force-openreach-split/">slow and ineffective</a> in persuading big players such as <a href="https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/about-us">BT/Openreach</a> to act responsibly in the past, though it has made <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statements/category-3/delivering-a-more-independent-openreach">progress</a> recently.</p>
<p>OFCOM also has proposals for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/24/broadband-users-in-line-for-millions-in-ofcom-compensation-plan">punitive fines</a> for those who provide poor service. Meanwhile, OFCOM’s own December 2017 <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/connected-nations-digital-divide">report</a> states that millions of UK households and businesses still lack decent broadband access.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Read more: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-internet-is-giving-a-voice-to-those-on-the-margins-losing-net-neutrality-will-take-it-away-89259">The internet is giving a voice to those on the margins – losing net neutrality will take it away</a></strong></em> </p>
<hr>
<p>Even with the EU policy and OFCOM in place, many users in the UK and continental Europe experience huge variation in broadband access speeds, quality of connection and customer service. Various providers also have preferential deals already in place with specific content providers, such as the recent <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42364401">deal</a> between BT and Sky for certain TV channels. Which goes to show that the existence of net neutrality does not stop content providers and ISPs making mutually beneficial business arrangements.</p>
<p>However, current EU policy does prevent blocking and slow-down of any content, services and applications. Now, hot on the heels of the FCC ruling, there are <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/gop-net-neutrality-bill-would-allow-paid-fast-lanes-and-preempt-state-laws/">calls</a> in the US for “no blocking, no slow-down” regulation to counter the loss of net neutrality rules.</p>
<p>But there is concern that the FCC ruling in the US could pave the way for similar moves in other countries. The greatest negative impact could be on those who are already digitally impoverished, with poor access to knowledge and information, or where governments could impose <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/12/what_the_internet_is_like_in_countries_without_net_neutrality.html">access restrictions</a> more easily.</p>
<h2>Taking a lead from Finland</h2>
<p>But while things look encouraging with the UK government’s Finnish-style commitment to a Universal Service Obligation, access speeds will need to keep increasing. While Finland’s groundbreaking national USO was a great step forward, the requirement is for only a <a href="https://www.simplifydigital.co.uk/news/articles/2013/11/ofcom-suggests-2mbps-is-too-slow-for-even-basic-broadband/">2Mbps</a> service. Most people would consider that inadequate for modern uses, especially for streaming video.</p>
<p>The UK’s USO aims for at least <a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/10-mbps-broadband-will-soon-be-a-legal-right-in-the-uk">10Mbps</a> for all citizens by 2020 which, considering the <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-broadband-speed">current average</a> UK internet speed is 16.51 Mbps, seems a bit paltry. Of course, we shall have to wait and see how far the UK actually progresses towards rolling out 10Mbps for the entire country.</p>
<p>Given the demand for net neutrality among users, as well as support from many technology companies and content providers, there would seem to be a business opportunity for ISPs to offer a net-neutrality service to attract customers, as much as there might be to make deals with content providers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">B4RN is a local initiative in the north of England that seeks to bring high-speed internet to rural areas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://b4rn.org.uk/">www.b4rn.org.uk</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Users’ need for global and open access is clearly visible. Currently there is a <a href="https://irtf.org/gaia">global research community</a> promoting access for all, as well as initiatives by users themselves in local communities. These are cooperative schemes facilitating high-speed, unconstrained internet access like <a href="https://b4rn.org.uk">B4RN</a> in the north of England and <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/good-practice-remix-distributed-internet-exchange-remote-and-rural-networks-scotland">RemIX</a> in the Scottish Highlands and Islands.</p>
<h2>The global view</h2>
<p>In terms of global scope, the UN has recognised that internet access is a vital <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/12/countries-adopt-plan-to-use-internet-in-implementation-of-sustainable-development-goals/">enabler</a> for realising its own <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">Sustainable Development Goals</a>, designed to address inequality and improve the everyday lives of millions around the world.</p>
<p>So, while the FCC ruling may be a blow for those wanting unrestricted access to the internet in the US, there is plenty of activity worldwide which supports users of open internet access. But complacency would be unwise; it would be preferable to have net neutrality support from national governments, and there are many parts of the world – the US and the UK included – where internet access could be improved.</p>
<p>However, one of the most attractive attributes of internet access – empowerment – means that the internet itself remains the most effective platform for users to communicate, coordinate and pursue improved open access to information, now and for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saleem Bhatti is member of the Global Access to the Internet for All (GAIA) Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Research Group (<a href="https://irtf.org/gaia">https://irtf.org/gaia</a>). </span></em></p>The end of net neutrality in the US does not mean the rest of the world will follow – and there’s plenty of evidence that demonstrates continued commitment to open access.Saleem Bhatti, Professor of Computer Science, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/892592017-12-19T14:02:21Z2017-12-19T14:02:21ZThe internet is giving a voice to those on the margins – losing net neutrality will take it away<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199726/original/file-20171218-27554-130e9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/en/learn-media-internet-medium-977543/">kalhh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s easy to argue that the internet as it exists now is not “neutral”, with some companies and websites creating tech empires and online monopolies. But the decision of US telecoms watchdog, the Federal Communications Commission, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html">to remove regulations that overtly guarantee net neutrality</a> – the basic principle that all information on the internet should be treated equally and should be equally accessible – will certainly not improve matters.</p>
<p>By removing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-doesnt-need-net-neutrality-regulations-yet-38204">net neutrality regulations passed in the US in 2015</a>, the balance is tipped in favour of those companies who are able to pay internet service providers and telecoms companies to prioritise the transfer of their data. This is not just a hypothetical position experts theorise might happen: it is already happening in countries such as <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/12/what_the_internet_is_like_in_countries_without_net_neutrality.html">Guatemala</a> where net neutrality norms have been undermined, with internet access provided in tiers that offer different speed of access for a different monthly fee.</p>
<p>The economic implications of this and what it means for smaller or innovative companies in a competitive marketplace are clear. But there are other <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/18/net-neutrality-marginalised-america-open-internet-fcc">hidden victims</a> of a failure to protect net neutrality and deter the monopolisation of the internet. To find them, we must make a short detour into media theory.</p>
<h2>The knowledge gap</h2>
<p>In 1970 Philip Tichenor, George Donohue, and Clarice Olien proposed the influential <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/34/2/159/1843590">Knowledge Gap Hypothesis</a>, which in essence suggests that as the amount of mass media grows, consumers from a higher socio-economic background tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than those from a lower socio-economic background, and so benefit more from it. They suggested this happens for various reasons, including often being the target of this media, and having easier access to it. This means that, despite the apparently egalitarian potential of access to information enjoyed by people from across the socio-economic spectrum, in fact access to knowledge alone may not address socio-economic disparities – and may even exacerbate them further.</p>
<p>Five years later the same authors <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/009365027500200101">refined these ideas</a>, suggesting ways to reduce this potential knowledge gap: media focused on events and issues that directly affect local communities, for example, or media that addressed forms of social conflict, and that dealt with shared issues and concerns.</p>
<p>Other factors have since helped close the knowledge gap – most notably access to the internet, described as a “<a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27892/title/Outreach-Going-Wrong-/">tool for creating a more informed citizenry</a>” by US academics Elizabeth Corley and Dietram Scheufele, and the rise of social media. At the same time, disparity of internet access based on income is quickly shrinking: <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/">recent data</a> shows internet use among those earning under US$30,000 a year increased from 54% in 2008 to 79% in 2016, catching up those earning over US$75,000, who have stayed at a steady 95-97% over the same period. </p>
<p>In many ways, the internet fulfils the aim of reducing the knowledge gap by creating an environment through which communities can come together to <a href="http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/2287">discuss shared interests</a>. It doesn’t just provide access to news and information, but offers a means to take part in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2012.01574.x/full">shaping the narratives</a> and pushing for <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444814567988">direct action</a>. The internet has provided the means to <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02681102.2015.1011598">allow communities to develop</a>, and use social media to reflect their needs and concerns. </p>
<h2>Not all knowledge is useful</h2>
<p>But, as has become clear recently, other factors affect the degree to which the general public is well informed. The rise of “fake news”, disinformation, and fringe beliefs such as flat-Eartherism, now distributed with ease through social media, has left the public potentially more confused than ever. The Pew Research Center reports that <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2016/12/15/many-americans-believe-fake-news-is-sowing-confusion/">64% of Americans</a> are confused even to the basic facts of current events, which suggests that although internet access is a useful tool, we cannot assume that the information received is always correct, neutral, or beneficial. As was the case with much of the fake news spread during the 2016 US presidential election of Donald Trump, this disinformation can often be <a href="https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/facebook-ads-fake-news-and-the-shockingly-low-cost-of-influencing-an-election-data-ca7a086fa01c">targeted at those from a specific socioeconomic background</a>.</p>
<p>Given this, it’s questionable whether the internet has indeed reduced knowledge gaps, or if it has opened new divides in how and what we understand in a post-truth world. Nonetheless, any attack on net neutrality is likely to further restrict who has access to what information, and at what cost. The social impact of this could easily drive a wedge into and reopen any remaining knowledge gap, undoing some of the benefits achieved so far.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who has access, and who doesn’t?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelograciolli/2807100863">marcelograciolli</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Which voices are amplified online?</h2>
<p>The internet has, to an extent, amplified voices from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, and it’s vital that rolling back net neutrality doesn’t erode what inroads these less-heard voices have made against the socio-cultural norm. Knowledge on the internet is already problematic. For example, much of Wikipedia is written by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/90-of-wikipedias-editors-are-male-heres-what-theyre-doing-about-it/280882/">white males</a> from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/05/internet-white-western-google-wikipedia-skewed">global north</a>, despite being seen as a repository of “the world’s knowledge”.</p>
<p>Spaces for a greater range of voices to take a role in shaping the knowledge available online must be created – not reduce access to only those who can afford it on platforms that pay for quicker access. A tiered internet that is tied to the ability to pay will likely further minimise the diversity of voices online.</p>
<p>There is every chance, looking at the examples of countries that have already removed net neutrality, that websites given faster and easier access will be sites from tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter – companies that have the commercial clout to achieve preferential arrangements with internet providers and telecoms firms, but which often do not reflect or protect disenfranchised communities. Facebook, for example, has nominally added more than two options for gender classification, yet <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444815621527">research</a> suggests the platform still classifies all users by a gender binary. Similarly, Twitter’s continued failure to effectively deal with abuse including, but not limited to, <a href="https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2998337">racism and misogyny</a> means the site, by design, does not afford the same voice, freedom, or protection to all users. </p>
<p>These popular platforms have a long history of ignoring, mistreating or misrepresenting at-risk communities. Given that they already account for a huge proportion of internet use, it is likely that with the removal of net neutrality, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/18/net-neutrality-marginalised-america-open-internet-fcc">mistreated communities will continue to be marginalised</a>. Similarly, if we slow down, target and punish local blogs and sites aimed at local news and specific communities we potentially undo the conditions through which the internet has lessened knowledge gaps.</p>
<p>There is a long way to go in order to ensure the internet is a space where people from diverse backgrounds are able to access and contribute to knowledge. But removing net neutrality is a step backwards, and will only serve to further silence disenfranchised communities, and reverse the positive steps so far taken to close the knowledge gap.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harry T Dyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If access to information online becomes more difficult, then it will be the communities on the fringes that lose out.Harry T Dyer, Lecturer in Education, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/824852017-10-02T00:52:53Z2017-10-02T00:52:53ZThree steps Congress could take to help resolve the net neutrality debate – without legislating a fix<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185727/original/file-20170912-5947-edpnhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is it time for Congress to act?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capitol_Building_Full_View.jpg">Noclip</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The public debate over how best to keep the internet open and free – and what exactly that means – has dragged on for more than a decade. The principle that internet service providers should deliver all online content without favoritism carries with it complex <a href="http://assets.wharton.upenn.edu/%7Efaulhabe/Econ_Net_Neut_Review.pdf">economic</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/thorny-technical-questions-remain-for-net-neutrality-61478">technological</a> and <a href="https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D938CDEEA685257C6000532062/%24file/11-1355-1474943.pdf">legal questions</a>. </p>
<p>In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission issued its <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-order">Open Internet Order</a>, requiring transparency and banning blocking, throttling of content and paid prioritization – that is, offering higher-quality service at a price. Under its current chairman, Ajit Pai, the FCC proposes to <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-344614A1.pdf">revise and reverse</a> some or all of these rules. Both in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/01/20/eight-reasons-to-support-congresss-net-neutrality-bill/">run-up to the 2015 order</a> and since this current proposal for reconsideration, many have <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2017/09/05/world/molly-net-neutrality">called for Congress to step in</a> <a href="http://www.cfmediaview.com/lp1.aspx?v=6_2606270879_117430_7">for the first time</a>.</p>
<p>Without legislating specific net neutrality rules, Congress could take three important steps to clear away irrelevant legal impediments and make the debate more productive for regulators and the public alike.</p>
<h2>Separate classification from regulation</h2>
