Rachel Feltman: for scientific american‘s science quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Earlier this month, net neutrality was back in the news thanks to a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling. The decision states that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have the authority to reinstate net neutrality rules, which the FCC reinstated in April at the encouragement of then-President Joe Biden. This was decided by a vote.
Net neutrality is one issue that I still don’t fully understand. So what is it? What happens now that the FCC can no longer enforce it? Here, our technology editor Ben Guarino explains it all. scientific american.
Ben, thanks for coming to chat.
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Ben Guarino: Thank you for having me.
Feltman: This is a question I think I should be able to answer by now, but I can’t. “What is net neutrality?”
Guarino: So, in its simplest form, net neutrality is the idea that all internet traffic should be treated equally. This means that if I’m trying to access YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc., my Internet Service Provider (ISP) will treat data packets from those websites the same way they would from any other website. It will be.
Feltman: So why are we hearing about net neutrality in the news? What exactly is going on?
Guarino: There has been a great deal of debate about whether net neutrality should exist in the United States. Internet service providers say “imposing regulations like this on us stifles competition. It goes against the ideals of American capitalism.”
And then there are the consumers, the Internet advocates, and the people who cherish the idea of an open Internet that truly lives up to the founding ideals of what the Internet should be. It should be for the flow of information, and it should be about “we should protect net neutrality, we should protect it.”
In other words, who should regulate it? And a court recently ruled that the Federal Communications Commission cannot treat the Internet in accordance with net neutrality principles.
Feltman: interesting. What’s next? What does that mean for people who want a free and open internet?
Guarino: Therefore, if the FCC does not have the ability to regulate ISPs like it does telecommunications services, which means that these services must act in the “public interest” and adhere to higher standards, means. The ability to enforce these net neutrality principles is either in the hands of Congress or in the hands of the state.
Feltman: So, is this good news or bad news for the open internet?
Guarino: Bad news for those who support an open internet. So, in the absence of federal oversight of net neutrality, all we currently have are state laws that support net neutrality. And while these are in the law in a number of places, including Washington, Oregon, and California, it seemed like they probably weren’t really being enforced. federal government With net neutrality oversight, we might not have to worry about our states. ” Now, that equation changes a bit.
And the great thing about the Internet (lol) is that everything is connected, right? So you can’t do that — the borders of the Internet don’t stop at California, so if California has net neutrality laws, you can say, “If California ISPs follow these laws, well, California ISPs follow these laws.” The idea is that as long as you follow the law, that’s fine. , they will follow them everywhere. ” Therefore, this could be a ray of hope for those who want the principles of an open internet to be upheld.
Feltman: From an ISP’s perspective, what are the limitations of net neutrality? What are they willing to do that they wouldn’t be able to do in this kind of free and open Internet?
Guarino: So the theory is that if one data packet can be processed differently than another, traffic to Netflix could be slowed down. Maybe you’re using a competitor’s streaming service. Let’s go back a little bit. We talk a lot about net neutrality when it comes to video streaming. That’s because video streaming is data-intensive, and about two-thirds of all Internet traffic is video streaming. , so net neutrality and video services tend to go hand in hand. But let’s say I’m an Internet service provider and I have a website that competes with Netflix and Hulu.
Feltman: Hmm, hmm.
Guarino: And I want more people to use my services. You could then slow down their connection to Netflix and direct them to your competitors. Or you can say, “Hey, Netflix, if you want to keep this fast connection, you’ll have to pay a little more.” And, you know, the concern there is that the higher prices that Netflix has to pay will be passed on to consumers.
Feltman: Well, what’s the worst-case scenario? I think the implication in a lot of conversations about net neutrality is that it’s this slippery slope that will fundamentally change the internet. What is this fundamentally different internet that people are worried we’re entering into?
Guarino: That’s a very good question. What I can tell you is that I’ve talked to researchers like David Choffness at Northeastern University who are studying what we consider net neutrality violations. So he looked at how traffic was sent from my computer, my phone, to Netflix. It turns out it doesn’t matter how US ISPs handle this, whether the FCC has a net neutrality policy on its books, or whether each state has its own net neutrality laws. Really US problems. This research has been done with FCC oversight, without FCC oversight, and again with FCC oversight, but not now. David said he’s seen it all, which is basically true (lol), but it doesn’t really matter.
David and his colleagues have been studying this since 2017 and found that there are no net neutrality violations in fixed cable internet in the United States, meaning it does not block or throttle traffic. But what do they do? have We’ve discovered that your wireless provider is throttling some connections for certain users on certain data plans. So the idea is, historically, spectrum was limited by connections to cell phone towers and things like that, so maybe when everyone was going home at 5 o’clock and they requested to watch Netflix on the subway or something. I guess it is. It makes sense to suppress it.
Now, when you go to a cell phone shop, people advertise super fast speeds.
Feltman: of course.
Guarino: Since we’re talking about 5G networks, that spectrum discussion may no longer hold water. But if they’ve done it historically, they’ll probably do it again. So I don’t know if American consumers will actually notice a difference in the short term. In the long run, the price of a Hulu or Netflix subscription may go up a bit.
Feltman: It’s true that so many big conglomerates own so many different types of media and telecommunications companies that your ISP can control the content you’re watching and (lol) some of your other content. It’s not even possible that you might own one. , surely.
Guarino: Probably the only thing to note is that this has been going on for a really long time lol…
Feltman: Yeah.
Guarino: The term “net neutrality” was coined in 2003 by a Columbia legal scholar. I mean, people have been thinking about this for a very long time. And this debate has been going on for a long time, and you know, even before this term was coined, before the term “net neutrality” was coined, people have been thinking about the principles of an open internet. So this is certainly not the case end Net neutrality. This does not mean that net neutrality is lost, even if it is out of the hands of the FCC for the time being.
Feltman: Ben, thank you so much for explaining net neutrality. I finally understood it. Hopefully, the Internet will remain relatively free and open for the foreseeable future.
Guarino: That’s wonderful. Thank you for having me.
Feltman: (lol)
That’s it for today’s episode. While you’re here, please leave a quick rating, review, or comment wherever you listen. I really appreciate it!
science fast It is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg, and Jeff DelVisio. This episode was reported and co-hosted by Ben Guarino. Shayna Possess and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe scientific american Check out more latest and in-depth science news.
for scientific american, Rachel Feltman. See you next time!
