Understanding Net Neutrality

The new rules of the road for Internet broadband service providers, adopted last month by the Federal Communications Commission, are intended to ensure that networks are fast, fair and open. They prohibit carriers from blocking or grooming traffic on their networks based on content or the content provider, while at the same time allowing legitimate network management.

One of the arguments carriers have used when opposing such network neutrality rules is that classifying and limiting traffic for some applications deemed bandwidth hogs — such as streaming media — is necessary for network management. The new FCC rules, coupled with the increasing competition for available bandwidth, puts a premium on the ability of carriers to understand their traffic and manage their networks without crossing the “bright lines” established by regulators.

In addition to managing and optimizing network traffic flows, carriers also must effectively use customer usage data generated by these traffic flows to ensure they retain a competitive advantage. Network management cannot be done for business purposes, but understanding the data on the networks can help carriers continue to produce the profits needed to drive investment and innovation.

The Open Internet order approved Feb. 26 is the result of a decade of effort by the FCC to find a regulatory formula that would ensure consumers get what they pay for with their broadband subscriptions without stifling innovation either on the content-provider or the carrier side. The effort was driven in part by the practice of some carriers of throttling back the bandwidth available to some applications such as streaming video. The networks claimed it was a legitimate network management practice, but critics warned that it could be used to benefit some content providers at the expense of competitors. The issue has become more critical as the line between content providers and carriers became blurred, creating possible conflicts of interest for carriers.

FCC efforts to clarify and regulate the interests of carriers were hampered by the classification of network service providers as “information services.” Federal courts twice have ruled that the FCC did not have authority to regulate under this classification. The new rules reclassify broadband network services as telecommunications services, which the commission says provides them the authority to regulate.

The FCC calls the new rules a light-touch approach, under which many of the rules under telecommunications legislation will not be enforced for broadband carriers. The key provisions are:

• No blocking access to legal content, applications, services or non-harmful devices.

• No throttling back lawful traffic.

• No paid prioritization or “fast lanes” for favored providers.

In other words, the end user gets to decide how to use the bandwidth he or she pays for. This is intended to foster the growth of new online content and services, and there will be more small companies, start-ups and niche players competing for bandwidth. At the same time this competition will be intensified by the emerging trend of households “cutting the cable” and relying on streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime for their movie and television viewing.

More importantly, the recent ruling on net neutrality provides a profound impact on the typical offerings of a modern, global university and its corresponding students. With each passing year, universities’ offerings are less on print and more interactive, digital, and personalized. What used to be a one-way lecture format is now a full conversation between educators and students.

This process requires bandwidth, and the recent ruling ensures the value propositions of global institutions of higher learning can continue to be adaptive to what the learner needs without adding the burden of premium costs to either the school or the student.

The key takeaway of this ruling was that interactive and online educational uses, essential to a really important public purpose, are not de-prioritized in favor of entertainment solutions that could potentially generate more revenue for broadband providers.