Binge On: Principle Of Net Neutrality

Imagine getting online, only to find out that you can 't access your favorite website. It could be Instagram, Tumblr, or even Youtube, a website for uploading videos. After getting off the phone with your internet provider, they tell you that you need to pay to access your favorite website. Internet providers want it to be set up that way. Their has been an ongoing debate about net neutrality between the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and internet providers. Net neutrality is fighting again internet providers blocking content.

In the IEEE CTN issue of June 2014, It was noted that “evolution and technological innovation in communication systems, digital media, and user behavior may challenge Net Neutrality principles and question if or how Net Neutrality can be sustained in a new word of data-hungry applications such as on-demand video, online gaming, and music streaming” (IEEE, 2014). In the same CTN issue, specific Net Neutrality principles included, among others, no connection blocking, bandwidth transparency, universal connectivity, and best effort

In 2005, Vonage, a phone company that transmits telephone calls over the internet or voice over internet protocol, complains to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about an unknown service provider blocking their telephone service. The FCC investigated the complaint and found that Madison River, a telephone company, was responsible and ordered them to stop blocking data sent from Vonage (Higginbotham, 2010). This incident was one of the first cases of an internet service provider discriminating against data sent over the internet because Vonage and Madison River are competing telephone service companies. Because of this, the FCC proposed a set of principles which sparked the beginning of net neutrality legislation that has been

Net neutrality has been around for quite some time but it was up until now when that us internet users really pay attention to it because our President Donald Trump wants to pass a new net neutrality rule/bill that makes people pay to use apps that were meant to be free like Facebook and Twitter that millions use. “June 2003 Tim Wu coins the phrase network neutrality which was later shortened to net neutrality”. (Tim Wu) According to this quote net neutrality has been around since the summer of 2003 but didn't really take any effect until “February 2004 when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission introduced four principles of network freedom”. (ProQuest Staff) now therefore net neutrality did not affect communities until February of 2004.

"Growing up, the internet wasn't much of an influence on me as it is now. Homework was done all in paper, every video assignment was done in class, and to call or play with friends, well that was done during recess face to face. Today the internet is the safe haven for millions as a way to find new people, spend free time, complete assignments, or just shop. But thanks to the vote done by the FCC chairman Ajit Pai, everybody will be expected to pay for what were already used to do.

Tim Berners-Lee said “Freedom of connection with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the internet. And now, is the basis of the society built on the internet.” Net Neutrality has been around since the beginning of internet. It is the reason the internet is open and free for anyone to use without, blocking, degradation, and discrimination. It has been the main driving force for up and coming artists, new small businesses, and people with fresh and great ideas. It has made the internet effortless and accessible without charging outrageous fees for a faster lane or having to ask for permission to use visuals, video, or audio. It

The idea being that a company could slow a site that they have competition with so that it would incentivize the consumer to use their alternative for the website. So if Comcast wanted to get people to stream shows off of their service, they could slow down the connection to services like Netflix. The worst case scenario from this field is an internet where the government does nothing to prevent “fast lanes” emerging where users who pay extra are given preferential treatment and have their internet speeds ramped up. This would leave the normal everyday user forced to pay extreme amounts in order to get the basic internet speeds currently available. Another concern is that it may become like cable television in which one has to buy access to websites in bundles like channels to get normal speeds or at load them at all. There is evidence of companies wanting compensation to load certain websites, for example: Netflix saw a 27% decline in access speed for its users and have been refused service from companies like Comcast and AT&T unless they paid for the access, a direct violation of their position as common carriers

Net neutrality is the idea that Internet traffic will be provided equal access to the

Prior to this case study, I had only heard of network neutrality on social media. I wasn’t sure what it meant or what it entailed, until beginning my research for this assignment. While researching this topic, I immediately stumbled across a Burger King commercial that was written about by the LA Times and released this month. The LA Times (2018) stated that the Burger King commercial was used to inform customers about network neutrality based on differing prices for a Whopper. The franchise advocated that it would charge various prices to customers based on the speed of processing the hamburgers.

In T-Mobile's tenth "uncarrier" event, CEO John Legere unveiled a new service that's called Binge On. The service which is set to debut on November 19 allows access to videos from 24 pre-installed streaming services without eating away at cellular data. However, YouTube isn't supported yet, but T-Mobile said it talks with Google have already been initiated, as reported by Gizmodo.

To encapsulate thursdays decision; The FCC decided that ISPs(internet service providers), needed not, have rules keeping them from blocking or changing the speed of online content, or prioritizing their providers internet content. The FCC made this move to veer away from the act of regulating the internet, according to CNN “In the absence of a firm ban on these actions, providers will be required to publicly disclose any instance of blocking, throttling or paid prioritization. It will then be evaluated based on whether or not the activity is anti-competitive.”(Fiegerman, 2017). The Federal Communications Commission also decided to move internet protection issues to The Federal Trade Commission.

Throughout the last decade, the idea of Net Neutrality has been the topic of many debates. Net Neutrality is the idea that Internet service providers should not be allowed to block their users from any content regardless of its source. The Debate is still continuing in 2017 with the F.C.C planning to repeal Net Neutrality and allow internet providers to completely regulate what their users can see and charge the users extra for “luxuries” such as social media, messaging, email, and music. There are two sides of this argument, one side believes that Net Neutrality should be taken away, while others believe that it is unfair for the Internet providers to have the right to take away the access to any content. Internet providers should not be allowed to control what content one can view when surfing the internet.

“…a principle that prohibits ISPs from speeding up, slowing down, or blocking any content on the internet.” This is a basic definition for the term Net Neutrality, which states that under the act internet service providers cannot change the quality of your connection based on what site you are browsing. This single principle has not only lead to controversial divide between citizens, it has also made visible fundamental differences in each sides beliefs. In this paper, I compare two possible explanations of this divide and stress how important this decision is not only to the future of the internet but to the future of company-customer relations.

The emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web brought upon a medium of communication with a range of opportunities for the world. However, this medium is, in due course, subject to the control of a few major companies. The enigma of information flow is the central concern of net neutrality. Consumers, competition and network owners would benefit directly from the regulation of network neutrality because it would provide a positive impact to those parties as well as provide equality.

Internets users across the world are increasing day by day, for these users internet has turned into an essential tool in their daily lives for various purposes. Due to which, the demand for higher frequency range internet connection is never going down. Till date, the network operators use the traffic management methods to run their networks without any disturbances. Hence, few commentators are afraid that these operators have an ability to provide selective treatment to a specific data streaming. This will lead in jeopardizing the ethics of the internet, as this could give an unfair benefit to the network operators by blocking certain content in order to gain income. And also will create problems when they purposefully categorize few types of content to the disadvantage of the users.