Conclusion

Well this is my last post on the subject matter of Net Neutrality. Over the short month and a half of researching this topic I have learned a great deal of information that if not for this project I never would have even bother to look. Net Neutrality as we currently speak is simply what we do everyday. We click on any browser we like and we explore the Internet to our hearts content. No regulation or restriction that we have to abide by, just the speed of our connection of course. The reason why the Internet has boomed and blossomed into such a beautiful thing is because of the openness that it presents by giving us the freedom to do so as we so choose. Of course in other countries there are different restrictions on the content you can access. Such as Vietnam blocking social media sites like facebook. But currently we, the US, do not face such a thing. If Net Neutrality were to be no longer neutral then we would face problems like these where we are restricted by what we can access and how we would like to access them, i.e. browsers.

My research has showed me that this whole topic will change how we interact in the near future. The FCC is holding a vote this up coming December 21, 2010 to decide on the Net Neutrality proposals. Basically, our Internet will be the same for those wired but those wireless like our cell phones will under go some different alterations, such as an increase in our monthly bill depending on how much usage we consume. There will no longer be the “unlimited” data plans that allow everyone to consume as much as we want and congest everything up. This is basically like the gasoline situation where you jack up the price and everyone will pay because they have to. There isn’t an alternative right now that would help elevate the payments that some “data hogs” must now pay.

The Pros and Cons of this Net Neutrality are kind of understandable if you step away for a second and look at it rationally. Of course having the Internet regulated will decrease the amount of viruses and malicious acts that occur but do you really think McAfee or Norton will really want that to disappear? Without those they will be out of a job because you never ever want to bite the hands that feed you. And the obvious con with be all the restriction that would be impose on the individuals. Worst-case scenario we are looking at the Internet as television where you have to pay to get a certain package. Like $40 gets you Google but you need $60 in order to gain access to Yahoo. And I am more than positive no one wants that because then you will lose the essence of why the Internet is so great to begin with. The openness and readily available information that one can access is a major turn on. That’s why the libraries are slowly dying off one by one.

I went into this wondering why no one knew more about this situation and the more I read the more I understood why. The reason why this isn’t getting nay much play in the media realm is because it doesn't have to. I conducted a survey that just proved that not a lot of people have even the slightest clue what Net Neutrality is or even the Google and Verizon proposal. Our Internet will stay the same, for now, and the only thing that will change is the increase in our monthly payment. But they always have increases in monthly bill because they know we will pay for them.

At the end of the day we will pay for the consumption because that is what we want to have. The Google Verizon pact will just make it so that you have to pay to get more. Some how down the line I do believe that there will be a problem like the Comcast situation again. It’s inevitable. The ISPs will want control and some say over the content they provide and we will still want open access. This is a very fluid situation and can change all the time. Nothing for sure can be set in stone except the fact that things will change.

The Interview

So I was finally able to interview Declan McCullagh today. I had several questions that I wanted to have him answer and give his insight on. The interview in my eyes was a success. It gave me an insight on what truly goes on and how things operate. I asked him why isn't this Net Neutrality thing a bigger issue or even bigger in the media considering the things being proposed. The survey I conducted showed less than 20% knew what I was talking about. His answer was very simple really. The reason why there isn't much media attention is because people are going to report Net Neutrality when there is a violation that has occurred. For instance, he referenced the Comcast issue that happened several years ago. I guess he has a point because not every single detail is discussed in the news only those that would sell copies or get a reaction.

The next question that I had for Mr. McCullagh, was what does the FCC actually vote on. I understood the proposal and what the Chairman wanted to do but I didn't really understand what do they do during this process. I wanted to get an insight on what happens. He told me it's the same voting style as any other vote and such. From what I gathered in his opinion this is a done deal. There isn't really anything to vote on. They are having this vote just to make it final.

The last question I asked him was why are there now going to be different regulations for Wireless vs. Wired. Is it just the same thing? They both provide internet access? He explained that there are different infrastructures for both situations. Obviously, fiber optic cables that are wired are going to be able to provide more access. Wireless is limited because cell phone towers can not be propped up every where the telecommunication companies pleases. If they were able to just prop up cell towers where-ever than we wouldn't be having this problem. The only problem is that now people are going to have to pay more for the usage that they amount on their iPhone and other smart-phones. The proposal states that the providers can't block or restrict access to web content.

I thank Mr. Declan McCullagh for answering the questions I had about Net Neutrality. It gave me a better idea of the situation at hand.