<p>Some of the problems of devising net neutrality rules come from the fact that Congress defined legislative categories that had more to do with the 1984 breakup of AT&T’s telephone monopoly than the still largely nascent internet. In the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/telecommunications-act-1996">Telecommunications Act of 1996</a>, Congress classified communications businesses as engaged in either “telecommunications” or “information” services – either operating the wires that the data flow through or providing the data. Congress decreed that only the former were subject to regulation of prices, access and services – under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/chapter-5/subchapter-II">Title II</a> of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/chapter-5">Communications Act of 1934</a>.</p>
<p>That congressional decision is why the debate is laced with contentions about whether ISPs should be classified as either telecommunications or information service providers. Those contentions aren’t new; 15 years ago a relatively deregulation-minded FCC classified broadband cable service as an <a href="https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html">information service, not subject to regulation</a>. And in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/04-277P.ZO">the FCC could determine how to classify</a> broadband internet. But Justice Antonin Scalia dissented, saying the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/04-277P.ZD">clear that broadband internet was a telecommunications service</a> – and that the FCC couldn’t decide otherwise.</p>
<p>The FCC’s 2015 Order “reclassified” broadband service as a telecommunications service, to give it the legal authority the <a href="https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D938CDEEA685257C6000532062/$file/11-1355-1474943.pdf">D.C. Court of Appeals said the FCC needed</a> to enact its net neutrality rules. The current FCC proposes, in effect, to “re-reclassify” broadband as an information service. The commission’s announcement of that move involves some excruciating legal contortions, not to oppose the economic substance of the FCC’s 2015 order but to come up with a convincing argument against Justice Scalia’s 2005 dissent. </p>
<p>Congress can fix this mess. The economic case for whether and how a firm should be regulated has nothing to do with what service it provides. Rather, the question should be about economic fundamentals: Is the company a monopoly? Or does competition from alternative suppliers impose reasonable market pressures on price and service quality? And can the regulator get demand, quality and cost information in a sufficiently timely manner to be able to set reasonable prices and terms of service? </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ignored economics and relied on service classifications instead, precluding findings that an information service should be regulated – or that a telecommunications service market is sufficiently competitive to render regulation unnecessary. Returning regulatory determinations to their economic foundations is the first order of legislative business.</p>
<h2>Restore a focus on the ‘public interest’</h2>
<p>But is net neutrality really about economic regulation? While thinking clearly about net neutrality rules requires eliminating classification, looking at the issue solely in terms of regulating monopolies may be looking in the wrong place. In recent years, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, the FCC has tended to assess all communications policy issues in terms of whether <a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/883166/fcc-s-wheeler-signs-off-with-competition-mantra">internet sector practices</a> violate antitrust laws. By and large, the arguments based on competition, or economics more generally, <a href="http://www.freestatefoundation.org/images/Is_the_Open_Internet_Order_an_Economics_Free_Zone_062816.pdf">are not all that compelling</a>.</p>
<p>Regarding net neutrality, a much better role for the FCC would be to focus on the public interest. One example comes from the observation, by open-internet advocate <a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/about-us/staff/#Harold">Harold Feld</a> at the communications policy nonprofit <a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/">Public Knowledge</a>, noting how important it was for <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2012/11/28/role-social-media-arab-uprisings/">Arab Spring protesters</a> to communicate on social media. While the FCC’s jurisdiction does not extend to Egypt, the ability for the public to freely share news and ideas through the internet is no less important in the U.S.</p>
<p>In retrospect, the FCC made a mistake by treating net neutrality as a competition problem rather than as a tool to protect speech. Because speech rights were never central in the FCC’s net neutrality review, there is no record of what, if any, policies would be necessary or effective to protect people’s rights to communicate. The current regulations might be sufficient or excessive, but until evaluated under a “public interest” standard, we do not know.</p>
<p>Congress should remind the FCC of its obligations to evaluate the public interest consequences – not just the economics – of its regulations.</p>
<h2>Restore the role of antitrust in telecommunications</h2>
<p>Focusing the FCC on the public interest would be easier if the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr">Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division</a> or the <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-competition">Federal Trade Commission</a> could guard against internet service providers engaging in monopolistic practices. </p>
<p>At present, the antitrust agencies may not have that authority. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that if a regulator has authority over a practice (in that case, the FCC’s authority over how telephone companies open their facilities to competitors, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/02-682P.ZO">antitrust laws should not apply</a>. That decision came despite an explicit clause in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.478129">preserving an antitrust role</a> for the FCC.</p>
<p>I do not expect that internet service providers following regulations grounded in the public’s rights to speak and be heard would violate antitrust laws. Congress should make it clear to the Supreme Court and the public that antitrust authorities do have the power to review the facts and remedy any competition problems or harm to consumers.</p>
<p>If Congress could enact legislation that removed the distinction between “telecommunication” and “information” services, reinforced the importance of the public interest in communications and restored antitrust enforcement power for regulators, the FCC would be better able to develop net neutrality regulations – whatever they may turn out to be – with solid substantive and legal foundations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Brennan was chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission during 2014, and did some unrelated consulting work for the FCC on the AT&T/DirecTV merger during the first half of 2015. </span></em></p>As the issue of an open and free internet again comes up for public debate, Congress could participate – and help regulators devise a workable set of policies.Timothy Brennan, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/825612017-09-29T02:35:23Z2017-09-29T02:35:23ZWhy the FCC’s proposed internet rules may spell trouble ahead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186052/original/file-20170914-24296-1yz229k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How fast is that video really coming in?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/hand-holds-smartphone-video-player-application-383521630">hvostik/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-pai-proposes-restore-internet-freedom">Federal Communications Commission takes up a formal proposal</a> to reverse the Obama-era <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-order">Open Internet Order</a>, a key question consumers and policymakers alike are asking is: What difference do these rules make?</p>
<p>My research team has been studying one key element of the regulations – called “throttling,” the practice of limiting download speeds – for several years, spanning a period both before the 2015 Open Internet Order was issued and after it took effect. Our <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2815675.2815691">findings</a> reveal not only the state of internet openness before the Obama initiative but also the measurable results of the policy’s effect.</p>
<p>The methods we used and the tools we developed investigate how internet service providers manage your traffic and demonstrate how open the internet really is – or isn’t – as a result of evolving internet service plans, as well as political and regulatory changes. Regular people can explore their own services with our <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.meddle.wehe">mobile app for Android</a>, which is out now; an iOS version is coming soon. We’re working with the <a href="https://www.arcep.fr/">French equivalent of the FCC</a> to promote our measurement tools in France to help audit whether French ISPs are compliant with local net neutrality protections. Other countries, including the U.S., could follow the French lead, using our tools to evaluate their internet service quality.</p>
<h2>Rules take effect</h2>
<p>Before the Open Internet Order took effect in 2015, companies running cellular networks were allowed to use throttling to manage how much data their networks needed to handle at any given time. To do this, some companies capped users’ download speeds, which could cause video to stream at lower quality, with less-sharp images that were blurry during action sequences.</p>
<p>But there were limited rules governing how the mobile companies enforced those caps: We found some providers <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2815675.2815691">slowing down YouTube videos but not Netflix or other video services</a>. This is an example of a major concern net neutrality supporters have: that internet providers might give preference to traffic from one site or another – perhaps making video providers <a href="https://www.benton.org/node/197702">pay extra to have their material delivered at high speed</a>. If the speed or quality consumers can get from an online service depends on how much providers can afford to pay, that can put startups and innovators at a disadvantage to existing internet giants.</p>
<p>When it took effect, the Open Internet Order allowed internet providers to use throttling in only a limited way, under the so-called “<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/12/8116237/net-neutrality-rules-open-internet-order-released">reasonable network management</a>” provision. Instead of singling out specific types of data for throttling, mobile companies – and wired internet providers as well – were required to do so in a way that treats all traffic equally. We <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2815675.2815691">observed</a> the companies that had slowed down YouTube but not Netflix shifting their policies to reflect this new requirement.</p>
<h2>The return of throttling</h2>
<p>In late 2015, though, T-Mobile announced a program it called “<a href="https://www.t-mobile.com/offer/binge-on-streaming-video.html">Binge On</a>,” <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/t-mobiles-video-free-for-all-everything-you-need-to-know-about-binge-on-faq/">departing from its competitors</a> by offering its customers “free” video streaming – the ability to watch some video services on their devices without counting against monthly high-speed data limits. The trade-off was that their video quality from those providers would be limited in the best case to the <a href="https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-24291">equivalent of a regular DVD</a> – not the high-definition video most people have come to expect, and which mobile data networks are capable of carrying. Some video sites would come in at higher quality, but their data would count against users’ monthly caps. Other sites’ videos, strangely enough, would come in at low quality, though the data would still count against users’ monthly caps.</p>
<p>When my team heard the announcement, we were perplexed. It seemed clear T-Mobile was throttling, perhaps even <a href="https://www.t-mobile.com/offer/binge-on-streaming-video.html">preferentially</a>, choosing a handful of services to exempt from users’ monthly data caps, while continuing to count data from other video providers. And many users were <a href="https://www.t-mobile.com/landing/binge-on-letter.html">opted in by default</a>, potentially never knowing that T-Mobile had decided for them whether they could stream high-quality video. But most confounding, how did T-Mobile know what “video” was, as distinct from other data flowing through its networks? </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rYodcvhh7b8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">What are ‘packets,’ and how do they travel around the internet?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Internet traffic is broken up into small chunks of data called “<a href="http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question525.htm">packets</a>” that travel through the wires separately and then are reassembled by the computer or mobile device that’s receiving them. Think of these as small messages in individual envelopes traveling through the mail. In both cases, the packets and envelopes reach their destination according to the address written on the outside – not what is contained inside.</p>
<p>It would be strange if the U.S. Postal Service looked at the envelopes, guessed what was inside, and decided your credit card bill should be delivered first, but delayed your paycheck. Unlike some envelopes, packets coming from YouTube or Spotify don’t carry information on the outside declaring what’s inside – say, “video” or “music streaming” or “web.” To the internet, they all look the same. And under the principles of net neutrality, they should all be treated the same.</p>
<h2>Unequal handling</h2>
<p>Through a <a href="http://dd.meddle.mobi/bingeon.html">set of rigorous experiments</a>, we were able to find out how T-Mobile and other internet companies tried to tell the difference between video packets and packets containing other types of data: They were looking inside the packets – inside the envelopes – for particular <a href="http://dd.meddle.mobi/bingeon.html">words or terms</a>, like “netflix.com” or “googlevideo.” </p>
<p>Someone had come up with a list of hints that indicated a particular piece of network traffic was in fact part of an online video. But of course there are countless video streaming platforms – and old ones die off and new ones are started every day. T-Mobile’s list couldn’t possibly cover them all.</p>
<p>We found that the popular video service <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a> was not throttled by T-Mobile or Verizon. This meant that people who streamed Vimeo content used up some of their monthly data cap, but got better video quality than people watching YouTube or Netflix. This decision by T-Mobile – though it <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/tom-wheeler-accuses-att-and-verizon-of-violating-net-neutrality/">passed</a> a <a href="https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0111/DOC-342982A1.pdf">review by the FCC</a> – affected how well YouTube and Netflix could compete with Vimeo, which raises a specter of more problems to come if the FCC scraps the Open Internet Order (which, for all these reasons, <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/10829966722377">I have urged them not to</a>). What, for example, would stop AT&T from giving its DirecTV subsidiary faster and better-quality traffic than it gave competitors Netflix and Hulu? </p>
<h2>Protecting consumers</h2>
<p>One way to ensure users get the service they’re expecting – and paying for – is to require more transparency from internet providers. Specifically, they should disclose how much they slow down video and what that does to video quality, but also what hints or techniques they use to detect video traffic in the first place. </p>
<p>In addition, those methods must ensure that internet companies treat all content providers equally – so users don’t get better or worse performance from different sites based on corporate interests <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-reaches-streaming-traffic-agreement-with-comcast/">or disputes</a>. And regulators need to enforce these basic rules, <a href="http://dd.meddle.mobi/codeanddata.html">using auditing tools</a> like the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.meddle.wehe">open-source ones</a> my research team has developed.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article originally published Sept. 29, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Choffnes receives funding from the National Science Foundation, Google, Data Transparency Lab, Amazon, and the Department of Homeland Security. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of his sponsors.</span></em></p>How do internet companies decide which network traffic to slow down and which to charge against users’ data plans? And what can we learn about net neutrality from the answers?David Choffnes, Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/811442017-08-03T12:56:29Z2017-08-03T12:56:29ZWe don’t need strict net neutrality rules to keep the internet fair<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180880/original/file-20170803-5612-18nahzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Are we really headed for a two-speed internet?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s not often you hear large corporations arguing in favour of government regulations. But a group representing some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including Google and Facebook, is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-idUSKBN1A20W0">doing just that</a>. They want the US government to abandon its plan to <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-could-be-about-to-end-net-neutrality-71732">repeal the laws</a> preserving net neutrality, the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all internet traffic the same and not block, slow down or otherwise discriminate against particular websites or online services.</p>
<p>The US Federal Communications Commission recently received <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-gets-more-10-million-comments-on-net-neutrality/">10m comments</a> in its consultation on the subject and they largely opposed the plans. Yet the regulator seems determined to follow through with a repeal of the net neutrality rules.</p>
