Net neutrality decision means one Internet for everyone

In Summary

• Data on the internet should be treated equally by telecommunications companies and should not be discriminated against on the basis of user, content, application or otherwise.
• In Kenya, we have telecommunications providers exercising discrimination in a slightly different way. They offer “free” access to certain websites, including Twitter and Facebook.
• YouTube data provides a good example, where telecommunications companies in the US have argued that the data-heavy nature of the video accessed puts extra strain on their telecommunication links.

By JOHN WALUBENGO
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It is advisable, in my field, to keep tabs on international events that are likely to impact our local scene in the short to the medium term.

One such event took place last week in the United States, where the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US communications regulator, approved the so-called net neutrality rules, and classified broadband (fast) Internet as a public utility.

The decision means that the US considers broadband Internet critical infrastructure, in the same spirit as water, electricity or highways. This is a major tectonic shift in the way the Internet has been treated since its genesis in the early 1960s, because for the first time it makes room for regulatory interventions.

But what exactly is net neutrality and why is it a big deal?

Wikipedia provides a simple definition: net neutrality is the principle that all data on the Internet should be treated equally by telecommunications companies and should not be discriminated against on the basis of user, content, application or otherwise.

This does imply that telecommunications companies have been discriminating against certain types of Internet data, either by slowing down or speeding up user access based on content accessed.

YouTube data provides a good example, where telecommunications companies in the US have argued that the data-heavy nature of the video accessed puts extra strain on their telecommunication links.

This in turn forces them to keep expanding their infrastructure without sufficiently getting compensated by content providers.

Telecommunications companies therefore demanded that the content providers, e.g., Google, pay more to support the expansion investments, since it is their video content that is putting disproportionate stress on the bandwidth of telecommunications links.

Content providers have, of course, resisted this push, arguing that they, like any other customers of telecommunications companies, are already paying for their bandwidth access, and cannot therefore be discriminated against by paying more merely because of the nature of their data.

'THROTTLING' DATA REQUESTS

To work around the deadlock, telecommunications providers started a tariff that allowed users to access video content in two modes — slower (and cheaper) access v. fast (and expensive) access.

From a business point of view, it does look simple and sensible, but from a technical front, one has to deliberately slow down or speed up users depending on their payment plan and the content they want to access.

This is the crux of net neutrality: the fact that a telecommunications operator is able to unilaterally discriminate between Internet traffic based on users, content, application or otherwise.

The quickest way, technically, for an operator to do this is by “throttling” or slowing down data requests from certain types of users accessing certain types of websites.

Put in the Kenyan context, it would mean that users who buy smaller monthly data bundles, typically 1GB or less, would experience slower Internet access to, say, YouTube or NTV Live, compared with those who can afford the more expensive, fast-lane bundles.

Alternatively, the telecommunications companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) could demand extra money per unit bandwidth from streaming services like NTV Live in order to host their video content.

The ideal situation should be that access speeds to video content for both user groups should be the same — irrespective of the payment plan. This is in line with the pro-net neutrality group, which argues that all data packets are the same on the Internet and demand, therefore, that they be treated equally.

INSPECTING DATA PACKETS

In Kenya, we have telecommunications providers exercising discrimination in a slightly different way. They offer “free” access to certain websites, including Twitter and Facebook.

Whereas this looks like a positive move to stimulate usage, it still violates net neutrality principles in that the data packets have to be inspected and subsequently given preferential treatment over the “others”.

These “others” that are not favoured with “free” access by the telecommunications companies are potentially competing websites offering similar services, and therefore stand discriminated against.

The free access to selected websites ultimately suppresses competition and innovation at the content level and should be discouraged.

The recent FCC net neutrality ruling essentially held this view, but those opposed — the large telecommunications carriers — argue that we have implicitly entered a dangerous and slippery era of Internet regulations.

Previous engagements between telecommunications companies, ISPs and content providers have largely been outside the scope of communications regulators. With this ruling that makes the Internet a public utility, the regulator has an implicit right to intervene in agreements between telecommunications companies and content providers, agreements previously considered a private affair with corresponding privacy clauses.

It remains to be seen how this will evolve in the coming days and months, both at the international and local level.

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. Twitter:@jwalu Email: jwalubengo@mmu.ac.ke