Net Neutrality is a Bad Idea

Introduction

Likely, you have heard a lot of push to get the United States Federal Government involved in dictating to the internet service providers (ISPs) what terms they can provide to their customers.

This is a very bad idea, and it is so bad, it could likely cause the internet to break apart.

What is the Internet, Really?

Many people do not understand this, but the internet is really the internets, since it is nothing more than an interconnected group of networks. Every ISP owns and managers their own network. They share that network with peers---other ISPs---under terms and conditions they agree to. There is a huge benefit to connecting with peers, and a huge cost to not connecting, so there is a financial incentive among both parties to create as many connections as needed.

The "magic" behind the internet is that each of these ISPs are independent and in competition one with another. They want to attract paying subscribers to use their networks, and to do so, they have to provide better or cheaper services than the other guy. Because network users are free to switch their ISP at any time, they are in constant, bitter competition with their peers.

How can we break the internet?

It's quite easy to break the internet. Simply remove choice.

• Remove the choice of ISPs to determine who they connect to and under what terms.
• Remove the choice of the customers to choose who their ISP will be.

If any of the above happens, then the internet will fall apart. See, if ISPs are not motivated to provide marginally better services, they won't do so. If ISPs cannot negotiate one with another about how they will share their traffic, then they cannot come to the optimum solution.

What we don't need is legislation that dictates how ISPs are allowed to filter their own traffic, or what peers they get to or have to connect with and how much data they have to accept. Instead, let ISPs experiment and find the happy medium between filtering unwanted traffic and providing the services that consumers want. This is what people mean by "Net Neutrality". Really, it's "Net Fascism" or "Net Socialism" because the government is dictating to business what it can and can't do.

Unfortunately, thanks to government, local, state, and federal, consumers already have limited choice. We see this because consumers are frustrated with their limited choices. The solution isn't to further restrict choices. The solution is to expand choices. It's to eliminate the regulations that restrict our choices and replace them with ones that do.

How can we make the internet better?

The Republicans did a great job of ensuring a separation between people who provide the data lines and the people who provide the ISP services. This allows companies such as Speakeasy and others to rent bandwidth on existing infrastructure and sell it to the consumers. This means that the people who lay the line to your house do not and cannot have a monopoly on who provides your ISP services. We need more of this.

We may want to invest, as localities (not states or the federal government), in our own infrastructure. For instance, I can see my neighborhood getting together to share a T1 line (or greater) for network traffic, sharing the cost of laying the line and managing the connection. To use the line, we should charge ourselves something that is reasonable so that we don't suffer the Tragedy of the Commons. But I wouldn't want my neighbor dictating to me that I have to use Speakeasy or Comcast.