Battle of network neutrality: background
Tomorrow a vote will be held in the United States, during which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will in fact attempt to change the rules for net neutrality. This will replace the roles of providers in the communication ecosystem and give them more freedom in making decisions regarding the provision of Internet services.
We decided to prepare a series of articles in which to tell about how the idea of ​​network neutrality developed and how it turned out that the concept of Net Neutrality was under threat.
/ Flickr / Backbone Campaign / CC
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The principle of net neutrality is that Internet service providers and telcos should not distinguish between traffic from different sources. In accordance with this concept, the provider does not have the right to block access to sites and give priority to any content.
The position of defenders of network neutrality is that access to services and sites on the network must be unhindered for all users. More than 80 thousand platforms, companies and organizations support the idea of ​​Net Neutrality, including such major players as Google, Facebook, Reddit and Amazon.
Opponents of the concept are convinced that net neutrality puts pressure on business. Telecommunications companies claim that the existing rules do not allow them to offer customers a wider range of services. Therefore, Comcast, AT & T and Verizon are in favor of abandoning the current rules and support the FCC in this.
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent US government agency that has been regulating radio and television for more than 80 years. Internet access and network content are also at the office of the Commission. It was the FCC that adopted rules that prohibit providers from blocking or regulating Internet resources and charging priority access to sites or other online services.
So far, according to the “Law on Communications”, Internet services are treated as telecommunications, rather than information services. This allows the commission to regulate the actions of operators. Now the FCC intends to regard Internet access as an information service and provide providers with more freedom in decision making.
Clive Thompson, author of Wired, points out that the emergence of network neutrality ideas is closely related to radio broadcasts. The first amateur radio programs appeared in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. And by the mid-1920s, professional stations began to form, and with them the first radio commercials.
It turned out that amateur stations interfered with companies such as AT & T. In 1927, Congress created the Federal Radio Commission, empowered to distribute the frequencies of radio waves. So there was a centralization of the radio, pushing lovers out of the air.
This entailed concerns about the monopoly of telecommunications companies, which had more means than independent stations and, therefore, could decide which content to broadcast to listeners.
In 1966, these concerns shifted to the field of information technology. In fact, AT & T was a monopolist in the market, so there was a chance that the provider would begin to give priority to one or another service, depending on its goals and objectives. Therefore, the FCC has established a number of rules.
/ Flickr / Federal Communications Commission / CC
By 1976, the FCC legally delimited "basic" and "advanced" communication services. The services of the network owner belonged to the “base” ones, and third-party services - to the “extended” ones. The purpose of this solution was to protect content on the network from the operator transmitting traffic, and they are considered the first rules of “network neutrality” (although the term itself appeared much later).
The first commercial Internet providers began to appear in the United States in the early 90s. The number of first network users has increased with the advent of the digital subscriber line (DSL). And in 1996, the first broadband network on cable television infrastructure was introduced for data transmission at a higher speed than DSL.
/ Flickr / Christiaan Colen / CC
At the same time , the first private companies were formed that provided access to Internet services: chat rooms, e-mail and news. But a little later, telecommunications and media companies began to absorb each other.
Huge conglomerates such as AOL Time Warner and Comcast NBC Universal were formed , and questions from the 70s reiterated themselves, but even more acutely, would the operator close access to email services and chat rooms if he has his own competitive product? This question again required the intervention of the FCC.
In 1999, FCC Chairman William Kennard suggested the agency not to impose the same stringent requirements on the Internet as on the telephone infrastructure. In 2002, the commission made a decision to consider cable Internet information services, and DSL - telecommunication. This meant that cable operators were not obliged to “share” their infrastructure with competitors.
However, at about the same time (in 2003), Professor of Law Tim Wu (Tim Wu) wrote a paper in which he proposed to introduce a rule for all Internet companies prohibiting providers from discriminating some market participants in favor of others. It was in his work that the wording that became universally accepted appeared - “net neutrality”.
In the next article we will look at the main events that occurred after the recognition of the cable Internet as an “information service”, and describe what caused the revision of this classification by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015.
