The Social,

Legal,
Ethical,
and
Professiona
l issues
relating to
the
abolishmen
t of Net
Neutrality
A report to investigate the SLEP issues in
the absence of net neutrality.

Dan Peacock 2/03/2015

Dan Peacock

Network Management And Design

Keeping the Internet Free

This report will look at the issues facing the Internet if the proposed
changes to net neutrality were implemented. In 2014, the FCC proposed a
bill which would allow ISPs to create Internet fast lanes by prioritising
certain types of traffic. By doing this, the open Internet, a platform for:
innovation, freedom of speech, and communication would become a
platform for paid features and data discrimination. Various issues are
investigated in this report such as: data throttling, limiting innovation, and
why net neutrality threatens the structure of the Internet.
1. Introduction
Since its creation in the 1960's, the Internet has seen unparalleled
expansion. However it was not until the 1990s in which commercialisation
of the service began, this has now become the norm providers
competing against each other for territory and bandwidth speeds.
The Internet has always been an open platform for: innovation, freedom of
speech and freedom of information, but this has become a pressing global
debate due to the actions of Internet Service Providers. Tim Wu, an
associate professor of law at the University of Virginia and also the creator
of the term Net Neutrality, highlighted this issue in his report Net
Neutrality and Broadband Discrimination:
"Communication regulators over the next decade will spend increasing
time on conflicts between the private interests of broadband providers
and the public's interest of an innovation environment centred on the
Internet." (Tim Wu 2003)
Issues arise when companies that provide connection to the internet
argue that different communication services, require different amounts of
bandwidth and should therefore be priced accordingly. A proposal in 2014,
by the FCC suggested allowing service providers to charge different costs
for different communications (Edward Wyatt 2014). This would inflict on
the open nature of the Internet. Instead of just providing a connection to
the Internet, providers would be able to dictate and interfere with users
online activity.
2. Structure
The first section of this report will investigate the issues relating to the
legal aspect of net neutrality, for example the reasons internet service
providers hindered peer to peer communications.
Secondly, this report will look at the professional issues of net neutrality;
how companies, professionals, and politicians can all have different
standpoints on the Internet. Also the risks disestablishing net neutrality
could have on the I.T profession.

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Thirdly, the social issues such as the effect on social media sites and
Internet censorship. Also highlighting the issue of private data.
Finally, the report discusses the ethical issues of net neutrality. Is it fair for
providers to decide which type of communications are more important
than others?

3. Content
i) Legal
Although predicted in a report years earlier (Tim Wu 2003), it was not until
2007 that examples of 'net discrimination' were discovered. It was found
that the American based Internet Service Provider, Comcast, had been
intentionally slowing peer-to-peer communications (Peter Svensson 2007).
This is known as 'bandwidth throttling', in which an ISP intentionally slows
a service. Thus the debate gained an increased amount of publicity, in an
attempt to keep the internet free and neutral.
A key principle entrenched in the Internet since creation, is the feature of
no central governing body; ISPs dictating which services should be
prioritised, and which services should be limited/throttled, seemingly
threatened the core principles of the Internet.
Following the bandwidth throttling by Comcast, the Federal
Communications Commission took Comcast to the U.S court of Appeals.
Although the appeal failed, it was the first attempt to impose network
neutrality. These attempts were mirrored by the US government, who in
the following year tried to introduce PIPA (Protect IP Act) and SOPA (Stop
Online Piracy Act) which attempted to increase regulation over internet
services (Jared Newman 2012). Similar to the attempts made by the FCC
to impose net neutrality, bills both failed to become legislation.
These examples highlight the complexity of net neutrality from a legal
standpoint due to the nature of the Internet; it is not centrally governed
and can therefore the decision to legislate standards is nobodies direct
decision to make. In the case of net neutrality, the majority of legal
decisions relate to America. Although the legislation made in the US can
only effect American ISPs, it is still an important process as European
Legislation may also be based off these laws. As decisions are being made
in America relating to net neutrality, attempts are paralleled in the EU
(Alex Hern 2014)
ii) Professional
From a professional standpoint net neutrality is very important. Small
businesses take advantage of an open Internet, for example a newly
created business that aims to sell products can have the same online
accessibility as huge companies such as Amazon or eBay.
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If legislation was passed that removed net neutrality, then ISPs could offer
special services to the bigger companies, which smaller businesses may
not be able to afford. This issue was brought to life in 2013 when the
video streaming service, Netflix, had to make a deal with ISP Comcast so
that their services were not being throttled (Shalini Ramachandran 2014).
After making this deal Netflixs download speed increased significantly (as
shown in the graph below). If a smaller video streaming based businesses
were to compete with Netflix, they may not be able to afford such deals
with ISPs. With service providers acting as a Gatekeeper, controlling the
dissemination of business, the open market nature of the Internet would
be ruined.
This could also lead to users directing frustration at services like Netflix
when in reality their service is being throttled by ISPs. A study was
performed to investigate the effects of slower loading times and increased
user frustration/decreased engagement were the results (Tammy Evarts
2013). This is another threat that faces the internet in the absence of net
neutrality, particularly decreased engagement which may danger the
growth and expansion of the web.