A Little More Insight

After reading the comments by David Farber, I had a question that I wanted some extra insight on. I reached out to a professor at The University of Arizona. I asked Professor Hsinchun Chen, "When dealing with Net Neutrality some against it raises the question of if the Internet was regulated by the service providers it would decrease the numbers of viruses and spyware and malicious acts due to the fact that they as in the providers would be able to block the user from gaining access to any harmful content. Is that true? Can they get rid of viruses and things of those nature if the ISPs were allowed to block certain applications?" His response was as follows:

I don’t think viruses and such vices are technical problems in nature. The problem lies in jurisdictional boundary, international laws, and security ecosystem. International law enforcement agencies (e.g., Interpol) are not sophisticated enough. Most security-related companies (e.g., Microsoft, McAfee, Symantec) do not have incentives to address these vices which may hurt their profits. ISP filtering would be ad hoc since not all will have the same level of sophistication as the security firms.

This makes a lot of sense. Why bite the hands that feed you. Norton and McAfee really don't have incentives to address the vices because if those are gone they won't have a company anymore.

Going to be interviewing Declan McCullagh tomorrow. Declan McCullagh is the chief political correspondent for CNET, which is part of CBS Corporation. Previously he was a senior correspondent for CBS News' Web site. He became the chief political correspondent for CNET News in 2002 and lives in the San Francisco area after spending over a decade in Washington, DC.

An award-winning journalist, McCullagh writes and speaks frequently about technology, law, and politics. From 1998 to 2002, he was Wired's Washington bureau chief. Previously he was a reporter for Time Magazine, Time Digital Daily, and The Netly News, as well as a correspondent for HotWired. McCullagh previously wrote for the Taking Liberties section of CBS News' Web site, the successor to a weekly column he started in October 2008 titled Other People's Money.

Net Neutrality Matters to Movie and Music Fans

Finally found an amazing definition and explanation of Net Neutrality. This is such a hard topic to explain without leaving everyone in confusion. Ryan Singel is a staff writer for Wired and in this article is interviewed and takes questions from callers into the NPR forum.

Personally tried to call in but had no luck.

Mr. SINGEL: It's a very complicated term, but essentially, there's a few principles, which is one, the Internet should be open and free. So people should be able to use the devices, the services, the application, the browser of their choice, and they should be able to have a choice between ISPs. And one of the other points is that ISPs, you know, should not be choosing winners and losers on the Internet, so they should not be choosing that Hulu will stream for free but NetFlix will cost you more.

Read on at the link provided above. Very good read if you are still a little iffy about this problem.

Get Your Popcorn Ready

The Federal Communications Commission is set to finally vote on rules this month that will keep the Internet open, but the fight may continue as neither side in the Net
neutrality debate is expected to be completely satisfied with the outcome. According to Marguerite Reardon of cnet, Chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowski, has set a date for December 21.

Genachowski said during his speech that the proposal will allow broadband providers to impose usage-based charges so that customers using more bandwidth would get charged more than customers using less. The FCC will also allow providers to experiment with offering specialized services that could provide higher-quality access to consumers rather than sending applications and content over the public Internet.

Broadband providers will also be required to justify why these services require dedicated bandwidth rather than being delivered over the public Internet. And broadband companies cannot discriminate against traffic on the public Internet in favor of their own services or their customers' premium services.

The new proposal will also treat wireless networks differently than wired networks with respect to Net neutrality. Wired broadband providers will be "prohibited from blocking lawful content, applications, services and the connection of nonharmful devices to the network," and they will be subject to transparency requirements as to how their networks are managed.

Wireless service providers will also be subject to the transparency requirement. And they will also not be able to block or degrade most traffic, such as Web sites and certain applications. But Genachowski said he recognizes "differences between fixed and mobile broadband," and therefore believes the rules should be more flexible for wireless.

The new proposal is not likely to satisfy either side in the debate. Broadband providers are likely to still find some of the provisions too restrictive. Some companies have suggested that Congress should write new rules and make them law rather than having the FCC handle it. Consumer groups are also not likely to be satisfied with the outcome, because they were looking for the FCC to do more.

However these new proposals are met with some opposition. As reported by npr, "No one was particularly happy with what the FCC chairman is proposing. But that doesn't mean it's not the right answer," says Kevin Werbach, professor at the Wharton School, and a former technology consultant to the Obama administration.

I guess we just have to wait and see what happens at the end of this month.

Well I am sad to inform that the interview with the Google Executives was a bust. All they told me was a definition of Net Neutrality and to wait and see what the FCC will do about it. I guess loose lips sink ships in this case. Maybe I will have better luck with writers about the situation and people that aren't so close to the subject matter at hand.