<p>There are undeniably good arguments on both sides and finding a consensus is hard. But the main problem is not that the current rules preserving net neutrality are unbalanced. There’s a more fundamental question about whether we needed such rules in the first place. If not, repealing them won’t spell the disaster <a href="https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/">that activists fear</a>. In fact, it would mean net neutrality is largely a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>In the early days of broadband, net neutrality stood for the idea that ISPs should be seen just as data carriers, much like telephone companies carried voice calls. This would prevent them from favouring their own services or those of affiliates. The FCC tried several times to pass rules to ensure net neutrality, and the <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf">current ones</a> that the Trump administration wants to repeal, were adopted just two years ago. Similar rules were introduced in the EU with the 2015 <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2015.310.01.0001.01.ENG&toc=OJ:L:2015:310:TOC">Open Internet Regulation</a>.</p>
<p>The problem is that very few documented cases exist of ISPs actually violating the principles behind net neutrality, and in several of those cases the evidence is scarce and unconvincing. For instance, in its <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-14-61A1_Rcd.pdf">2014 proposal</a> for net neutrality rules, the FCC cited the example of AT&T temporarily blocking Apple’s FaceTime app. But following <a href="https://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/oiac/Mobile-Broadband-FaceTime.pdf">an investigation</a>, the regulator later found that AT&T had legitimate reasons to do so.</p>
<p>In another example, the FCC accused Verizon of blocking certain tethering apps but later <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-315501A1.pdf">settled the case</a> using spectrum licensing rules rather than net neutrality ones. And the <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A1_Rcd.pdf">two most glaring violations</a> of net neutrality that started everything date back more than a decade, without recent equivalents. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the EU <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/internet-is-not-inherently-neutral-says-eus-kroes/">delayed adopting net neutrality</a> because the perceived greater competition between internet providers in Europe was seen as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-doesnt-need-net-neutrality-regulations-yet-38204">safeguard against harmful practices</a>. The Open Internet Regulation was eventually introduced in 2015 in response to a <a href="https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521087926.pdf">report highlighting</a> numerous examples of European providers shaping internet traffic. </p>
<p>But a closer look shows that the report didn’t argue these practices amounted to a violation of net neutrality. Indeed, the UK regulator Ofcom <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/103257/net-neutrality.pdf">did not identify</a> a single case of net neutrality violation in the UK, despite the continuation of traffic shaping practices.</p>
<p>The counter argument is that there have only been a few incidents, precisely because of the deterrent of existing net neutrality rules. But this is a feeble argument, because there is no correlation between the timing and frequency of net neutrality violations and the introduction of the regulations.</p>
<h2>Better alternative</h2>
<p>Repealing superfluous regulations is generally a good idea, because regulation comes at a cost. But we do not even need to go as far as full repeal of all net neutrality rules. There are less onerous measures than the current rules that are more suitable to the level of risk currently posed by net neutrality violations.</p>
<p>For instance, we could treat violations of net neutrality as a breach of competition law instead of having separate rules. Or authorities could set broad objectives, which the industry would have to meet through self-regulation. My personal favourite is regulation similar to competition law rules, using a single general rule of bad conduct that regulators could then apply on a case-by-case basis. This approach combines the expertise of a sector-specific regulator with the flexibility of competition law. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to suggest that the broadband industry works flawlessly and that no oversight is needed. But the current net neutrality rules, especially in light of the dearth of documented actual violations, feel like overkill. </p>
<p>Regulatory agencies have spent far too much time quibbling about net neutrality, instead of turning their attention to more contemporary and pressing issues. We are at the cusp of the introduction of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/5g-mobile-networks-will-support-an-internet-thats-so-good-you-can-feel-it-32260">next generation of mobile internet technology</a> (5G) and governments still haven’t worked out policies for how the radio spectrum will be used to make this possible. Interconnection between companies that provides internet infrastructure has largely been left unregulated so far, and has now become a much more crucial issue than in the past. It requires urgent attention. This is where the next big battles will be fought.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81144/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Konstantinos Stylianou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are other more pressing problems when it comes to internet regulation.Konstantinos Stylianou, Lecturer in Competition Law and Regulation, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/791512017-08-01T00:17:48Z2017-08-01T00:17:48ZCreating a high-speed internet lane for emergency situations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178515/original/file-20170717-6091-1kdisv4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In an emergency, responders' telecommunications could get delayed by overloaded networks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.hampton.gov/691/Recruiting">City of Hampton, Virginia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During large disasters, like hurricanes, wildfires and terrorist attacks, people want emergency responders to arrive quickly and help people deal with the crisis. In order to do their best, police, medics, firefighters and those who manage them need lots of information: Who is located where, needing what help? And what equipment and which rescuers are available to intervene? With all of the technology we have, it might seem that gathering and sharing lots of information would be pretty simple. But communicating through a disaster is much more challenging than it appears.</p>
<p>The event itself can make communications worse, damaging networks and phone systems or cutting electricity to an area. And regular people often add to the problem as they <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/04/16/cellphone-networks-overwhelmed-blast-aftermath/wq7AX6AvnEemM35XTH152K/story.html">overload mobile networks</a> with calls, texts and other electronic messages checking on loved ones or seeking help.</p>
<p>As researchers about digital networks and emergency communications, we are developing a faster and more reliable way to send and receive large amounts of data through the internet in times of crisis. Working with actual responders and emergency managers, we have created a method for giving urgent information priority over other internet traffic, effectively creating a high-speed lane on the internet for use in emergencies. While a national emergency responder network initiative called <a href="https://www.firstnet.gov/">FirstNet</a> is beginning to get going, it requires <a href="https://www.firstnet.gov/network">building an all-new wireless network</a> just for emergency services to use. By contrast, our system uses existing internet connections, while giving priority to rescue workers’ data.</p>
<h2>Connecting networks</h2>
<p>At the moment, it’s reasonably common for <a href="http://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/NY-Computer-Network-Sandy.html">communication networks to become overloaded</a> when disaster strikes. When lots of people try to make cellphone calls or use mobile data, the <a href="https://boingboing.net/2013/04/17/why-is-it-so-hard-to-make-a-ph.html#more-224850">networks get too busy</a> for calls to connect and messages to go through.</p>
<p>The problem is that standard methods for routing traffic through the internet aren’t always able to handle all those connections at one time. In technical terms, the internet is a <a href="http://www.cidr-report.org/as2.0/">collection of more than 54,000 smaller networks</a>. Some of the networks that make up the internet are quite large, like those belonging to major internet service providers or large corporations, but many of them are fairly small. No matter their size, each of these networks has equipment that lets it route traffic to each of the others. </p>
<p>Computer networks don’t all connect directly to each other. And their digital addresses don’t help much – we humans assume 12 Main Street and 14 Main Street are next door, but computers with similar numeric addresses <a href="https://www.vox.com/a/internet-maps">may not be physical neighbors</a> to each other.</p>
<p>As a result, the router connecting each of these 54,000 networks to the rest of the internet must keep a list of every one of its counterparts, and the most efficient way to reach each of them. This is like needing a list of written directions for every place in the world you might want to go.</p>
<p>This system, governed by the rules set out in the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Gateway_Protocol">border gateway protocol</a>,” works well most of the time. But when it fails, there can be long delays in communications. In fact, on average, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/ICC.2006.254830">150 seconds</a> (two and a half minutes) can go by before a failure is identified. In that time, the data just wait in an information traffic jam, not moving. Online, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297686724/on-a-rigged-wall-street-milliseconds-make-all-the-difference">milliseconds matter</a> – hundreds of seconds are effectively an eternity.</p>
<p>When one router detects a network failure, it has to let all the others know what’s happened, and how to reroute their traffic. This is like having just one traffic cop try to coordinate rush hour around a major bottleneck. The process takes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/ICC.2006.254830">at least several minutes</a>, and sometimes several hours. Until then, data in transit can be delayed or lost entirely. In an emergency, that could mean the difference between life and death. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179054/original/file-20170720-15106-rv08qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179054/original/file-20170720-15106-rv08qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179054/original/file-20170720-15106-rv08qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179054/original/file-20170720-15106-rv08qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179054/original/file-20170720-15106-rv08qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179054/original/file-20170720-15106-rv08qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179054/original/file-20170720-15106-rv08qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179054/original/file-20170720-15106-rv08qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When a link fails, the network system must find a new connection between two communicating devices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rochester Institute of Technology</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Developing the emergency protocol</h2>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dCWUVcXS9QM?wmode=transparent&start=1110" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A demonstration of the authors’ network routing system.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Working with students from Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, we have created a new traffic control system tailored specifically to emergency response networks. It runs without affecting other protocols on the internet. We call it the <a href="http://www.rit.edu/news/story.php?id=61939">multi-node label routing protocol</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than requiring every router to keep track of the best directions to every other one, we divide possible routes for internet traffic into hierarchies. These mirror <a href="https://www.fema.gov/national-incident-management-system">existing emergency response plans</a>: An individual responder sends information to a local commander, who combines several responders’ data and passes the data on to regional managers, who assemble a wider picture they pass on to state or federal response coordinators.</p>
<p>Our routing plan makes direct network connections mirror this real-world emergency response hierarchy. When routers are allowed to connect only with their immediate neighbors in the hierarchy, they can notice when links fail and reroute traffic much more quickly.</p>
<h2>Testing in the real world</h2>
<p>Our system is designed to operate over the same internet as everyone else, and without affecting other traffic. We tested our system on the National Science Foundation’s Global Environment for Network Innovations, a collaborative effort among many universities around the U.S. that allows researchers to develop networking protocols and systems using real computers and networking equipment located across the country. In our case, we connected 27 computers together for our tests, devised by
<a href="http://www.rit.edu/cast/crr/">RIT environmental, health and safety students</a>, many of whom are volunteer emergency responders.</p>
<p>Our test – which we did in front of real emergency commanders and personnel – compared our system to the standard border gateway protocol. When we broke links in the 27-node network, multi-node label routing communications resumed within 12.5 seconds, which is 12 times faster than the regular border gateway protocol’s recovery speed. We can shorten that delay even more by changing settings in our protocol’s configuration.</p>
<p><iframe id="8yjDe" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/8yjDe/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Our system can easily be installed across a much wider area than just 27 test machines, specifically because of how it simplifies the paths information takes between routers. This means incident commanders and managers get information more quickly, and are better able to allocate responders and equipment to meet needs as they develop. In this way, our work supports the efforts of those who support us in our hour of need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79151/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nirmala Shenoy received funding for this work from NSF and US Ignite.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik Golen receives funding from the National Science Foundation US Ignite program <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1450854">https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1450854</a></span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Schneider receives funding from NSF, NIST, DHS; these are all federal agencies that fund grants for my research.</span></em></p>A new data management system can give emergency responders a fast lane on the internet to help speed rescue efforts after a disaster.Nirmala Shenoy, Professor of Information Sciences and Technologies, Rochester Institute of TechnologyErik Golen, Visiting Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technologies, Rochester Institute of TechnologyJennifer Schneider, Eugene H. Fram Chair in Applied Critical Thinking; Principal of the Collaboratory for Resiliency & Recovery @ RIT & Professor of Civil Engineering Technology, Environmental Management and Safety, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/809362017-07-16T18:08:52Z2017-07-16T18:08:52ZIs America’s digital leadership on the wane?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178284/original/file-20170714-15958-1qbf51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is America's digital economy facing a stormy future?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/usa-waving-flag-on-bad-day-208242883">Filipe Frazao/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>American leadership in technology innovation and economic competitiveness is at risk if U.S. policymakers don’t take crucial steps to protect the country’s digital future. The country that gave the world the internet and the very concept of the disruptive startup could find its role in the global innovation economy slipping from reigning incumbent to a disrupted has-been.</p>
<p>My research, conducted with <a href="http://fletcher.tufts.edu/eBiz/About/Team/Ravi-Shankar-Chaturvedi">Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi</a>, investigates our increasingly digital global society, in which physical interactions – in communications, social and political exchange, commerce, media and entertainment – are being displaced by electronically mediated ones. Our most recent report,
“<a href="http://sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/dei17/">Digital Planet 2017</a>: How Competitiveness and Trust in Digital Economies Vary Across the World,” confirms that the U.S. is on the brink of losing its long-held global advantage in digital innovation.</p>
<p>Our yearlong study examined factors that influence innovation, such as economic conditions, governmental backing, startup funding, research and development spending and entrepreneurial talent across 60 countries. We found that while the U.S. has a very advanced digital environment, the pace of American investment and innovation is slowing. Other countries – not just major powers like China, but also smaller nations like New Zealand, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates – are building significant public and private efforts that we expect to become foundations for future generations of innovation and successful startup businesses.</p>
