OMG! Some claim that the FCC's recent ruling that Comcast violated the FCC's network neutrality principles will inevitably lead to metering, caps, tiered Internet service and higher prices for consumers. Not so fast, says Free Press, which led the fight in bringing Comcast's decision to block P2P applications like BitTorrent to the FCC.It's been one week since the Federal Communications Commission bopped
Comcast's ears for blocking the peer-to-peer application BitTorrent, ruling that
the broadband provider violated
the FCC's network neutrality principles.
After the predictable celebrations
by network neutrality advocates came the darker, more ominous message from
other circles: If broadband providers can't manage their networks to keep
bandwidth hogs from clogging the pipes, tiered service, caps or metering are
sure to follow.
The chief disciple of this line of thinking is Craig Moffett, an analyst
with Bernstein Research. On Aug. 1, he wrote on his blog:
If network operators can't manage
traffic loads one way, they'll do it another. By banning discrimination based
on application or content, the FCC—and
net neutrality proponents more broadly—are
pushing network operators closer and closer to what increasingly is their only
viable alternative—usage-based
pricing.
Bernstein argued that usage-based pricing could be "the best thing that
ever happened to the network operator crowd," but "the worst thing
that ever happened to applications and content."
Not so fast, countered media reform organization Free Press. Along with Public Knowledge, Free Press brought
the FCC case against Comcast after tests by the Associated Press and others
showed that Comcast blocks users' legal P2P content. Bernstein, said Free Press
in a report
released Aug. 7, (PDF) is climbing a rope attached to nothing. The report,
written by Free Press Director of Research S. Derek Turner, stated:
These assertions are simply untrue. By
stirring up fears of higher monthly bills, this posturing attempts to
delegitimize the Commission's worthy action, giving consumers the false
impression that they must choose between secret Internet blocking or the very
undesirable practice of metering.
Turner added, "This is a false choice, one most providers don't even
consider necessary or practical. These scare tactics shouldn't deter anyone
from pursuing the policies we need to preserve a free and open Internet."
Free Press noted that such a switch in broadband pricing models would
represent a significant shift by broadband providers, "But to believe such
a move is right around the corner, we must accept the argument that there is
congestion in the network."
There isn't, at least according to the available data. Broadband providers
like Comcast claim the pipes are filling and dire predictions of the coming "exaflood"
of Internet traffic abound, but the amount of data supporting these claims is
slim.
Predictions about the Internet collapsing under its traffic flow have been popular
since at least 1995, when InfoWorld's Bob Metcalfe wrote a piece entitled "Predicting
the Internet's Catastrophic Collapse and Ghost Sites Galore in 1996."
Metcalfe wrote, "Almost all of the many predictions now being made about
1996 hinge on the Internet's continuing exponential growth. But I predict the
Internet … will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically
collapse."
It didn't, but that didn't stop the continuing predictions of doom and
gloom. Since broadband providers do their best to obscure any data (for
competitive reasons, they claim) from the FCC, there's no real proof that Comcast's
throttling of BitTorrent was necessary in the first place.
But in Canada,
there is some proof. According to the Free Press report:
Bell Canada was forced to disclose the level of
congestion in its network after Canadian regulators began an investigation into
the company's practice of application throttling. The data indicated almost no
congestion in Bell Canada's network, despite the company's prediction
of a bandwidth apocalypse.
If the network traffic congestion isn't so bad, why are providers making the
claim? According to Free Press, the historical trend in pricing models has been
simplicity (bundled packages) and more for less.
"ISPs may well buck the historical trends and
economic incentives and move forward with limitation pricing anyway," the Free
Press report stated. "Cable ISPs may be particularly worried about the
threat that online video poses to their own video products, and might turn to
limitation pricing as a way of disfavoring services like Netflix, AppleTV,
Vudu, Hulu, Vuze, Miro and a whole host of commercial online video distribution
applications."
IT Infrastructure 
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