The information on the internet is available for everyone to access and it’s been an issue for many years on net neutrality. If there is no net neutrality then the Internet Service Provider (ISP) has complete control over the content that can be accessible by the Internet users. Net neutrality prevents ISPs from demanding premium payment for the websites to have faster streaming. The internet websites were segregated based on paid prioritization and the users will be regulated based on the internet users. Net neutrality is mandating that ISPs treat Internet communications without any discrimination based on the website content, website platform, applications, devices, users, destination address, and communication methods. Net neutrality regulates ISPs not to charge money for only content, prioritize the traffic meters, block the traffic, and charge the consumers. Net neutrality is focused on bringing Internet communication available for users across the globe (Hazlett, 2011).
Net Neutrality Laws and Regulations
Net Neutrality is a global challenge and many people were trying to bring net neutrality. The Internet was created to provide equal opportunity to access content across the globe. Till today communication is not equally distributed and there were many countries in the world without proper access to the internet. The ISP was the telecommunication organization who have invested millions of dollars to build the infrastructure to support communication. But, these service providers were using internet usage as the channel to bring the return on investments. There were regulations and standards that were designed to support telecommunication infrastructure usage. These regulations were challenging net neutrality and there is a threat for many internet websites and applications to compete in the fair marketplace. The regulations were risks for the organizations to provide the right access to the information (Pickard & Berman, 2019).
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the federal government. The FCC is providing regulations for the television, radio, and telephone industries in the United States (US). These regulations were related to interstate communications and international communications that are from the US. The FCC’s Open Internet Order provided regulations that allow ISPs to take control of net neutrality. The FCC could not able to impose net neutrality on the telecom providers. The argument of open internet was to provide the internet at the same charges and there should not be differentiation of internet access based on the content or the service providers. Having communication discrimination from the ISPs, it was challenging for the business to get a fair competitive advantage. The telecommunication companies were providing high-speed internet for the premium changers and the other organizations were getting neglected. There were many organizations that will not get an equal opportunity to take advantage of the Internet (Marsden, 2017).
There were many ISPs who were opposing net neutrality by establishing a two-tiered system that allows the ISPs to get faster communication and faster service with paid services. This actually discriminates the users over the internet and does not provide equal opportunity for communication. The user will be restricted to the content and the companies with paid services provide faster streaming. This approach rapidly increases the cost of internet services and this results in an escalated cost for using the applications. The application owner's content owners need to shift these premium charges to the users and this limits the purpose of the internet. The innovation side of the users is limited and many businesses will collapse. There were many business models that get a threat to existence and only the companies that can afford the premium services monopolized the market. Net neutrality is essential without discriminating against the users, contents, and applications and provides fair use of the Internet (Stiegler, 2013).
Recommendations
The recommendations are to establish a framework with better, faster, and cheaper internet by providing regulations with a key focus on consumer protection, and increased transparency. The ISPs need to have anti-competitive acts and improve fair internet usage for everyone. The state and federal regulations need to provide regulations that mandate the ISPs to provide consistent network access. Internet openness needs to be established for the ISPs to provide transparency with respect to business practices, network performance, and accessibility. There should be controls established that discourage malpractices and promotes good conduct for the ISPs. These fair practices will help innovators and investors to get attracted to use the internet for business needs. The regulations need to be established to promote investments in telecommunications rather than discourage innovation in telecommunication. The FCC needs to provide a governing body that monitors and assesses the ISP's fair usage practices and methods. These assessments and audits will provide an efficient way of bringing net neutrality and provide fair practices (Belli & Filippi, 2015).
Future Research
The future research for net neutrality is the self-resilient model in which the technology can be accelerated and optimized to meet the regulator's needs of promoting net neutrality. The technologies were rapidly evolving and modern technologies like artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, and cognitive technologies were providing sophisticated tools and technologies to provide assessment and monitoring tools. These tools were focused on providing a self-resilient model that determine the compliance deviations and established the methods to bring them back to the normal state. These technologies can be effectively used to bring net neutrality with regulations and compliance requirements (Miller, 2018).
References
Belli, L., & Filippi, D., P. (2015). Net Neutrality Compendium: Human Rights, Free Competition and the Future of the Internet, New York, NY: Springer.
Hazlett, W. T. (2011). The Fallacy of Net Neutrality, New York, NY: Encounter Books
Marsden, T., C. (2017). Network Neutrality: From Policy to Law to Regulation, Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Miller, R. (2018). Transforming the Future (Open Access): Anticipation in the 21st Century, Abingdon-on-Thames, UK: Routledge.
Pickard, V. & Berman, E., D. (2019). After Net Neutrality: A New Deal for the Digital Age, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Stigler, Z. (2013). Regulating the Web: Network Neutrality and the Fate of the Open Internet, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.