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Net Neutrality - Case Study

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Case Study 5: Net Neutrality
Q2. Do some Internet research to identify the current status of Net Neutrality legislation being considered by Congress. Briefly summarize the content of the legislation.

Net Neutrality in the United States has been an increasingly heated issue since the Internet blossomed. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has power to regulate "interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories" (FCC, n.d.). It would, therefore, seem a natural fit to include the Internet as another means of regulated communication. Currently, FCC regulations shape Net Neutrality more than laws.
However, the FCC has recently been deemed by the court to lack the authority to enforce Net Neutrality. It's Open Internet Order, a set of policies prohibiting the blocking or charging of services by ISPs, was largely struck down in early 2014 in the ruling of Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission (Weil, 2014). The reasoning of the court was that the FCC cannot regulate the broadband providers because they are defined as data services, not telecommunication services. Since that ruling, the FCC has been considering policies involving tiered Internet access, but has yet to act.
Since the court struck down FCC rule of network neutrality, there have been several attempts to enact laws regarding Net Neutrality. These include:
• S. 1981, The Open Internet Preservation Act
• H.R. 3982, The Open Internet Preservation Act
• H.R. 4070, The Internet Freedom Act
• H.R. 4880, The Online competition and Consumer Choice Act of 2014
• S. 2476, The Online competition and Consumer Choice Act of 2014
Source: Network (Net) Neutrality Legislative History
As of this date, none have been passed into law.
The most recent player in Net Neutrality is President Obama. In November 2014 he issued a statement calling on the FCC to reclassify broadband service as a "telecommunications service" so that Net Neutrality may be enforceable ("Net Neutrality: President Obama's Plan for a Free and Open Internet," n.d.). This would be generally touted as a win by Net Neutrality advocates, but the reclassification of broadband services as Title II would also automatically open Internet access to state and local taxation; much the same as land-line telephone service (Rash, 2014). The Heartland Institute estimates that current telecommunications consumers are currently paying in excess of 17% in service taxes and fees (Pociask, 2014). I’m certain that the government would want to reap additional revenue from the Internet.
If history is any indication, it will be the FCC and not congress that dictates any regulation of the Internet.

Q5. Do you think that Net Neutrality must be maintained to protect freedom of speech and/or preserve democracy? Why or why not?
First, I found it interesting that the word Democracy was mention in the question since the United States is a Republic, not a Democracy. A Republic is governed by laws, while in a Democracy the majority decides what matters ("Is the United States a democracy?," n.d.).
Without Net Neutrality, broadband providers will be able to discriminate at will as to which content they want to serve to you and at what speed. In several instances, they already have.
Comcast has been known to throttle customer traffic based on the type of content (Osborne, 2014). As a result, Netflix was pressured to negotiate a deal with Comcast whereby they will pay Comcast for faster and more reliable access for Comcast subscribers (Watt & Cohen, 2014).
So you see, the providers will be catering to the majority of the people’s wants, just like in a Democracy. Unfortunately, people who are not part of a large enough majority to influence broadband providers will be marginalized, and could suffer censorship at the hands of the faster, preferred, and financially capable majority.

Q6. Do some Internet research on the pros and cons of Net Neutrality. Identify several arguments that should be added to Table C4.1 that are not currently addressed in the table.
One point not addressed is the additional cost that FCC regulation would bring. Reclassification of broadband services as Title II would bring fees along with the FCC regulation (Rash, 2014).
Several other the arguments mentioned in the table could be clarified.
• Pro: NN is consistent with historical communications policies.
• Con: NN is a new concept that has no history or historical precedence.
Isn’t that a bit contradictory? From a historical perspective, the phone company once had the ability to enforce many non-neutral policies upon consumers. In 1938, the ruling of Hush-A-Phone v. United States decided that consumers could attach a cup-like device mouthpiece to a telephone to increase privacy. This ruled against what AT&T desired (Pelkey, n.d.).
Against the wishes of AT&T, the 1968 Carterfone decision by the FCC allowed consumers to connect non-AT&T devices to the AT&T network, as long as they did not cause harm to the system. This allowed a wide variety of consumer devices such as fax machines, modems, and answering machine (Browden, 2012).
I believe it is more than obvious that maintaining neutrality on a communications network is not a historic first.
One issue absent from the argument is that in most regions broadband providers have little, if any competition at all. This veritable monopoly strips from the consumer the ability to look elsewhere for better pricing, faster service, and less censored content (Masnick, 2014).

Sources
Browden, D. (2012, June 28). Carterfone Case Showed How Regulations Promote Competition - US News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/06/28/carterfone-case-showed-how-regulations-promote-competition
FCC. (n.d.). What We Do | FCC.gov. Retrieved from http://www.fcc.gov/what-we-doWP http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/16/AR2008021601661.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2487880/government-it/fcc-will-set-new-net-neutrality-rules.html
Is the United States a democracy? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thisnation.com/question/011.html
Masnick, M. (2014, September 4). FCC's Tom Wheeler Admits There Isn't Really Broadband Competition. Retrieved from https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140904/11454828417/fccs-tom-wheeler-admits-there-isnt-really-broadband-competition.shtml
Net Neutrality: President Obama's Plan for a Free and Open Internet. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality
Network (Net) Neutrality Legislative History. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/telecom/netneutrality/legislativeactivity
Osborne, C. (2014, January 24). Is your Internet provider throttling BitTorrent traffic? Find out. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/is-your-internet-provider-throttling-bittorrent-traffic-find-out-7000025548/
Pelkey, J. (n.d.). Entrepreneurial Capitalism and Innovation: A History of Computer Communications 1968-1988. Retrieved from http://www.historyofcomputercommunications.info/Book/1/1.2CarterfoneATT_FCC48-67.html
Pociask, S. (2014, July 7). A Perfect Storm: Net Neutrality And The End Of The Internet Tax Moratorium. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/07/07/a-perfect-storm-net-neutrality-and-the-end-of-the-internet-tax-moratorium/
Rash, W. (2014, November 18). Network Pioneer Metcalfe Warns Net Neutrality Will Bring Web Taxation. Retrieved from http://www.eweek.com/cloud/network-pioneer-metcalfe-warns-net-neutrality-will-bring-web-taxation.html
Watt, E., & Cohen, N. (2014, February 23). Comcast and Netflix Reach Deal on Service. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/business/media/comcast-and-netflix-reach-a-streaming-agreement.html

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