I was able to sweet talk my aunt into allowing me to talk to some of her Google Executive friends. Since it is the Thanksgiving Day Week, they told me to call them after the holidays. I want to ask them about the Google-Verizon Net Neutrality deal. Just want to see their insight.

After conducting my phone survey I decided to go to a Verizon phone store and see if they know anything about Net Neutrality and Google-Verizon pact. Upon arrival I was kindly greeted and asked if I needed any help. I told them I was interested in learning about the Google-Verizon pact and Net Neutrality. He said he would help me as best he could because he didn't have first hand knowledge of the situation. I loved the honesty and he knew more than the average person I surveyed on the phone. Talking to all these people is really enlightening.

Heading into the survey I thought about asking 100 people there opinion. After the first couple of calls I decided to reduce that number to 50 because of the hostility I received. It wasn't like I was impolite or anything. The questions I asked were very simple and didn't take anymore than a minute of their time. But I guess some people are just hostile.

My survey consisted of only three questions because I wanted to get a barometer of what people knew about Net Neutrality. I didn't ask heart to heart questions, they were just simple yes or no answers.

The questions are as follows.

1. Do you use the internet?

2. Do you pay for your own internet?

3. Do you know or have heard about Net Neutrality?

The results that I compiled from my 50 participants were very, very surprising. The answer to the first question was as expected with 50 YES. Hearing a NO probably would have made me ask why not. But anyways moving on. The answer to the second question was roughly 50-50, with 32 YES and 18 NO. Most of the NO's is understandable because those people didn't pay for rent so I am sure I called some teens or kids. Plus, the NO's said they use the library for their internet access. The most shocking result was the answer to my last question. Overwhelmingly the answer was NO with 46 NO and only 4 YES.

After looking at my results it kind of makes me sad that something so important is not getting to anybody in the public aka common people. This feels like a battle of the major corporations and the FCC and we are just bystanders waiting for the dust to settle.

So, today I decided to perform my survey about this topic. Instead of relying on my peers or just students from school, I want a wide range of data. Since this topic affects everybody I decided to just flip through the yellow pages and survey the people listed personally. I have unlimited weekend minutes and this was a slow weekend so why not put this time to good use. Once I am done I will let you know the results.

Wireless vs Wired

The cnet interview I posted earlier was conducted back in August of this year. A subject matter that has surfaced today that was discussed in that interview was the debate over Wireless vs Wired Internet managing. Google and Verizon agree that the Wired lines needed to be controlled or enforce but they feel like the Wireless portion needs to be excluded from any discussion. An example of that would be the now ending of unlimited data usage by the cell phone companies. Most people will only be using 2G and not 3G like so advertised. Once you go over you will be charge per amount for doing so. This is the oldest trick in the book and it makes sense now why a corporation such as Google and Verizon would ask to be regulated. It's the slight of hands trick. You concentrate on what I am doing with one hand while I do something else with my other hand.

They want Congress to put into laws for the Wired part but leave the Wireless part in the open so they can do with it as they so pleases. Kind of smart if you really think about. Sort of like a compromise of sorts. You get something and I get something out of the deal.

cnet Reporter's Roundtable continue

Oh I left something out that caught my eye on this particular subject. One of the interviewee was asked how the Internet would look if Net Neutrality is no longer there. His answer was straight to the point and made a lot of sense and did not include any hard to understand principles. Basically the Internet would look like your television system with the Cable or Satellite companies. So you would get a package that allows you to watch certain programs. If you want to watch something like HBO and didn't have that service than you would need to pay more to get that particular program. Sports fans pay extra for extra sports programming, while the normal Family man might pay more for his children to have extra cartoon programs. When you look at it this way having Net Neutrality is better than disbanding it. Can you imagine working on something and being limited to only certain things on the Internet that you can search and verify your sources? This seems like the whole gasoline problem in America. No matter how much they charge people are still willing to pay because it is a necessity for them. Remember the old classic movie slogan from Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come"? In this case it is, "If you charge for it, we will pay."

cnet Reporter's Roundtable

Back in August, cnet did a live interview with two writers who know a lot about Net Neutrality. This interview was conducted after the Google-Verizon proposal went public. Among the topics covered during the interview included Net Neutrality, Google-Verizon proposal explained, Comcast case, and a prediction of the future of the Internet.

