Net Neutrality Pros and Cons

Net Neutrality Pros and Cons
The net neutrality has jumped to the front page of today on the Internet both in the U.S. and Europe following the big telephone and cable companies have realized that their business model could be enhanced if they that controlling access to the infrastructure of telecommunications networks by imposing a toll in terms of bandwidth consumed as Google call rate, and propose differentiated levels of service to their clients, to validate what they consider the extensive use of its infrastructure and the increasing pace of demand for broadband services, which experts say will lead to a collapse of the Internet infrastructure.

These demands pose a threat to network neutrality, one of the basic principles on which the Internet has been built, and is equivalent to the network is the same for everyone without discrimination, which applies to all data packets driving by the same treatment, regardless of their content, origin and destination, with no priority or hierarchy of one over another, without anyone having preferential access.

If it imposes a toll, search engines and large companies will have no trouble paying their request (to end users which we pay) and will get priority in the deployment of its contents, but companies with fewer resources may not play on an equal footing. On the other hand, services that could be a competition, such as IP telephony, or are problematic, be relegated to slower channels, or simply eliminated.

All this makes the network neutrality is more than just a dispute between users, operators and content companies and charge a political dimension as corresponding to the information society to the point of breaking into the Obama campaign, in which not only affirmed his commitment to keeping the Internet as it should be – open and free – but it held an active presence in social networks, which contributed to the undeniable success of your social media campaign based on three principles: communication, transparency and participation.

In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission has established four principles underlying the network neutrality: 1) Freedom of Access to Content. 2) Freedom to Use Applications. 3) Personal Freedom connecting devices harmless. 4) Freedom of information on the Service Plan. Now, the new director of the Federal Communications Commission Julius Genachowski, reflecting the commitment of the new administration intends to add two more: 5) To prevent discrimination by type of content. 6º). Providers must be transparent about its network management policy. However, in line with the demand for cultural industries these two new principles only apply when they do not interfere with copyright or illegal activities.

In Europe, the issue has also been raised by telephone and Vodafone and the European Commission has announced it will launch before the summer a public debate on net neutrality. For now, the meeting between EU ministers of telecommunications and information society held between 18 and 20 April in Granada, culminating in the Declaration for the European Digital Agenda, but refers to the network neutrality, limited as in other thorny issues to present the courses of action without specifying specific means in this case referring to a future Bill of Rights Electronic Communications user.

Internet in the XXI century is too important to be left to the operators and neutrality is essential to preserve our freedoms in the new social model of networked citizens, so it must not impose an Internet Governance to recognize a series of basic rights aimed at safeguarding certain areas of autonomy from power as civil rights were set in the eighteenth century, but now the power is going to carriers and large enterprises content management.


Net Neutrality Pros and Cons