<p>Based on our findings, I believe that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/opinion/donald-trumps-multi-pronged-attack-on-the-internet.html">rolling back net neutrality rules</a> will jeopardize the digital startup ecosystem that has created value for customers, wealth for investors and globally recognized leadership for American technology companies and entrepreneurs. The digital economy in the U.S. is already on the verge of stalling; <a href="https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history">failing to protect an open internet</a> would further erode the United States’ digital competitiveness, making a troubling situation even worse.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178159/original/file-20170713-9618-1kyxddx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178159/original/file-20170713-9618-1kyxddx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178159/original/file-20170713-9618-1kyxddx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178159/original/file-20170713-9618-1kyxddx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178159/original/file-20170713-9618-1kyxddx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178159/original/file-20170713-9618-1kyxddx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178159/original/file-20170713-9618-1kyxddx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178159/original/file-20170713-9618-1kyxddx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Comparing 60 countries’ digital economies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hbr.org/2017/07/60-countries-digital-competitiveness-indexed">Harvard Business Review, used and reproducible by permission</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Comparing competitiveness</h2>
<p>In the U.S., the reins of internet connectivity are tightly controlled. Just five companies – Comcast, Spectrum, Verizon, CenturyLink and AT&T – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/opinion/donald-trumps-multi-pronged-attack-on-the-internet.html?_r=0">serve more than 80 percent of wired-internet customers</a>. What those companies provide is both <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/us-broadband-speed-cost-infographic/">slower and more expensive</a> than in many countries around the world. Ending net neutrality, as the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/restoring-internet-freedom">Trump administration has proposed</a>, would give internet providers even more power, letting them decide which companies’ innovations can reach the public, and at what costs and speeds.</p>
<p>However, our research shows that the U.S. doesn’t need more limits on startups. Rather, it should work to revive the creative energy that has been America’s gift to the digital planet. For each of the 60 countries we examined, we combined 170 factors – including elements that measure technological infrastructure, government policies and economic activity – into a ranking we call the <a href="http://sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/dei17/">Digital Evolution Index</a>. </p>
<p>To evaluate a country’s competitiveness, we looked not only at current conditions, but also at how fast those conditions are changing. For example, we noted not only how many people have broadband internet service, but also how quickly access is becoming available to more of a country’s population. And we observed not just how many consumers are prepared to buy and sell online, but whether this readiness to transact online is increasing each year and by how much. </p>
<p>The countries formed four major groups: </p>
<ul>
<li>“Stand Out” countries can be considered the digital elite; they are both highly digitally evolved and advancing quickly.</li>
<li>“Stall Out” countries have reached a high level of digital evolution, but risk falling behind due to a slower pace of progress and would benefit from a heightened focus on innovation.</li>
<li>“Break Out” countries score relatively low for overall digital evolution, but are evolving quickly enough to suggest they have the potential to become strong digital economies.</li>
<li>“Watch Out” countries are neither well advanced nor improving rapidly. They have a lot of work to do, both in terms of infrastructure development and innovation.</li>
</ul>
<h2>The US is stalling out</h2>
<p>The picture that emerges for the U.S. is not a pretty one. Despite being the 10th-most digitally advanced country today, America’s progress is slowing. It is close to joining the major EU countries and the Nordic nations in a club of nations that are, digitally speaking, stalling out. </p>
<p>The “Stand Out” countries are setting new global standards of high states of evolution and high rates of change, and exploring various innovations such as <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/03/technology/nutonomy-psa-group-peugot/index.html">self-driving cars</a> or <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40026940">robot policemen</a>. New Zealand, for example, is investing in a <a href="http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/technology-communications/fast-broadband">superior telecommunications system</a> and adopting <a href="http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/science-innovation/digital-economy">forward-looking policies</a> that create <a href="http://kiwilandingpad.com/">incentives for entrepreneurs</a>. Singapore plans to <a href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/govt-commits-s-19b-to-new-5-year-plan-for-r-amp-d-initiatives-ri-8214052">invest more than US$13 billion in high-tech industries</a> by 2020. The United Arab Emirates has created free-trade zones and is transforming the city of Dubai into a “<a href="https://government.ae/en/about-the-uae/the-uae-government/smart-uae/smart-dubai">smart city</a>,” linking sensors and government offices with residents and visitors to create an interconnected web of transportation, utilities and government services.</p>
<p>The “Break Out” countries, many in Asia, are typically not as advanced as others at present, but are catching up quickly, and are on pace to surpass some of today’s “Stand Out” nations in the near future. For example, China – the world’s <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/Article/China-Eclipses-US-Become-Worlds-Largest-Retail-Market/1014364">largest retail and e-commerce market</a>, with the world’s largest number of people using the internet – has the fastest-changing digital economy. Another “Break Out” country is India, which is already the <a href="http://www.counterpointresearch.com/press_release/indiahandsetmarket2015/">world’s second-largest smartphone market</a>. Though only one-fifth of its 1.3 billion people have online access today, by 2030, some estimates suggest, <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21693925-battle-indias-e-commerce-market-about-much-more-retailing-india-online">1 billion Indians will be online</a>.</p>
<p>By contrast, the U.S. is on the edge between “Stand Out” and “Stall Out.” One reason is that the American startup economy is slowing down: Private startups are attracting huge investments, but <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/silicon-valley-s-overstuffed-startups-risk-messy-blowout">those efforts aren’t paying off</a> when the startups are either acquired by bigger companies or offer themselves on the public stock markets. </p>
<p>Investors, business leaders and policymakers need to take a more realistic look at the best way to profit from innovation, balancing efforts toward both huge results and modest ones. They may need to recall the lesson from the founding of the internet itself: If government invests in key aspects of digital infrastructure, either directly or by creating subsidies and tax incentives, that lays the groundwork for massive private investment and innovation that can transform the economy.</p>
<p>In addition, investments in Asian digital startups have exceeded those in the U.S. <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f97ed1aa-669d-11e7-9a66-93fb352ba1fe">for the first time</a>. According to CB Insights and PwC, US$19.3 billion in venture capital from sources around the world was invested in Asian tech startups in the second quarter of 2017, while the U.S. <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research-venture-capital-reports-q2-2017">had $18.4 billion in new investment</a> over the same period. </p>
<p>This is consistent with our findings that Asian high-momentum countries are the ones in the “Break Out” zone; these countries are the ones most exciting for investors. Over time, the U.S.-Asia gap could widen; both money and talent could migrate to digital hot spots elsewhere, such as China and India, or smaller destinations, such as Singapore and New Zealand.</p>
<p>For the country that gave the world the foundations of the digital economy and a president who seems <a href="http://twitter.com">perpetually plugged in</a>, falling behind would, indeed, be a disgrace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bhaskar Chakravorti directs the Institute for Business in the Global Context at The Fletcher School at Tufts, which receives funding from Mastercard, Microsoft and the Gates Foundation. </span></em></p>The digital economy in the US is already on the verge of stalling; failing to protect an open internet would further erode the United States’ digital competitiveness.Bhaskar Chakravorti, Senior Associate Dean, International Business & Finance, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/787912017-06-08T02:37:17Z2017-06-08T02:37:17ZWill Trump and the FCC heal or worsen America’s digital divide?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172547/original/file-20170606-3674-hq50x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some Americans have fast internet, but many still lag behind – especially in rural areas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/two-boys-running-fast-slow-illustration-330149024">BlueRingMedia via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trumps-budget-proposal-slashes-spending-by-36-trillion-over-10-years/2017/05/22/69dbdb5e-3f1c-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html">Trump administration’s spending priorities</a> seem to be dramatically different from those of past administrations. But at least one, on the surface, appears to have been preserved: expanding access to broadband internet. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/telecommunications-act-1996">As far back as 1996</a>, the U.S. federal government has <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progress-reports/2016-broadband-progress-report">worked, and spent tax dollars, to get all Americans access to high-speed internet service</a>. The effort began under the Clinton administration, and accelerated when George W. Bush’s administration promised to <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/technology/">ensure all American households had broadband access by 2007</a>. </p>
<p>Bush was unable to fulfill this promise, so the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/broadband-coverage-rural-area-fund-mishandled-120601">Obama administration kept at it</a>. And though it is still early, there are no clear indications that the Trump budget will break from this emphasis on expanding broadband access to Americans who don’t yet have it. But the benefits of the internet depend on more than access to the wires; the rules about online traffic are at least as important.</p>
<h2>The state of the American internet</h2>
<p>Quite a bit of work remains to get Americans online. In 2016, a federal report found that <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progress-reports/2016-broadband-progress-report">roughly 10 percent of Americans lack access</a> to high-speed internet service. There is a sharp divide between urban and rural communities’ access: Just 4 percent of urban-dwelling Americans don’t have even the chance to buy internet service that meets federal definitions of broadband speeds. In rural America, however, 39 percent of Americans lack broadband access. For Americans living on tribal land, it’s worse: 41 percent of them don’t have access to high-speed internet.</p>
<p>These numbers suggest that efforts to expand broadband access have been very successful for some communities, and much less so for others. This <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521807517">digital divide</a> means those with internet access gain advantages while people without it fall behind. </p>
<p>The internet is useful not only for keeping in touch with friends and family, but also in applying for jobs, working to earn money and expanding educational opportunities. What’s more, as my research discusses, governments are increasingly using the internet to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2015.1100751">provide public services and connect with citizens</a> – including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0160323X15599427">using online disclosure to improve transparency and accountability</a>. If these gaps continue into the future, large numbers of Americans will be alienated from the rest of the country, and potentially from democracy itself. </p>
<h2>Broadband as a public utility</h2>
<p>If citizens don’t have high-speed internet service connecting them to markets, schools and government, they can’t engage in activities that could significantly improve their well-being. Recognizing this fact – that internet service is now as central to American social, business and civic life as electricity and telephone service – the Obama administration successfully rallied the Federal Communications Commission to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/technology/net-neutrality-fcc-vote-internet-utility.html">classify broadband access as a public utility</a>.</p>
<p>Federal courts also played a role, ruling that the FCC had to declare the internet a public utility if it wanted to ensure “<a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-net-neutrality-seven-essential-reads-71848">net neutrality</a>,” the principle that all online traffic should be treated equally. That way the media conglomerates that own the country’s major internet service providers can’t unfairly stifle competition from startups. For instance, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/comcast-vs-netflix-is-this-really-about-net-neutrality/">Comcast couldn’t slow down Netflix content</a> in hopes customers would prefer to use Comcast’s own video services, which could be delivered more quickly.</p>
<p>The intent was to foster conditions for more equal access not only to the internet itself, but to all its various content. The internet’s benefits come, after all, not from the connection itself but the data that travels over that connection.</p>
<h2>Regulating content</h2>
<p>Even as Trump’s budget apparently continues to focus on consumers’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-room-for-broadband-in-the-trump-infrastructure-agenda-74881">access to the wires</a>, his administration is taking aim at what information people access online. Trump’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, has <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-fcc-continues-to-redefine-the-public-interest-as-business-interests-75120">begun the process of dismantling the Obama-era net neutrality regulations</a>. Pai, a former Verizon corporate attorney, has argued that <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/26/15437840/fcc-plans-end-title-ii-net-neutrality">market forces are better than government rules</a> when it comes to ensuring equitable, efficient and effective service delivery.</p>
<p>But evidence suggests the opposite: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/padm.12102">Relying upon market forces alone can actually exaggerate</a> rather than attenuate existing inequalities in service provision. To date, the research suggests that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0269094213496974">internet policy is not closing existing divides</a> but rather preserving – or even worsening – them.</p>
<p>Efforts to expand broadband access, including Obama’s <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/national-broadband-plan">National Broadband Plan</a>, have <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/10/u-s-digital-infrastructure-needs-more-private-investment">created trillions of dollars in economic growth</a>. And yet people who were disadvantaged before the dawn of broadband <a href="http://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2645">remain, in large part, disadvantaged today</a>.</p>
<p>Trump’s budget proposal <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/budget.pdf#page=25">calls for upgrades to broadband infrastructure</a>. At present there are few details about what exactly those efforts will look like. But Pai’s moves to deregulate online activity suggest the administration won’t use other regulations to guide broadband expansion. </p>
<p>That leaves unclear what methods, if any, the Trump administration will use to ensure all Americans get equal access to this important resource for personal and civic life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Porumbescu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Trump administration’s proposed budget suggests it will continue to spend federal dollars on expanding broadband internet access. But the rules governing internet traffic matter too.Gregory Porumbescu, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/748812017-04-12T00:38:21Z2017-04-12T00:38:21ZIs there room for broadband in the Trump infrastructure agenda?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164893/original/image-20170411-26730-djgza6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's still a lot of the U.S. waiting to be wired up.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fiber-optic-cables-connected-ports-309314312">asharkyu/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A promise to restore America’s crumbling infrastructure was a key part of President Donald Trump’s campaign speeches. He <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article128492164.html">pledged</a> to rebuild America’s roads and bridges, ports and highways, which are <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/02/18/fewer-bridges-need-repairs-but-task-still-monumental/80512038/">undoubtedly in need of repair</a>. Less clear in his speeches – and in these early days of his administration – is what importance he gives broadband internet, an equally essential infrastructure in our 21st-century information economy. <a href="http://www.telecompetitor.com/pew-u-s-smartphone-ownership-broadband-penetration-reached-record-levels-in-2016/">A quarter of Americans still have no broadband</a>, and <a href="https://www.ncta.com/broadband-by-the-numbers">12 percent live in places where they can get service from only one provider or none at all</a>.</p>
