The Credibility of Net Neutrality - Essay Example

The neutrality of the Internet or the lack of discrimination of the Internet to the different kinds of packets of information that flow through the Internet is claimed to be under threat from the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), with their limited success in converting the Internet into a tiered service, wherein different kinds of information that flow through the Internet will be charged at different rates. (1). The issue becomes even more significant with the legislature being dragged into dealing with the hype of the threat to net neutrality promoted by some of the large business enterprises providing web services like Google and Yahoo (2).

The credibility of Net Neutrality:

Over the past few years, there has been overblown rhetoric over the issue of net neutrality and the threat to it. The regulations that are currently in place are a sufficient deterrent to allowing this to happen. (3) Examination of some of the cries of discrimination by ISPs shows that there is no credence to these accusations. This can be seen from the issue between the web service Craiglist and the ISP Cox Cable Internet. There are accusations that the ISP Cox Cable Internet is choking user access to Craiglist. However, it appears that this has more to do with one of the Cox security software, which users can uninstall. Thus claims for discrimination by ISPs impacting net neutrality in some cases appear more to be technical issues and there can hardly be any legislation that offers solutions for technical issues (4).
The ISPs do claim a right for creating a tiered Internet, which the opponents claim is discrimination and impacts negatively the neutrality of the Internet. (5). By creating a tiered Internet service all that the ISPs are doing is creating differential pricing depending on what flows through their popes. This is akin to the US Postage Service, where there is a difference in the cost of mailing a postcard and sending a heavy parcel like a bicycle. If such a tiered service was not there the cost of mailing a postcard would go up several times making it unaffordable for many. The principles of a free market calls for allowing business enterprises to charge varying prices for different services and demanding that there be legislation to make restrict this is unfair to the business enterprises involved in providing Internet Services Read More