Convergence Conversation

The interim Digital Britain report made no mention of the principles under which the Internet has evolved. It was and remains dismissive of neutrality. US policy makers, including Mr Obama  use the following Internet principles to guide their polices.

1.) consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice;

2.) consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement;

3.) consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and

4.) consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

These principles have been expanded upon by the Norwegian regulator and others into a set of best practices including the need to manage congestion during busy periods.

The EU Telecoms package in defining its Universal Service Obligation has no stated underpinning principles under which our Internet access is to evolve. The guidance from the UK Regulator encourages the lawmakers to think of the Internet in the same way you think of a Mobile service or a Cable TV service. Let the competitive market decide as long as any limitations of service are transparent in the contract. This can be balanced by regulators being able to intervene where there is suspected anti-competitive behavior. Oftcom assumes the Internet is a free space. It is free but it works because there is a principle of co-operation unknown in a purely competitive market.

The Internet and Internet technologies are deeply disruptive by nature, not least because the potential exists for legacy services to be re-invented and replaced with something cheaper or better. It is also very disruptive because you have large organisations co-operating on a principled transparent basis. The principles are needed and must be maintained because competitive forces alone will not lead todays incumbents to undermine existing services by exposing the full potential of high speed connectivity.

The limitation of a non-principled approach are too long to list here. Blocking BBC iPlayer is not anti-competitive because, well, the package does not include enough peak hour capacity, and the peak hour capacity that does exist is assigned for value added service. We are not blocking Skype, but we keep packet loss at 5% for all applications, which is why this real time application does not work in a predictable way, and you already pay for a legacy voice service. Video does not work from those servers because our traffic protection policy states all streamed video need to be hosted on our servers locally, so as to not interfere with other traffic. Given the origins of the Internet as an exercise in principled co-operation, how can we expect those principles to survive in corporations whose self interest dictate that they neuter or mold our Internet usage around what they are already selling.

This is why MEPs are getting so many letters and emails on this matter. The Internet has evolved and grown to a phenomenal degree due to a consensus on some simple underlying principles. Unless these principles are carefully and fully accounted for in our law making, our experience will be reduced to just another electronic communication service. Our Internet access is not thankfully a Cable TV service or a Mobile service, let's hope it stays that way.