<p>Very broadly, governments have two tools to change any particular industry: funding and regulation. Trump’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/2018_blueprint.pdf">budget blueprint</a> released on March 16 leaves no doubt that the president’s focus is on beefing up America’s defense and security capabilities. To fund his significant increases for defense, homeland security, veterans affairs and law enforcement, Trump <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/16/winners-and-losers-in-trumps-budget-blueprint.html">proposes cuts</a> across the rest of the federal government.</p>
<p>Several agencies that directly or indirectly fund broadband service may have less money to spend, despite the benefits high-speed internet access can bring to individuals, businesses and their communities. My own research at the <a href="http://comm.psu.edu/research/centers/iip">Institute for Information Policy</a> at Penn State, and that of many others, has shown that broadband penetration can have multiplier effects on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/jinfopoli.3.2013.0181">jobs creation</a>, <a href="https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7020438525.pdf">small business startups</a>, <a href="https://www.ericsson.com/res/thecompany/docs/corporate-responsibility/2013/impact-of-broadband-speed-on-household-income.pdf">wages and incomes</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2241926">property values</a> and <a href="http://www.whatworksforamerica.org/ideas/community-development-in-rural-america-collaborative-regional-and-comprehensive/">community renewal</a>. Even modest investments can have lasting benefits.</p>
<p>Beyond the potential for spending cuts, Trump’s early regulatory moves suggest he is not making broadband access a priority. If he harms broadband service, President Trump risks missing an opportunity to invest in a proven economic engine for the country.</p>
<h2>Key programs on the chopping block</h2>
<p>One group whose federal funds are slated for total elimination is the <a href="https://www.arc.gov/">Appalachian Regional Commission</a>, which (among other functions) helps people and communities pay for broadband service in some of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-should-the-u-s-government-help-coal-communities-53475">most economically depressed regions of the country</a>. <a href="https://www.arc.gov/images/programs/telecom/InformationAgeAppalachia.pdf">It supports</a> remote access to doctors, small business connections to larger markets, and job training and education programs from teachers and experts elsewhere – all brought into rural areas via the internet.</p>
<p>Another federal agency destined for the chopping block, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, coordinates various <a href="https://www.imls.gov/assets/1/AssetManager/BuildingDigitalCommunities_Framework.pdf">efforts to provide internet service to communities through their local libraries and museums</a>.</p>
<p>Wider funding cuts for executive departments, even if they don’t directly target specific agencies or programs, are also likely to affect broadband funding. For example, the Housing and Urban Development department, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-administration-considers-6-billion-cut-to-hud-budget/2017/03/08/1757e8e8-03ab-11e7-b1e9-a05d3c21f7cf_story.html">targeted for a 13 percent cut</a>, offers several programs, including <a href="https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/ph/ross/aboutnn">Neighborhood Networks</a>, which <a href="https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=DOC_12902.pdf">provide computer and internet access and online job training</a> to people who live in public housing. Whether that and <a href="https://www2.ntia.doc.gov/files/broadband_fed_funding_guide.pdf">other internet-related programs across the government</a> survive will become clearer only in the days and weeks to come, as the budget proposal is formalized and then works its way through Congress.</p>
<h2>Some glimmers in the darkness</h2>
<p>A few government programs’ budgets may see an increase: Trump’s blueprint modestly increases funding for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s projects developing better ways to <a href="https://www.ntia.doc.gov/category/spectrum-management">provide high-speed wireless internet services</a>. Current wireless networks are under significant pressure from the <a href="http://www.brattle.com/system/publications/pdfs/000/005/179/original/Substantial_Licensed_Spectrum_Deficit_(2015-2019)_-_Updating_the_FCC's_Mobile_Data_Demand_Projections.pdf">explosion of demand for mobile broadband service</a>. Transmissions from <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-devices-latest-feature-they-can-spy-on-your-every-move-55998">wireless devices</a> – items like wireless speakers, alarm systems and refrigerators – as well as autonomous cars will only increase the need to better manage radio frequencies.</p>
<p>Another piece of potentially good news is that lots of the money for expanding broadband service across America comes from other sources than the federal budget. American broadband companies continue to invest heavily in their networks. A <a href="https://www.ncta.com/broadband-by-the-numbers">telecommunications trade group reports</a> that the industry has invested US$250 billion in broadband infrastructure since 1996, including $90 billion in the last seven years.</p>
<p>Still, the broadband industry, which took in <a href="http://www.telecompetitor.com/u-s-cable-industry-revenue-forecast-to-hit-141-billion-in-2026/">$131 billion in revenue</a> in 2016, remains highly profitable. President Trump has met with broadband company CEOs to encourage them to invest more. <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/24/trump-touts-charter-communications-25-billion-investment.html">In late March he cited</a> a $25 billion investment pledge from Charter Communications as evidence of his success – though <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/27/fact-check-trump-job-boast-charter-communications/99683484/">critics</a> quickly pointed out that Charter’s decision had been years in the making.</p>
<p>But private investments can’t meet all the need, especially in markets that are not considered economically viable. To fill the gap, government-mandated programs subsidize low-income customers, rural health clinics, schools and libraries, and rural areas with poor connectivity. Funding for these programs comes from the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service">Universal Service Fund</a>, through a fee assessed on telecommunications providers based on how much their subscribers pay for service. <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/contribution-methodology-administrative-filings">Most companies charge their customers to recover this cost</a>, making it another form of public funding of broadband expansion. This fee, <a href="https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.pdf">established as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996</a>, is raised and spent outside the regular federal budget process, so it may not be affected by Trump administration policies.</p>
<h2>Regulatory steps</h2>
<p>Beyond spending or distributing money, the federal government can affect broadband investments with regulations. These are also outside the budget itself, but regulatory requirements can work in conjunction with spending plans. Many <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/rules-regulations-title-47">regulations are obscure and highly technical</a>. They govern the nitty-gritty mechanics of the telecommunications industry, such as prices telecom companies charge each other to connect networks, where physical wires run, and which radio frequencies are used for television channels and which for mobile broadhand. When well-crafted, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2404996">these rules can encourage competition</a>, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/americas-broadband-market-needs-more-competition-71676">boosts speeds and service quality</a> while decreasing prices.</p>
<p>So far, though, the Trump administration’s regulators are taking a hands-off approach to broadband service. In March, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman, Ajit Pai, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/technology/317865-fcc-removes-nine-companies-from-lifeline-program">withdrew authorization from some telecom companies</a> previously approved to participate in the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/lifeline-support-affordable-communications">Lifeline program</a>, which subsidizes broadband access to low-income customers. That may mean fewer companies offering Lifeline service, less money spent letting potential customers know about the program and fewer low-income people getting online.</p>
<p>Another regulatory move that’s widely expected is FCC action to reverse the Open Internet Order, protecting what is also called “net neutrality.” Under <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet">those rules</a>, formalized in 2015, internet service providers are required to deliver all online content to their customers at equal speeds, without slowing down traffic from any sites or charging some services for faster connections. Supporters say the rules <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/5/15190486/roku-lobbyist-net-neutrality-fight-privacy-online-washington-dc">help keep the internet open for innovation</a>, while critics say it is too much regulation that <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/technology/321563-fcc-chair-rails-against-net-neutrality">hurts</a> broadband providers.</p>
<p>Both <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fcc-chairman-net-neutrality-repeal_us_58e78626e4b058f0a02e3af3">Pai</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/technology/net-neutrality.html">President Trump</a> have vowed to undo net neutrality. How that will affect the market is unclear. It may spur broadband providers to increase their investments to take advantage of being able to <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/18/net-neutrality-is-dead-these-companies-couldnt-be.aspx">charge content companies for faster delivery of their traffic</a>. But it might <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-warns-republicans-against-net-neutrality-repeal/">slow innovation</a> if new startups find it difficult to reach customers through the ISPs’ bottlenecks.</p>
<p>President Trump came to office promising to create jobs, enhance American economic competitiveness and renew communities. He could take advantage of the proven power of broadband investments to help achieve all those goals. But at present, he appears to be moving away from that path, not using taxpayer dollars, agency regulations or the power of the presidential bully pulpit to push industry players to expand broadband to every American.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Krishna Jayakar has in the past received research funds from a number of organizations including AT&T, the Free Press Foundation, National Science Foundation, Pacific Telecommunications Council, and the Time Warner Cable Research Program in Digital Communications.</span></em></p>President Trump has touted infrastructure investment as a way to boost the U.S. economy. At the moment, he’s missing a key opportunity – expanding broadband internet service.Krishna Jayakar, Co-Director, Institute for Information Policy and Associate Professor of Telecommunications, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/751202017-03-28T22:06:51Z2017-03-28T22:06:51ZTrump’s FCC continues to redefine the public interest as business interests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162940/original/image-20170328-3798-jcvd7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Speak up!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/vector-illustration-website-horizontal-banner-concept-464473052">Speech bubbles via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Senate voted last week to <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/24/517050966/fcc-chairman-goes-after-his-predecessors-internet-privacy-rules">allow internet service providers</a> to <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/03/23/senate-overturns-an-obama-era-regulation-to-protect-your-privacy-online/">sell data about their customers’ online activities</a> to advertisers. The <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/for-sale-your-private-browsing-history/">House of Representatives</a> <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-resolution/230">agreed on Tuesday</a>; President Trump is <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/27/15073162/fcc-broadband-internet-privacy-rules-congress-vote">expected to sign</a> the measure into law.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/USCODE-2011-title47/USCODE-2011-title47-chap4">As far back as 1927</a>, American lawmakers sought to balance the needs of the public against the desire of big telecommunications companies to make huge profits off delivering information to Americans nationwide. Today, the Federal Communications Commission is charged with ensuring that the broadcasting and telecommunications systems work in “<a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/telecommunications-act-1996">the public interest, convenience and necessity</a>.”</p>
<p>Policymakers have struggled to specifically define “the public interest,” but the broad intent was clear: Government rules and programs worked to ensure a diversity of programming, distributed by a multitude of companies, with many different owners, through multiple channels that all Americans had access to.</p>
<p>While conducting research for my new book on <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64kmn4yx9780252040726.html">local media policy in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada</a>, I watched as officials’ priorities changed, favoring what they say is “freer” competition in the marketplace of ideas. As new proposals come up for public comment and debate in the next few months, we, the American public, must join these discussions, to ensure our interests are in fact served.</p>
<h2>A shift in priorities</h2>
<p>Over the last 30 years, America’s communications regulators have moved away from focusing on society’s benefit, and toward an interpretation of the public interest as <a href="http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/rise-and-fall-broadcasting-commons">equivalent to what businesses want</a>. For decades the FCC has chipped away at that broadly understood sense of the public interest, <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/20102014-media-ownership-rules-review">allowing more stations to be owned by one company</a>, <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/proceedings-actions/mergers-transactions/general/major-transaction-decisions">letting major media corporations merge</a> and <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/broadcast-radio-license-renewal">renewing station licenses</a> with a rubber stamp. And TV and radio stations are now allowed to be located <a href="http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2011/06/articles/what-do-the-fcc-main-studio-rules-require-recent-21000-fine-offers-some-clarification/">far away from the communities they serve</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, the national media system is dominated by a handful of companies, including <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6">Comcast, Time Warner, Fox and Disney</a>. This trend is mirrored at the local level, where Sinclair Broadcasting owns <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-342889A1.pdf">173 of the country’s 1,778 local television stations</a> and is on the <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/03/14/sinclair-tribune-merger-would-surpass-fcc-ownership-rules/">hunt to acquire more</a>.</p>
<p>These changes have seen media and telecommunications companies making money and acquiring more properties, while the public receives less and less in return.</p>
<h2>Moving quickly</h2>
<p>In addition to the moves in Congress, Trump’s FCC has acted quickly, too. Upon his promotion to FCC chairman, <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/ajit-pai">Ajit Pai</a> cited other companies’ fraudulent practices as a reason for <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/fcc-makes-it-harder-for-poor-people-to-get-subsidized-broadband/">removing nine internet service providers</a> from the list of companies approved to provide federally subsidized internet access to low-income families.</p>
<p>Pai also ended an investigation into <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/02/fcc-oks-streaming-free-net-neutrality-will-pay/">mobile phone companies’ practice of exempting mobile data</a> associated with certain apps (such as Spotify or Netflix) from the data limits normally imposed on customers’ plans. Because this explicitly favored some companies’ internet traffic over others’, many people viewed this practice, called “zero rating,” as a violation of open internet (also called “<a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/what-happens-now-with-net-neutrality">net neutrality</a>”) rules – the FCC’s requirements barring internet service providers from playing favorites with different providers’ internet content.</p>
<p>Taken together, these actions represent a major attack on what is left of the public interest as we once knew it. They also represent a reversal for the FCC, which was <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/net-neutrality-appeals-court">hailed for protecting the public interest</a> when it approved the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet">Open Internet Order</a> in 2015.</p>
<p>Pai himself <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ajit-pai-fcc-net-neutrality-trump-what-to-expect-2017-2">opposes those rules</a>, as does his congressional counterpart, <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/enemy-of-net-neutrality-and-muni-broadband-will-chair-house-telecom-panel/">Marsha Blackburn</a>, chair of the powerful House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. </p>
<h2>Attacking broadcasting too</h2>
<p>The Trump administration also appears to be adhering to this view of the public interest in media policy. </p>