PS What else do we write on the VAS Experts blog:
We decided to prepare a series of articles in which to tell about how the idea of ​​network neutrality developed and how it turned out that the concept of Net Neutrality was under threat.
/ Flickr / Backbone Campaign / CC
')
What is net neutrality and why is it at risk
The principle of net neutrality is that Internet service providers and telcos should not distinguish between traffic from different sources. In accordance with this concept, the provider does not have the right to block access to sites and give priority to any content.
The position of defenders of network neutrality is that access to services and sites on the network must be unhindered for all users. More than 80 thousand platforms, companies and organizations support the idea of ​​Net Neutrality, including such major players as Google, Facebook, Reddit and Amazon.
Opponents of the concept are convinced that net neutrality puts pressure on business. Telecommunications companies claim that the existing rules do not allow them to offer customers a wider range of services. Therefore, Comcast, AT & T and Verizon are in favor of abandoning the current rules and support the FCC in this.
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent US government agency that has been regulating radio and television for more than 80 years. Internet access and network content are also at the office of the Commission. It was the FCC that adopted rules that prohibit providers from blocking or regulating Internet resources and charging priority access to sites or other online services.
So far, according to the “Law on Communications”, Internet services are treated as telecommunications, rather than information services. This allows the commission to regulate the actions of operators. Now the FCC intends to regard Internet access as an information service and provide providers with more freedom in decision making.
The origins of net neutrality
Clive Thompson, author of Wired, points out that the emergence of network neutrality ideas is closely related to radio broadcasts. The first amateur radio programs appeared in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. And by the mid-1920s, professional stations began to form, and with them the first radio commercials.
It turned out that amateur stations interfered with companies such as AT & T. In 1927, Congress created the Federal Radio Commission, empowered to distribute the frequencies of radio waves. So there was a centralization of the radio, pushing lovers out of the air.
This entailed concerns about the monopoly of telecommunications companies, which had more means than independent stations and, therefore, could decide which content to broadcast to listeners.
First attempts to regulate
In 1966, these concerns shifted to the field of information technology. In fact, AT & T was a monopolist in the market, so there was a chance that the provider would begin to give priority to one or another service, depending on its goals and objectives. Therefore, the FCC has established a number of rules.
/ Flickr / Federal Communications Commission / CC
By 1976, the FCC legally delimited "basic" and "advanced" communication services. The services of the network owner belonged to the “base” ones, and third-party services - to the “extended” ones. The purpose of this solution was to protect content on the network from the operator transmitting traffic, and they are considered the first rules of “network neutrality” (although the term itself appeared much later).
Appearance of the term
The first commercial Internet providers began to appear in the United States in the early 90s. The number of first network users has increased with the advent of the digital subscriber line (DSL). And in 1996, the first broadband network on cable television infrastructure was introduced for data transmission at a higher speed than DSL.
/ Flickr / Christiaan Colen / CC
At the same time , the first private companies were formed that provided access to Internet services: chat rooms, e-mail and news. But a little later, telecommunications and media companies began to absorb each other.
Huge conglomerates such as AOL Time Warner and Comcast NBC Universal were formed , and questions from the 70s reiterated themselves, but even more acutely, would the operator close access to email services and chat rooms if he has his own competitive product? This question again required the intervention of the FCC.
In 1999, FCC Chairman William Kennard suggested the agency not to impose the same stringent requirements on the Internet as on the telephone infrastructure. In 2002, the commission made a decision to consider cable Internet information services, and DSL - telecommunication. This meant that cable operators were not obliged to “share” their infrastructure with competitors.
However, at about the same time (in 2003), Professor of Law Tim Wu (Tim Wu) wrote a paper in which he proposed to introduce a rule for all Internet companies prohibiting providers from discriminating some market participants in favor of others. It was in his work that the wording that became universally accepted appeared - “net neutrality”.
In the next article we will look at the main events that occurred after the recognition of the cable Internet as an “information service”, and describe what caused the revision of this classification by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015.
PS What else do we write on the VAS Experts blog:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/344122/
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