Allowing network neutrality is not a question of creating new laws and regulations, but instead continuing to enforce the ones that are already on the books. In 2010, the Federal Communications Commission created a new set of rules mandating that internet service providers such as Comcast, Verizon or Time Warner Cable are not allowed to block services on their networks, and according to Sam Gustin at Wired magazine, “Outlaw ‘unreasonable’ discrimination on those networks.” As Darrell West of the Brookings Institute put it, these rules are designed to, “Prevent Internet providers from blocking or slowing the utilization of competing services.”
However, in September, arguments were heard in a case in a U.S. Court of Appeals between Verizon Communications and the Federal Communications Commission, challenging the right of the FCC to regulate the Internet traffic on the basis that ISPs are private companies and should be allowed to manage traffic as they please. On the surface, it seems that removal of these regulations would allow for a truer free market in which everyone would be able to prosper, as consumers would be able to choose an ISP which offered them the best access for the best price. Unfortunately, that view ignores the reality of the Internet infrastructure in this country.
The first issue with the move towards a deregulated Internet is the chilling effect that it would have on start-up industries. The Internet has allowed many small businesses to flourish (and many more to fail) by granting them access to an audience that previously may have never discovered the company. Current regulation requires that once a company has paid for its services to be online, there is no tiered system, where a higher cost gets faster loading times for websites. However, in the arguments heard in September, the Verizon lawyer stated that, “But for these rules, we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Even more troublesome is the fact that Comcast, which according to Ars Technica, “Controls more than 20 percent of the residential broadband market,” also offers an on-demand TV service. If these laws are struck down, 20 percent of Americans might well expect to find it impossible to access Netflix or any other video streaming service besides Comcast on-demand. In 2012, when Comcast declared that their video streaming service would not affect customer bandwidth caps, they effectively scared Sony away from the video streaming business, with Michael Aragon of Sony stating that, “If they start capping things, it gets difficult.”
In a perfect world, ISPs choosing which companies can have access to consumers over their networks would be of little concern, since consumers would have a number of different service providers to choose from. However, at least in the U.S., there is little to no competition between most Internet providers in most areas. We instead find ourselves with only limited choices of Internet services, with most smaller Internet providers purchasing their access through a larger provider in order to use their infrastructure. ISPs have also embarked on lobbying attempts to block municipalities from creating their own Internet services that might compete with their services.
In an ideal world, we might find that deregulating the ISPs and allowing them to do as they choose would create a perfect situation for both consumers and business attempting to reach one another. We live in an imperfect world though, where deregulation will instead allow ISPs to charge exorbitant amounts for increasingly worse service, which is why we continue to need the FCC’s rules and regulations, in order to keep a free market, instead of one controlled by a few providers.