<p>Trump’s initial proposed budget <a href="http://current.org/2017/03/trump-budget-seeks-to-zero-out-cpb-funding-by-2018/">zeroed out federal funding for public broadcasting</a>. The U.S. allocates <a href="http://current.org/2017/03/cpb-says-trump-budget-will-aim-to-rescind-fy2018-appropriation/">US$445 million</a> a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports organizations like NPR and PBS. That amounts to about <a href="https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/03/16/presidents-attack-public-broadcasting-puts-him-odds-american-people">$1.35 per person</a>. In contrast, <a href="http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/_files/cbcrc/documents/latest-studies/nordicity-public-broadcaster-comparison-2016.pdf">Germany</a> spends $143 a person; Norway spends more on public broadcasting than any other country – $180 per Norwegian. Cutting this already anemic funding would spell disaster for public broadcasting, most notably stations in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/business/media/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-cuts.html">rural America</a>.</p>
<p>And over at the FCC, Pai eliminated <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/commission-eliminates-two-public-inspection-file-requirements/pai-statement">requirements that broadcasters keep records of what they aired, for public inspection</a>. While perhaps antiquated and <a href="http://archives.cjr.org/united_states_project/inspecting_local_tvs_public_in.php">certainly rarely used by the public</a>, it was one of the last holdovers of a time when <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64kmn4yx9780252040726.html">local broadcasters</a> were thought to be responsive to their communities. </p>
<p>As for <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/03/14/sinclair-tribune-merger-would-surpass-fcc-ownership-rules/">Sinclair Broadcasting’s expansion hopes</a>, the company may be making its plans precisely because Commissioner Pai wants to <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/fcc-ajit-pai-media-ownership-1202008630/">relax ownership restrictions</a>. </p>
<h2>Stepping up to the mic?</h2>
<p>The next few months will see debates about a diverse range of communications-related topics, all of which center on the public interest. We need to ask hard, clear questions of legislators, regulators and ourselves:</p>
<p>Is it in the public’s interest to have an internet where ISPs can decide which websites load fastest? Is it in the public interest for <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/att-says-youll-love-more-relevant-advertising-after-time-warner-merger/">AT&T to buy Time Warner</a>, creating an even larger and more powerful media company? Is it in the public interest for <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/republican-led-fcc-drops-court-defense-of-inmate-calling-rate-cap/">incarcerated people</a> and their families to pay exorbitant sums to speak to one another on the phone? Is it in the public interest to retain access to public broadcasting, which brings us everything from “Sherlock” to “Sesame Street”? </p>
<p>Media is more than just our window on the world. It’s how we talk to each other, how we engage with our society and our government. Without a media environment that serves the public’s need to be informed, connected and involved, <a href="http://thenewpress.com/books/rich-media-poor-democracy">our democracy and our society will suffer</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/nicholas-johnson/your-second-priority-a-former-fcc-commissioner-speaks-out/paperback/product-3028022.html">former FCC chairman Nicholas Johnson</a> put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Whatever is your first priority, whether it is women’s rights or saving wildlife, your second priority has to be media reform. With it you at least have a chance of accomplishing your first priority. Without it, you don’t have a prayer.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If only a few wealthy companies control how Americans communicate with each other, it will be harder for people to talk among ourselves about the kind of society we want to build.</p>
<p>It is time for a sustained public conversation about media policy, akin to the ones we have about health care, the economy, defense and the budget. Regulators and policymakers must communicate regularly to the public. News organizations must report on these issues with the same frequency and intensity as they do other areas of public policy. And the people must pay attention and make their voices heard. </p>
<p>We did it before, powerfully influencing rules about <a href="https://www.savetheinternet.com/release/156">media ownership in 2003</a> and <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/09/17/349243335/3-7-million-comments-later-heres-where-net-neutrality-stands">ensuring net neutrality in 2015</a>. We can do it again. For us, as members of the public, and as avid media consumers, it’s time the public got interested in the public interest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Ali does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the Trump administration settles into office, regulators and lawmakers have big plans for shifting the country’s media landscape, with potentially profound effects on the public.Christopher Ali, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/717322017-02-08T17:01:38Z2017-02-08T17:01:38ZDonald Trump could be about to end net neutrality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155917/original/image-20170207-8356-1pf0lq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump wants to build another wall. Not a physical wall to keep out illegal immigrants, like his proposed Mexican border project, but a virtual wall around the internet. And just as with Mexico, he wants the people behind the wall to pay for it.</p>
<p>President Trump seems to want to dismantle the main internet policy of his predecessor, that of ensuring <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-net-neutrality-seven-essential-reads-71848">net neutrality</a>, also known as the “open internet”. To do this, he has appointed the <a href="transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0111/DOC-342990A1.pdf">most vocal Republican critic</a> of President Obama’s internet policies, Ajit Pai, as chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the largest and most powerful internet regulatory body in the world.</p>
<p>Net neutrality <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=388863">is the principle</a> that telecoms providers that connect you to the internet should not throttle your access depending on what services and content you use. For example, your mobile phone company should not be able to reduce your use of Skype or WhatsApp by reducing the speed of those services so that you use their calling and messaging functions instead. Without net neutrality, certain services and websites would be able to pay internet providers so that customers can access them with faster speeds, disadvantaging those companies without such a deal.</p>
<p>Telecoms providers’ attempts to do this led to a <a href="https://script-ed.org/article/comparative-case-studies-in-implementing-net-neutrality-a-critical-analysis-of-zero-rating/">growing international consensus</a> among governments on net neutrality. From 2009, many European and Latin American countries introduced regulations and laws to promote or guarantee net neutrality. In the US, opposition from big telecoms and cable corporations <a href="https://theconversation.com/europe-can-learn-from-us-on-how-not-to-do-net-neutrality-21703">in the courts</a> meant it took six years of Obama’s presidency to begin to effectively implement net neutrality rules. </p>
<p>To get around net neutrality rules, some telecoms companies have more recently begun using a “zero rating” approach of offering customers a preferential bundle of certain services that do not use up data allowances. These “sponsored data” plans don’t prevent access to any other site or service. But they still disadvantage smaller content providers, including the likes of the BBC and Wikipedia, that cannot afford to negotiate inclusion in sponsored data plans as the likes of Facebook and Google can.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156078/original/image-20170208-17325-jsvg4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156078/original/image-20170208-17325-jsvg4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156078/original/image-20170208-17325-jsvg4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156078/original/image-20170208-17325-jsvg4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156078/original/image-20170208-17325-jsvg4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156078/original/image-20170208-17325-jsvg4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156078/original/image-20170208-17325-jsvg4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ending net neutrality could make some sites faster than others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the end of 2016, regulators in <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/30/12707590/eu-net-neutrality-rules-final-guidelines-berec">the EU</a> <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/indias-new-open-internet-law-is-stronger-than-the-united-states">and India</a> had produced further guidelines banning zero-rating plans. And the FCC under Obama <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/11/11/fcc-zero-rating-att-time-warner/">was challenging</a> companies using the zero-rating strategy. All those other national regulators are in the midst of their investigations - which is why they are susceptible to the FCC’s do-nothing.</p>
<p>But, in the US at least, that is now history as we enter the Trump era. The new FCC chairman has argued the net neutrality rules over-regulate innovation, even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/27/republicans-strike-back-fcc-member-star-wars-net-neutrality">quoting the Emperor</a> from Star Wars to invoke his opposition. He prefers deregulation to allow companies to compete without explicit consumer protection rules to guarantee an open internet.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/technology/trumps-fcc-quickly-targets-net-neutrality-rules.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=technology">Since his appointment</a>, Pai has closed the inquiry that was implementing Obama’s policy, and he is highly unlikely to agree to another one. Pai will most probably continue to act towards net neutrality by exercising masterly inactivity, failing to enforce the regulations. </p>
<h2>Behind the wall</h2>
<p>That will allow the big US telecoms and cable companies to erect paywalls around their content, giving customers free access to affiliated services but making them pay for rival content, especially high definition video. That means lower costs for video services affiliated to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast but higher costs for independent providers such as Netflix.</p>
<p>Who else is affected by an end to US net neutrality? In short, those innovators unable to strike a deal to get inside the telecoms and cable companies’ paywalls. Facebook’s deals with mobile operators have enabled it to offer zero-rated content <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebooks-free-access-internet-is-limited-and-thats-raised-questions-over-fairness-36460">in many countries</a>. They may now hope the US approval for zero rating will help their arguments in India, Brazil and other huge developing markets. Google and and even NetFlix may be big enough to look after their interests, too. </p>
<p>But small innovators will have no guaranteed minimum service level to design new services. That could impact the development of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-internet-of-things-16542">Internet of Things</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-5g-38489">5G mobile networks</a> and cloud computing services. Having to ask permission to run your service on the internet is a major issue for start-ups that are effectively three engineers in a garage (as Google and Facebook once were). And this may affect new companies’ decisions on where to start their innovations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Marsden received funding until May 2015 from the European Internet Science Network of Excellence under Grant Agreement Number 288021. </span></em></p>The US is set to rollback the rules that keep internet companies on a level playing-field. It could make services slower and more expensive.Chris Marsden, Professor of Internet Law, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/699592017-01-16T04:44:49Z2017-01-16T04:44:49ZWhat does Trump’s election mean for digital freedom of speech?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152720/original/image-20170113-11803-9i24i1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-covering-his-mouth-hand-imprint-513537250">Via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the shock of Donald Trump’s election victory is giving way to analysis about <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/2016-us-presidential-election-23653">how his presidency will affect Americans’ lives</a>, our digital freedom of speech deserves special consideration. The ability to express ourselves freely is a fundamental right guaranteed to us all.</p>
<p>There are three major elements that determine how free we are in our online expression: The press must be <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment">free to publish</a> anything newsworthy about public officials without fear of serious reprisals. Online communications must be able to reach broad audiences <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/13/14266168/tom-wheeler-final-speech-net-neutrality-defense">without discrimination by internet service providers</a>. And the government <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fourth_amendment">must not be able to spy indiscriminately</a> on ordinary law-abiding Americans.</p>
<p>Before and during the campaign, Trump made pronouncements that suggest deep and widespread implications for digital freedom of speech if those ideas end up guiding his administration. As a scholar of digital communication, I am concerned about what he and his administration will do once in office. Trump’s actions could result in weaker protections for our free press, less competition and higher prices for online consumers, certain forms of online censorship and a return to an intrusive online surveillance regime. The public must prepare to stand up to oppose these infringements on our rights.</p>
<h2>Attacking the press</h2>
<p>During his presidential bid, Donald Trump ran as much against the press as against his Republican primary opponents and Hillary Clinton. This was despite the fact that many press outlets were only doing what they usually do during campaigns: scrutinize both parties’ front-runners and nominees.</p>
<p>Most candidates simply grin and bear the ritual press grillings, but not Trump. He showed an <a href="http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/10/why-is-trumps-skin-so-much-thinner-than-clintons.html">unusually thin skin</a> for a presidential contender, directly attacking the press during raucous rallies and routinely <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/06/13/trump-washington-post-banned-list/85842316/">banning certain news outlets</a> from covering his campaign.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y2vozC_kP6Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump attacks the media in this CNN clip.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But he also went beyond even these extraordinary steps, suggesting that he would <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-donald-trump-wants-to-change-libel-laws/">“open up” libel laws</a> to make it easier for public figures to sue news outlets: “[W]hen people write incorrectly about you and you can prove that they wrote incorrectly, we’re going to get them through the court system to change and we’re going to get them to pay damages,” said Trump.</p>
<p>This is, in fact, what <a href="http://www.rcfp.org/digital-journalists-legal-guide/libel">current libel law</a> already allows. Strikingly, Trump has combined his seeming ignorance of libel law (despite his many years in the public eye) with a sense that today’s existing restrictions on the press are too loose. This suggests that he may seek to enshrine in law or policy his particular animosity toward the press.</p>
<p>He also has been willing to attack any and all critics, including <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/this-is-what-happens-when-donald-trump-attacks-a-private-citizen-on-twitter/2016/12/08/a1380ece-bd62-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html">private citizens</a>. Combined, these elements raise questions about the degree, if any, to which Trump values freedom of the press, digital or otherwise. </p>
<p>His Cabinet appointments do not inspire confidence in his support of this principle, either. During his confirmation hearing, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/01/sessions-not-sure-whether-he-would-prosecute-journalists-233431">dodged questions</a> about his willingness to prosecute journalists based on their reporting, including handling leaks from government employees. He has also <a href="http://www.rcfp.org/reporters-committee-releases-report-attorney-general-nominee-jeff-sessions">opposed a federal shield law</a> that would protect journalists against such prosecutions.</p>
<h2>Threatening an open internet</h2>
<p>Network neutrality was not a hot topic during this presidential election, but that may change during a Trump administration.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"532608358508167168"}"></div></p>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality">debate over net neutrality</a> in 2014, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/532608358508167168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">Trump tweeted</a> that the policy was a “top down power grab” that would “target conservative media.” He appears to have conflated net neutrality’s nondiscrimination principle with the now-defunct <a href="http://www.museum.tv/eotv/fairnessdoct.htm">Fairness Doctrine</a>. That policy, discontinued in 1987, required broadcasters to devote equal time to opposing views about controversial public issues. It’s hard to know which is more worrying: his early antipathy toward net neutrality, or his objections despite not knowing what it actually means.</p>