There may also be implications on the IT profession without net neutrality.

It is the responsibility of IT professionals to educate people on issues
relating to technology, therefore the net neutrality debate needs to be
explained in Laymans terms as opposed to complicated terminology. IT
companies such as Google, Cisco, Facebook and YouTube have all taken a
vocal standpoint and pushed hugely for the protection of net neutrality.
Furthermore, professional bodies are fundamental to the IT industry. One
of the key purposes of these bodies is to create standards that govern
protocols and services on the Internet. For example, the TCP/IP protocol
suite that dictates how information transfer should happen over the World
Wide Web. It is important to have these standards so that the Internet can
be accessible from a multitude of devices.
If net neutrality was no longer a feature of the Internet, ISPs would be able
to bypass these standards in order to favour certain types of traffic. With
the ability of ISPs to undermine Internet standards, the need for
professional IT bodies that create and regulate these standards would
diminish. This, in effect, could damage the professional nature of the IT
industry, similar to a healthcare service that did not require trained
doctors.

The graph shows Netflixs speed increase after January 2014, following the deal

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iii) Social
Although there are less social issues relating to this subject there are still
some areas to take into account.
Without net neutrality, ISPs can dictate which services should cost more
than others or which traffic should be blocked. This poses a risk on
possible communication platforms, one of the main uses of the Internet.
Similar to the issue relating to the dangers removing net neutrality could
have on small businesses, social media usage may be governed by ISPs.
This was exemplified in 2013 when Facebook teamed up with mobile
service provider T-Mobile, in a deal which allowed free access to Facebook
however still required users to pay for other social media sites (Thomas
Gryta 2013).
There may also be a danger of ISPs being allowed to carry out increased
in-depth packet analysis which could pose an issue to the confidentiality
of social media site services such as private messaging. As Vinton Cerf
stated in his 2006 address to US Senate, Allowing broadband carriers to
control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine
the principles that have made the Internet such a success. (Vinton Cerf
2006)
iv) Ethical
A key reason that net neutrality is such a widely discussed topic is due to
the actions of ISPs deciding which communications should be more
important than others. This means ISPs, such as Comcast, have to decide
which services they think should be more accessible than others. One of
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the main services that experienced limitations is peer to peer

communications.
The main examples of throttling by ISPs are the attempts targeting Bit
torrent. This may be due to the controversial nature of peer to peer
communications. Some argue the primary use of peer to peer networking
relates to the illegal sharing of files and this creates pressure on ISPs to
block more sites. In 2014 ISPs doubled their list of blocked sites after court
rulings (Leo Kelion 2014). It would appear not only do ISPs block sites
relating to the BitTorrent protocol, they also throttle the access to these
sites and services.
As users only pay for the connection to the Internet, protesters claim ISPs
should not be able to dictate which services to provide access to.
4. Summary
In summary, net neutrality is hugely important in maintaining an open
Internet that allows innovation and freedom of communication. Without it,
the providers of Internet services are also allowed to decide what data is
important and which companies should prosper.
On 26th February 2015 the FCC managed to pass legislation that ensured
Internet was provided as a telecommunications package and not an
Internet service, thus disallowing ISPs to treat data differently (Dominic
Rushe 2015). In effect ensuring net neutrality is once again a key principle
of the Internet.
Word Count: 1650
5. References
Wu, T. (2003). Net Neutrality and Broadband Discrimination. Columbia University.
Svensson, P. (2007) Comcast blocks some Internet traffic. NBC News. The
Associated Press.
Wyatt, E. (2014) F.C.C., in a Shift, Backs Fast Lanes for Web Traffic. NY Times.
Neyman, J. (2012) SOPA and PIPA: Just the Facts. Pc World
Hern, A. (2014) EU divided on issue of net neutrality. The Guardian.
Evarts, T. (2013) Mobile stress: Slower web pages lead to increased user
frustration and lower engagement. Web Performance Today.
Ramachandran, S. (2014) Netflix to pay Comcast for smoother streaming. Wall
Street Journal. http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/isp-speed.png
Kelion, L. (2014) Blocked piracy site list more than doubles after ruling. BBC
News.
Gryta, T. (2013) T-Mobile US, Facebook Team Up in Wireless Access Deal. Wall
Street Journal.
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Cerf, V. (2006) U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and

Transportation Hearing onNetwork Neutrality. U.S. Senate Address
Rushe, D. (2015) Net neutrality activists score landmark victory in fight to
govern the internet. The Guardian.