Net Neutrality: A Deep Dive

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is all about the Government or Internet Service Providers (ISPs) treating all the data on the Internet equally without any bias and does not charge differently from the consumers for giving preferential treatment to certain websites or higher-quality delivery. In a broader context, internet users should have access to all the data at the same speed. This means that Internet service providers should not be able to slide some data onto the fast lanes by blocking or slowing down the other data. In other words, the internet service provider should never be able to block you from accessing a service like Skype and slow down Netflix so that it is encouraging you to keep your cable package or manipulating you to buy a different video streaming service.

Many Global councils have strived and tried to reinforce net neutrality protections. Many net neutrality advocates believe it as a fact that the internet is very important for innovation and everybody has the right to proper information. If the internet service providers are biased and start playing only its favorite online information or apps then the new technologies and companies will never have a chance to grow. For example, if the internet service providers have blocked or slowed down YouTube and Netflix then we wouldn’t have both of them in today’s generation.

The majority of the consumer advocates argue that if the net neutrality rules are prohibited then the Internet service providers start selling the internet in bundles. When this happens, they will have two different packages, one which will be a premium package which will be sold for a huge price and many of the utility apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media package and including a few other websites will be available in with amazing speed; and in the second package, everything will be slow. This will be like paying a huge price for basic needs.

How does it affect me anyway?

When net neutrality rules are properly followed then all the Internet service providers will treat everyone’s data without any bias and they do not get to censor certain websites nor they can slow down any of your favorite websites. For example, if your internet service provider has a good tie-up with a particular entertainment streaming service or a cable channel then it would slow down your streaming speed on any other channels apart from that particular entertainment streaming service. It might also demand more money to gave the bandwidth so that you can watch all your prime shows on Amazon and Netflix. The loss of net neutrality stops this from happening.

Global councils set up proper regulations for sustaining net neutrality but the Internet service providers have protested this. If net neutrality is eliminated then below are a few things which will be gone for a toss:

  1. Freedom to start an online business and compete on a high level.
  2. Freedom of speech online.
  3. Freedom from Monopoly business.
  4. Freedom to browse at a fast speed and visit any website.

The sad truth is that fast lanes in the internet service provider do exist. Highly successful companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Google already pay for Direct Access to Internet service providers. According to research, there are two types of fast lanes that our existing today.

Peering

The famous and successful companies pay the internet service providers for a direct connection which is called peering which makes a link for the internet backbone and speeds up their transfers.

Content delivery network

The reason why Google results are displayed so quickly is that the search engine pays for this privilege and sets its service inside the bowels of Internet service providers that are the sole reason why the search is faster and the images are displayed even faster.

The open internet order has come up with three important rules on how to completely eradicate the competitive practices by ISP s and follow net neutrality.

Firstly any internet service provider must be transparent on how they manage the traffic on their networks. The second rule is to avoid blocking their customers from accessing any applications of any video streaming services or websites owned by the competitors. The third rule is to provide unbiased service to any customer for any data.…