<p>Whatever Trump himself understands, his appointments look like bad news for supporters of an open internet. President-elect Trump has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fcc-idUSKBN13H02B">named Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison</a> to oversee the transition at the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees internet communications policy. Both are <a href="https://www.aei.org/scholar/jeffrey-eisenach/">staff members</a> at the conservative <a href="https://www.aei.org/scholar/mark-jamison-2/">American Enterprise Institute</a> and <a href="http://warrington.ufl.edu/centers/purc/docs/bio_MarkJamison.pdf">former lobbyists</a> for <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/us/politics/trump-campaigned-against-lobbyists-now-theyre-on-his-transition-team.html">major telecommunications companies</a>. Both are also <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/29/donald-trump-s-transition-team-wants-to-end-net-neutrality.html">vocal opponents of net neutrality</a>. Also on his FCC transition team are Roslyn Layton, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/technology/307924-trump-taps-another-net-neutrality-critic-for-fcc-transition">another staff member at AEI and vocal net neutrality opponent</a>, and <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/12/29/trump-fcc-morken-net-neutrality/">North Carolina telecom entrepreneur David Morken</a>. </p>
<p>Morken is not on record as opposing net neutrality, but so far its supporters seem outnumbered. Those signs suggest that a Trump administration could enable an internet where wealthy people and companies can afford to distribute their content everywhere quickly, while regular people and small businesses can’t attract an audience or deliver content efficiently.</p>
<h2>Perpetuating the surveillance state</h2>
<p>During the campaign, candidate Trump supported <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261673-trump-sides-with-rubio-over-cruz-in-nsa-surveillance">keeping or restoring the NSA’s secret surveillance programs</a>, which former agency contractor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files">Edward Snowden revealed in 2013</a>. Those programs, with a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nsa-surveillance-idUSKCN0HO1YQ20140929">questionable legal basis</a>, collected <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order">internet and telephone communications</a> from all Americans, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/29/457779757/nsa-ends-sept-11th-era-surveillance-program">storing them in a massive government database</a>.</p>
<p>Although Congress <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/house-votes-to-end-nsas-bulk-phone-data-collection.html?_r=0">voted across partisan lines to eliminate these programs</a> in 2015, Trump’s election may help revive them. He has named Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas), a supporter of the NSA surveillance programs Congress eliminated, as the <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/nation/article/Trump-s-CIA-pick-would-reinstate-US-collection-10628986.php">next CIA director</a>. </p>
<p>The programs are <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americans-think-about-nsa-surveillance-national-security-and-privacy/">unpopular with Americans</a>: It is perhaps no coincidence that interest in technologies that would make government surveillance more difficult, such as <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/11/13603000/protonmail-encrypted-email-service-donald-trump-nsa-surveillance">encrypted email</a> and <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/12/02/donald-trump-signal-app/">encrypted instant messaging apps</a>, has surged since Trump’s election.</p>
<h2>How successful could Trump be?</h2>
<p>We are not necessarily doomed to lose our digital freedom of speech. As with any public policy question, the answer is more complicated. Should Trump begin to wage on a full-fledged assault on digital expression, the degree to which he can succeed may be limited.</p>
<p>One factor is his ability to navigate the extremely complex and time-consuming obstacle course that is the American system of government. With its separation of powers, bicameral legislature, multiple layers of jurisdiction and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/194257?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">endless veto points</a>, the American system strongly favors inertia over just about any course of action.</p>
<p>But a highly motivated president with an authoritarian streak could potentially cut through this inertia by, for example, embracing a <a href="http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12368&context=journal_articles">strong unitary executive</a> view of the presidency.</p>
<p>When the public gets involved, even seemingly entrenched plans can be derailed, or even reversed. For example, a mass of public involvement (with a little assistance from <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/john-olivers-net-neutrality-rallying-cry-swamps-fcc/">comedian John Oliver</a>) <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-26/how-john-oliver-transformed-the-net-neutrality-debate-once-and-for-all">transformed the initial net neutrality debate</a>.</p>
<p>This power the public holds – if it chooses to wield it – can be used in two ways: First, it can resist unwelcome changes, by reinforcing the political tendency toward inertia and the status quo. And second, it can drive policymakers to better serve the public who employ them. It’s unclear at present which tactic protecting our digital freedom of speech will require – or whether we’ll need both. In American politics, elections may have consequences, but they’re never the end of the story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luis Hestres does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The public must prepare to stand up for a free press, and against online censorship and surveillance.Luis Hestres, Assistant Professor of Digital Communication, The University of Texas at San AntonioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/614782016-06-28T09:43:21Z2016-06-28T09:43:21ZThorny technical questions remain for net neutrality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128345/original/image-20160627-28382-dujjl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not all online traffic is the same; should we treat it the same anyway?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-432286009/stock-vector-net-neutrality-free-internet-access.html">Scale via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Federal rules mandating network neutrality – the concept that all internet traffic should be treated equally – were <a href="https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3F95E49183E6F8AF85257FD200505A3A/%24file/15-1063-1619173.pdf">upheld recently by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals</a>. The decision was <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-14/fcc-s-net-neutrality-rules-upheld-by-u-s-court-of-appeals">hailed as a win</a> by civil-rights groups, entrepreneurs and tech giants like Google, as well as the Obama administration itself, which had <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet">proposed the rules in the first place</a>. Under them, internet service provider companies are <a href="https://theconversation.com/appeals-court-upholds-net-neutrality-rules-why-you-should-care-61064">prevented from giving speed boosts</a> (or delays) to traffic of certain types or from certain sites. </p>
<p>There is an important principle at stake: Treating all internet traffic the same protects innovation. Otherwise, new services seeking to compete with Google, Facebook and the like would be at a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3042787/what-a-net-neutrality-lose-would-mean-for-entrepreneurs">significant disadvantage</a>, with not enough money to buy enough network bandwidth to properly showcase their innovations.</p>
<p>But not all internet traffic is the same. Despite this significant legal win for network neutrality, it remains unclear how it should work in practice. Getting the details wrong risks creating a system where customers don’t get the best possible service, and society misses out on some potential innovation.</p>
<p>In fact, there are several scenarios in which I’d argue ISPs really should be able to treat different types of traffic unequally, speeding some along while slowing others down. Imagine a particular network link is congested, which is <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/nsdi13/technical-sessions/presentation/winstein">often the case with mobile data</a> and network routing facilities <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2663716.2663741">where ISPs connect to each other’s networks</a>. Congestion typically happens when lots of wireless customers are in one place trying to connect to the internet, or when one ISP is sending more data than a recipient ISP can handle, as when Netflix customers’ streaming <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-throttling-netflix-traffic-even-after-its-pays-for-more-bandwidth">maxed out Netflix’s network links with Verizon</a> in 2014.</p>
<p>Now consider two users whose internet traffic goes through the congested link. If one user is streaming video and another is backing up data to the cloud, should both of them have their data slowed down? Or would users’ collective experience be best if those watching <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/03/09/net-neutrality-connection/">videos were given priority</a>? That would mean slightly slowing down the data backup, freeing up bandwidth to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TNET.2013.2281542">minimize video delays</a> and keep the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2043164.2018478">picture quality high</a>.</p>
<h2>What is ‘reasonable management’ anyway?</h2>
<p>The Open Internet Order, as the federal net neutrality rules are formally known, does anticipate this, to some degree. It allows ISPs to use “reasonable network management” practices to keep data flowing, without violating the overall purpose of the regulations. However, the Federal Communications Commission has not yet defined what that means – perhaps because doing so is difficult.</p>
<p>It makes sense that when a link is not fully occupied, no traffic should be delayed. Similar logic would suggest that if a link is overloaded, it might be useful to delay some data and prioritize others. But where do we draw the line between the two extremes? </p>
<p>And what if a link is mostly full, but not yet all the way? Could an ISP throttle back some delay-tolerant traffic (such as software update downloads) to leave room in case any new time-sensitive traffic (streaming videos, internet phone calls) came through? Or would it have to wait until the link was completely filled before stepping in to manage priority?</p>
<p>Next imagine that the only solution to handling a full link pits one user’s Skype call against another user’s Netflix stream. How should the ISP make the decision about the effects its selective traffic priorities will have on both users’ experiences?</p>
<p>The FCC has not ruled on these technical details, but declaring what is reasonable will be important for consumers and ISPs alike. I and my colleagues are studying <a href="http://web.eecs.umich.edu/%7Eharshavm/papers/internetqoe16.pdf">how to measure users’ experience from internet traffic</a> – rather than just quantifying the speed of data flows. One of our goals is to help ISPs understand the effects of various traffic-handling methods.</p>
<h2>Finding ways around neutrality</h2>
<p>Throttling and prioritization are not the only ways ISPs can improve or degrade the performance of internet traffic. ISPs can route internet traffic along a variety of network paths, which are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/863955.863970">not always as short, and therefore as fast, as they could be</a>. A firm could, therefore, route traffic from one video streaming service (say, the one the ISP itself owns) via a network path with a large amount of bandwidth, while routing a competitor’s traffic along a more circuitous path with limited bandwidth.</p>
<p>ISPs tend to consider information about their <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2567561.2567566">network layout and capacity, routing policies and traffic-handling settings</a> as competitive secrets not subject to public scrutiny. That makes it very hard to tell from the outside if a particular routing decision is discriminatory or a legitimate network-management choice. The FCC’s rules do allow government regulators to review some of this data, but only after a complaint has been made. Without the data, though, it’s nearly impossible to document a pattern of discrimination that might warrant complaining in the first place.</p>
<p>All in all, while the spirit of equality underlying the federal government’s drive for network neutrality is well-intentioned, a perfectly neutral network is not in the best interests of consumers. How the rules of an imperfectly neutral network are set up will determine if we can indeed have the internet serve as a utility that facilitates long-term innovation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The National Science Foundation and Google have funded Prof. Madhyastha's research on topics unrelated to network neutrality.</span></em></p>Not all internet traffic is the same. Despite the recent legal win for network neutrality, many questions remain.Harsha V. Madhyastha, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/610642016-06-16T16:49:46Z2016-06-16T16:49:46ZAppeals court upholds net neutrality rules – why you should care<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126800/original/image-20160615-14060-1hsl83g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The court ruling will keep all internet traffic treated equally.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-67487518/stock-photo-website-traffic.html">Laptop with arrows via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you like binge-watching Netflix, streaming audio or online gaming, then you should be celebrating this week. And if your business depends on reaching a wide audience online, you should join in. A federal appeals court decision this week means your internet service provider can’t slow down your access to particular sites, nor let others pay to be in a faster lane of service. It all comes down to the principle called net neutrality.</p>
<p>The court upheld the Obama administration’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/technology/net-neutrality-fcc-appeals-court-ruling.html">net neutrality rules</a> governing companies that deliver internet service to U.S. homes and businesses. At the heart of the case was the Federal Communications Commission’s February 2015 <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet">Open Internet Order</a>. It requires that everyone – whether they are individuals, small businesses or large corporations – must have equal access to the whole internet, just like everyone has equal access to the telephone network. </p>
<p>Companies that provide internet service have fought against these rules. In addition to charging people for internet access at home, they hoped to earn even more money by <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/disruptions-paying-to-travel-in-the-internets-fast-lanes/">charging content providers for priority “fast lanes”</a> for their traffic. For example, without net neutrality rules, Comcast would be allowed to slow down (or even block) its customers’ traffic coming from Netflix – even though the Netflix viewers had already paid Comcast for internet access. And Comcast could speed things up again if Netflix directly paid Comcast even more money.</p>
<p>The rules were created out of concern internet service providers would reserve high-speed internet lanes for content providers who could pay for it, while relegating to slower speeds those that didn’t – or couldn’t, such as libraries, local governments and universities. Net neutrality is also important for innovation, because it protects small and start-up companies’ <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3042787/what-a-net-neutrality-lose-would-mean-for-entrepreneurs">access to the massive online marketplace</a> of internet users. This week’s <a href="https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3F95E49183E6F8AF85257FD200505A3A/$file/15-1063-1619173.pdf">D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling</a> establishes a level playing field for online information providers.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fpbOEoRrHyU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">John Oliver explains net neutrality on ‘Last Week Tonight.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Internet as a public utility</h2>
<p>The ruling will likely be <a href="http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/broadband-classification/att-statement-on-u-s-court-of-appeals-net-neutrality-decision/">appealed to the Supreme Court</a>. But it is important because this particular court has previously thrown out past efforts by the FCC to create similar rules governing internet access. In 2014, it <a href="https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3af8b4d938cdeea685257c6000532062/$file/11-1355-1474943.pdf">found that the FCC lacked the authority</a> to make net-neutrality rules, because it did not yet classify internet service in the same way it did telephone service – as a “utility” worthy of special protections.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0312/FCC-15-24A1.pdf">FCC reclassified internet service</a> in the 2015 Order as “Title II,” acknowledging that <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/26/8114265/fcc-ruling-net-neutrality-victory-internet-title-ii">internet service has become a utility</a>, a necessity in daily life. Title II service providers – like phone companies – are not allowed to discriminate in the service they provide. Creating a “fast lane” would amount to discrimination based on the content of the data being transmitted.</p>
<h2>Investments and profits</h2>
<p>Internet service providers are <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/politics/lobbyists-net-neutrality-fcc/">fighting the rules</a> because they are frustrated that they spend huge amounts of money building and expanding the infrastructure of the internet, which other companies profit from. Some of those companies, such as Netflix, Amazon, Google and Facebook, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-netflix-earnings-fourth-quarter-2015-20160119-story.html">make significant, even extraordinary, amounts of money</a>.</p>
