NET NEUTRALITY – WHY TELECOMS WANT TO INTERFERE WITH INTERNET DATA ?

BACKGROUND

The internet has become so much a part of the lives of most of the people that it is easy to imagine that it will always remain the free and open medium it is now. We’d like to believe it will remain a place where we can always access any lawful content we want, and where the folks delivering that content can’t play favorites because they disagree with the message being delivered or want to charge more money for faster delivery.

MEANING

I . Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers ISPs treat all content equally and not give preference to some digital content providers. That means the consumer can load every website, app, video, etc., equally, regardless of where the content is hosted. For example, an ISP may not charge more for sites that stream movies or promote a specific agenda. This is also referred to as the open internet.

II . Network neutrality means applying well-established “common carrier” rules to the internet in order to preserve its freedom and openness. Common carriage prohibits the owner of a network that holds itself out to all-comers from discriminating against information by halting, slowing, or otherwise tampering with the transfer of any data (except for legitimate network management purposes such as easing congestion or blocking spam).

NOT ONLY A CONSUMER ISSUE

Network neutrality is a consumer issue, but it is also one of the foremost free speech issues of our time. In this day and age, it is pretty much impossible to get through life without using the internet — which is why it’s essential that our free speech rights are protected both on- and offline. After all, freedom of expression isn’t worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free.

WHY TELECOMS WANT TO INTERFERE WITH INTERNET DATA ?

Profit and other corporate interests, or a dislike for certain political viewpoints, or those that it deems “controversial.”

Companies might want to interfere with speech that makes them look bad, block applications that compete with their own, degrade or block access to union sites during a labor conflict, or increase their profit by forcing developers to pay more to avoid having their data blocked or slowed down.

New technologies now allow telecom companies to scrutinize every piece of information we send or receive online — websites, email, videos, internet phone calls, or data generated by games or social networks. And they can program the computers that route that information to interfere with the data flow by slowing down or blocking traffic and communicators that they don’t like, and speeding up traffic they do like or that pays them extra for the privilege.

Imagine if the phone company could mess with your calls — through bad connections or frequent dropped calls — when you tried to order pizza from Domino’s, because Pizza Hut is paying them.

THE OTHER VIEW

However those who want that net neutrality should end have their own view. According to them:-
Market forces already protected consumers, because if an ISP started deliberately slowing down people’s favorite websites and streaming services, or putting an end to free speech, consumers would simply switch to a different ISP.

No internet service provider wants to be known for having “slow service” or being “anti-free-speech,” so there’s nothing for consumers to worry about.

A content provider – especially companies like Netflix and YouTube – may wish to pay a little bit extra to a network company to guarantee better quality for its customers.

Further, because YouTube, Netflix and other internet video streaming businesses consume lots of data compared to almost all others going online, it might make sense for ISPs to ask such businesses to pay a little more for their services.

In the same way, the government requires drivers of 18-wheeler trucks to pay more in tolls on congested roads than people driving cars.

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