Several details in this interview caught my attention. For starters Google and Verizon does not believe that the FCC is not the answer. They want Congress to step in and make their proposal law which helps alleviate the problem when talking about wired Internet access. The second was that the FCC and the Google-Verizon proposal are near similar with a few modifications here and there. The last thing was that we, the US, are the only country in discussion about this problem. I found in weird that everyone is waiting for us to make a decision and then they will move on from there.

The Proposal (FCC 2009)

FCC chief proposes new Net neutrality rules

Last September, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski laid out his plans for the Internet and Net Neutrality. They work off of the existing principles and adds a few more that the Chairman wanted.

The existing principles can be summarized this way: Network operators cannot prevent users from accessing lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, nor can they prohibit users from attaching non-harmful devices to the network.

Now Genachowski is proposing two new principles. The first would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement.

Genachowski also made it clear that the Net neutrality rules he plans to make regulation will be applied to wireless provider, too.

So as of 2009, Genachowski will not be exempting the Wireless and treating everything the same.

The Plan (GnV)

According to the guardian.co.uk the following is the Google and Verizon proposal for Net Neutrality.

• ISPs cannot discriminate against any service in an anti-competitive way.
• ISPs cannot block consumers from any legal service.
• ISPs have the right to manage and prioritise web traffic.
• ISPs must be transparent about how they are managing services.
• The FCC would enforce on a case-by-case basis, and have its regulatory powers over broadband services restored.
• A fixed part of all phone fees would be dedicated to investment in broadband networks.

And the last and most significant two:

• ISPs can introduce new and different internet services, such as 3D.
• Wireless services are exempt from all these proposals, apart from the condition of transparency.

The main point I believe is the very last statement. They want wireless to be exempt because everyone is now converting to wireless and leaving the desktop behind. Mobility is the key component in all of this. Verizon knows that there is money to be had in the Wireless/Mobility aspect so they are willing to give up the Wired aspect. Gotta say it is a pretty smart idea. If the FCC exempts Wireless from its Net Neutrality proposal or plans this could be a problem.

Those Against Net Neutrality And Those For Net Neutrality

Google, Verizon and net neutrality: what does it mean?

Those who are against Net Neutrality are the big corporations who are trying to make money out of this whole providing service deal, such as Verizon and AT&T. Basically all the big telecoms in the US. And those who are against it should be practically everyone because its open and free at the moment.

An interesting argument against Net Neutrality comes from David Farber.

"An updated internet could offer a wide range of new and improved services," he told the Washington Post in 2008. "including better security against viruses, worms, denial-of-service attacks and zombie computers; services that require high levels of reliability, such as medical monitoring; and those that cannot tolerate network delays, such as voice and streaming video. To provide these services, both the architecture of the Internet and the business models through which services are delivered will probably have to change."

However, Tim Berners-Lee states:

"Control of information is hugely powerful. In the US, the threat is that companies can control what I access for commercial reasons. In China, companies could control what users access for political reasons. Freedom of connection with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the internet."

To step back at look at it from both sides everything really makes sense. Controlling of information does mean you have power, just look at the Nazi Propaganda back in history. But then again having growth is what we are all about in the US. If something is stunting our growth we need to fix the problem and advance on from there. I guess at the end of the day we just have to find a way to compromise between the two situations.

What I Learned So Far

So with such a huge topic like this I decided to do some research on the subject matter. Net Neutrality debate isn't something new and has actually been on going for several years now. Net Neutrality as defined by Wikipedia, is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication. From what I get gather it means that everything is open. You can do so with the Internet as you so chooses. The ISPs do not restrict or block any content you so wish to look at. However, everything started circulating when Comcast decided to block its peer-to-peer applications fall of last year. Once this began everything started to spiral out of control. Comcast says the FCC has no authority is this subject matter and that since they pay for their lines shouldn't they have the right to restrict anything that they feel that they don't want to provide.

Just be reading some of the first articles this is a very interesting topic. A lot of he say she say so far. And of course like every situations there are going to be pros and cons. Can't wait to explore them.

The reason why I am exploring this topic is due to a segment I saw on Attack of the Show. It caught my eye and was the first time that I was introduced to Net Neutrality. For something that has a huge affect on everybody I was surprised it had very little play in the media realm.

Hey everybody. I created this blog to talk about a research project I have for my class. It is like an open forum so if you have any comments or anything feel free to contribute. My project focuses on Net Neutrality and it's future. The reason why I want to look at this proposal is because of the major effects it has on our community and our future. Everyone uses the internet now a days and this topic is going to touch everybody. Thanks for helping me out.