<p>Net neutrality doesn’t solve this desire of the companies that provide the backbone of internet communications to be rewarded as richly as the companies using it. Internet service providers view this as a fundamental unfairness. They are, after all, handling <a href="https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/vni-hyperconnectivity-wp.html">more and more data every year</a>. But attempting to solve this issue by allowing paid, fast-lane service would remake the web in ways that would punish internet users more than these companies. Fast-lane fees would be passed on to consumers, consumers’ use of vital but noncommercial sites could be comparatively tedious, and internet service providers could advantage content and sites they own. </p>
<p>Video streaming services are of particular concern to service companies because because video files are so large and take up so much network capacity. A December 2015 report from Canadian networking company Sandvine found that during peak evening hours, <a href="https://www.sandvine.com/pr/2015/12/7/sandvine-over-70-of-north-american-traffic-is-now-streaming-video-and-audio.html">streaming audio and video accounted for 70 percent</a> of North American internet downloading activity, up from 35 percent five years earlier. </p>
<p>Net neutrality also doesn’t solve the problem that <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/271665456/Mapping-the-Digital-Divide">most Americans do not live in areas served by more than one high-speed internet service</a>, let alone those in <a href="https://theconversation.com/technology-is-improving-why-is-rural-broadband-access-still-a-problem-60423">rural America who don’t even have one</a>. Customers who dislike the content priorities and policies of their provider can’t change companies, making net neutrality an important preventative measure in this uncompetitive marketplace.</p>
<p>In most of the country, those who want or need broadband service must accept the terms and conditions of a single service provider. Now, at least, that company can’t favor certain types of online activity over others, just for the sake of its own profits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Lotz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you like binge-watching Netflix, streaming audio or online gaming, then you should be celebrating this week. And if your business depends on reaching a wide audience online, you should join in.Amanda Lotz, Fellow, Peabody Media Center; Professor of Media Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/560492016-03-17T10:07:27Z2016-03-17T10:07:27ZNet neutrality may be at risk when companies like Netflix subsidize your data<p>The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/27/net-neutrality-timeline/">made net neutrality</a> the law of the land and pledged to enforce it when it issued its “<a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet">open Internet order</a>” 13 months ago. That ruling barred Internet service providers (ISPs) from discriminating against certain types of traffic or creating pay-to-play fast lanes.</p>
<p>But a recent trend in the industry in which ISPs such as AT&T or Comcast allow consumers to stream certain content for free (without counting against their data quota) threatens to undermine net neutrality. Such practices, in which content companies typically subsidize or sponsor the bandwidth cost of their data, are known as “zero rating” plans. </p>
<p>So who wins and loses from this arrangement? Does it benefit consumers? And does it violate the FCC’s net neutrality rules, something the commission is currently investigating? </p>
<p>Using game theory, we created a framework in which to analyze the impact of these new zero rating plans, as well as the social welfare and policy implications – something particularly important as <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/technology/273246-house-approves-transparency-carveout-for-small-internet-providers">Congress</a> and the courts continue to evaluate the FCC’s net neutrality rules.</p>
<h2>Origins of zero rating</h2>
<p>AT&T <a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/01/att-sponsored-data/">was the first</a> to create a sponsored data plan in January 2014. Under the plan, the company decided to let data <a href="http://developer.att.com/apis/sponsored-data">subsidized</a> by app makers or other content providers pass through its network for free – that is, without consumers being charged against their monthly quotas. </p>
<p>It didn’t take long for its competitors to imitate the idea. </p>
<p>Verizon announced a similar “<a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/verizon-wireless-selling-data-cap-exemptions-to-content-providers/">FreeBee Data 360</a>” in January. The company said it was starting trials with AOL, Hearst Magazines and Lantern Software’s GameDay with full commercial availability later this year. </p>
<p>Comcast, meanwhile, allows subscribers to watch videos for free through its own <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/11/comcast-launches-online-tv-service-that-doesnt-count-against-data-caps">StreamTV service</a>. Streamers of Netflix and other providers must still use up their data.</p>
<p>T-Mobile’s <a href="http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/binge-on-streaming-video.html">Binge On program</a> allows subscribers to stream video from Netflix, Amazon and about 40 other sites on their phones without worrying about using up their data. In contrast to its rivals, the carrier so far hasn’t charged for the privilege but seems to favor the bigger providers.</p>
<p>The zero rating model got Facebook into trouble recently. Its <a href="https://info.internet.org/en/mission/">Free Basics platform</a> provides free Internet to a limited number of websites in countries like India, Kenya and Colombia <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/02/internet-org-app-now-available-in-india/">through local ISPs</a>. India’s telecom regulator <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/8/10913398/free-basics-india-regulator-ruling">banned</a> Free Basics because it said it violates the principles of net neutrality. The <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w21950">biggest objection</a> is that it offers only a few content providers that are chosen and controlled by Facebook. </p>
<p>Even Netflix, one of the biggest proponents of net neutrality, came under <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/3/8142899/netflix-net-neutrality-flipfl">criticism</a>. Its arrangement with Australian ISP iiNet allows consumers to stream Netflix content without worrying about running against their data cap. Netflix conceded that their arrangement could distort consumer choice, but at the same time it said that it “won’t put our service or our members at a disadvantage.” </p>
<hr>
<iframe src="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline/latest/embed/index.html?source=0AgG4fGMfRNdHdDNqak5kV01FTlVZMGFfSDc4SmlvMmc&font=Bevan-PotanoSans&maptype=toner&lang=en&height=425" width="100%" height="425" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<hr>
<h2>Provider’s dilemma</h2>
<p>In our <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2732077">research</a> on the topic, we developed a game theory model to analyze the impact and incentives of this type of data sponsorship given three players: a monopolist ISP and two content providers who want to maximize their customer reach. </p>
<p>Is there a risk that this type of plan would force the content providers – whether they are behemoths like <a href="http://www.netflix.com">Netflix</a> or promising upstarts like <a href="https://www.fandor.com">Fandor</a> – into a bidding war? And, as a result, produce a monopolistic digital content landscape that limits the amount of content available to consumers and tests the bounds of current net neutrality laws? </p>
<p>In our model, we found that under certain market conditions both content providers would pay to subsidize data going through the ISP, when in reality neither of them would prefer to do so. In effect, the content providers are in a classic “prisoner’s dilemma”: both would prefer not to pay – even if they have the wherewithal to do so – but both know that if they don’t pay, the other one will, and drive their rival out of the market. </p>
<p>Our research’s overarching finding is that the ISP always stands to gain when the content providers are subsidizing data usage fees – that is, it will always make more money as a result. The ISP, which knows the game’s results before it even starts, can therefore decide on a pricing strategy that forces both of them to pay.</p>
<p>Consumers and smaller content providers, on the other hand, both stand to lose. Since smaller companies are less able to afford the fees, they risk losing customers to the subsidized websites and apps. A content provider with an established revenue model can drive the others out of the market.</p>
<p>At first glance, zero rating plans would seem to be good for consumers because they allow users to consume traffic for free. But our research suggests the variety of content may be reduced, which in the long run harms consumers. </p>
<p>Once a plan with subsidized content is added, our research shows that many consumers might find that switching to that service – even if it’s deemed to be of lower quality – makes sense given the tradeoff: less favored content but lower connectivity costs. Thus, even a provider with higher-quality content could be completely driven out of the market if it is not in a position to pay to subsidize its data.</p>
<h2>Does it violate net neutrality?</h2>
<p>Supporters of net neutrality have argued that such arrangements contradict the spirit of <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=959944">net neutrality laws</a>, which hold that all content that is transmitted over the Internet should be treated equally – every single data packet, regardless of its origin, destination or content. </p>
<p>They contend that zero rating plans treat the subsidized packets <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/press/net-neutrality-expert-t-mobiles-binge-will-lead-internet-slippery-slope/">preferentially</a>, since consumers have more incentive to consume “free” packets over unsubsidized ones. The telecom companies, however, <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/at-t-says-sponsored-data-does-not-violate-net-neutrality/">claim</a> that these plans do not violate net neutrality because the sponsored data are delivered at the same speed and performance as the nonsponsored data. </p>
<p>Our study shows, however, that with a zero rating plan in place with one dominant content provider controlling the market, it would make it virtually impossible for new entrants to gain a foothold. </p>
<p>Essentially, zero rating plans undermine the core vision of net neutrality: ISPs should not act as gatekeepers that pick winners and losers online by favoring some content providers over others. </p>
<p>Subsidizing consumers in these zero rating plans will quickly become a way for certain content providers to get a leg up on competition. In digital content markets, it’s a self-perpetuating cycle: the stronger content provider can <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/in-silicon-valley-now-its-almost-always-winner-takes-all">keep getting stronger</a>. </p>
<p>For startups and entrepreneurs hoping to have their content spread naturally or virally – one of the ways the Internet has leveled the playing field – they are suddenly at a disadvantage after the introduction of data sponsorship. The ultimate result could be a digital marketplace with fewer options for consumers.</p>
<h2>Keeping an eye on zero rating plans</h2>
<p>The FCC is closely monitoring the practices of zero rating plans to see if they violate net neutrality laws. </p>
<p>In letters to AT&T and T-Mobile, the FCC <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/f-c-c-asks-comcast-att-and-t-mobile-about-zero-rating-services/">wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We want to ensure that we have all the facts to understand how these services (data subsidization) relate to the commission’s goal of maintaining a free and open internet while incentivizing innovation and investment from all sources. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But Chairman Tom Wheeler has sent mixed messages. While he has said the commission would be “keeping an eye on” the data subsidization programs, he has also praised them as “<a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3054977/fast-feed/t-mobile-binge-on-video-streaming-program-accused-of-throttling-traffic-to-youtube">highly innovative and highly competitive</a>.” </p>
<p>Our research should help policymakers within the FCC and elsewhere better understand the impact of these zero rating plans and how they can result in less choice for consumers in the long run.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liangfei Qiu receives funding from Networks, Electronic Commerce, and Telecommunications (NET) Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Soohyun Cho and Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Internet providers increasingly allow services to subsidize the cost of delivering their content to users. That may seem like a win for consumers, but game theory suggests otherwise.Liangfei Qiu, Assistant Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management, University of FloridaSoohyun Cho, PhD student in Information Systems, University of FloridaSubhajyoti Bandyopadhyay, Associate Professor, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/545302016-02-12T07:47:59Z2016-02-12T07:47:59ZWhy Digital India took on Facebook and won<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111252/original/image-20160212-29207-bs9ett.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">India has hit 'dislike' on Facebook.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image sourced from Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week marked a significant event in the life of <a href="https://mygov.in/group/digital-india/">Digital India</a>, in a country that is home to more than 400 million internet users. </p>
<p>The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) <a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/content/news/91358_0.aspx">passed a regulation</a> prohibiting discriminatory tariffs on internet connections sold to end customers by telecom service providers. The verdict states in no uncertain terms that any form of differential pricing based on the content accessed by users is disallowed. </p>
<p>This is a verdict strongly in favour of the principle of network neutrality (or net neutrality for short). And by implication, it makes Facebook’s <a href="https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org">“Free Basics”</a> program illegal in India.</p>
<p>This is significant, for Facebook’s so-called-charity program has been seen for what it is. India has stood up to one of the biggest multinational internet companies, in the face of tremendous pressure, the public face of which has been Facebook’s advertising blitzkrieg. Reason has won and propaganda has not.</p>
<p>Part of Facebook’s propaganda has been a wilful misrepresentation of net neutrality, casting it as an abstract and academic and dispensable principle. Nothing really could be further from the truth. Net neutrality is a simple and natural principle: “a post office should not open letters, or care about the identity of the sender” - the internet has been analogous to a large postal network. Neither the principle nor its implications are beyond any common person.</p>
<p>Some example implications are as follows. (1) The post office should not charge users based on whether the envelope contains a personal letter or a cheque for a million dollars. (2) The post office should not delay or discard letters based on what is written inside, or the identity of the sender. </p>
<p>In Free Basics, Facebook opens up people’s letters, and decides which ones to charge and which ones not. A subtlety easy to miss is that Facebook is not even the post office, but a self-appointed middleman. While this makes Facebook’s motives questionable, it seeks to cast it as charity, as a gift.</p>
<p>The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has upheld the natural principle of net neutrality.</p>
<p>TRAI’s verdict not only affects Facebook’s Free Basics but also a host of other similar programs which charge on a differential basis, mostly by providing free access to certain select music and video websites. It has seen such practices as unfair and anti-competitive, as marketing gimmicks that trap hapless customers.</p>
<p>The best argument offered by Facebook and others supporting Free Basics has been “some internet is better than no internet”. While this may be true, what is provided by the program is not the “internet”, but a small set of websites “approved” by Facebook. </p>
<p>But there are many other ways to provide “some free internet” in the true sense of the word. Limited free internet can be provided by limiting any of (a) time duration of access, (b) volume of access, or (c) rate of access. In fact there are cellular operators in India who have chosen such alternatives (e.g. Aircel’s free basic internet program), and these continue to be legal.</p>
<p>For all its propaganda, Facebook does not publicise any field study of the countries where Free Basics is available. Is the program really beneficial? One would be hard pressed to find any meaningful field study showing any evidence that the program is indeed beneficial for the “poor”.</p>
<h2>Marketing backfired</h2>
<p>The victory for net neutrality comes despite Facebook orchestrating an opinion poll, designed to make its case with the TRAI. The opinion poll posed a “can’t-say-no” question to Facebook users, making them send a form letter email to TRAI. One wonders what the impact of such tactics would have been if deployed in the US, Facebook’s home country. </p>
<p>If there is to be another version of Free Basics, Facebook would be well advised to begin charity at home, to build credibility, for it is certainly not the case that everyone in the US can afford internet data packs. In the meantime, we hope that TRAI’s verdict would have impact beyond India, in other countries seeking to save themselves from digital colonisation.</p>
<p>TRAI must be praised for standing up and making a decision of historical significance and global consequence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The decision of an Indian regulator to make Facebook Free Basics illegal saw reason trump propaganda.Bhaskaran Raman, Professor, Indian Institute of Technology BombayAshwin Gumaste, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology BombayKrithi Ramamritham, Professors, Indian Institute of Technology BombaySiddhartha Chaudhuri, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology BombayLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.