Net neutrality – what’s behind the headlines

A few months back, the prospect of policy focus falling on net neutrality in the UK provoked some apprehension. The issue had failed to provoke the intensity of debate seen in other markets such as the U.S. and there was a sense from some that this was an “American disease we didn’t want to catch”.

Fast forward a couple of months with the publication of both the Ofcom discussion paper and the European Commission questionnaire and one could be forgiven for asking, what was all the fuss about?

Initial and public industry reaction to the Ofcom paper was largely “this looks about right” and with no sign of any immediate action likely to take place by way of mechanisms such as the imposition of a minimum quality of service requirement by Ofcom, perhaps there was nothing to be worried about after all.

However the public debate burst into life this week with the publication of a proposed legislative framework for net neutrality published by Google and Verizon.

Although pitched as a compromise deal and a practical suggestion of a way forward, the document provoked strong opinions from a variety of players and threw the issues at stake into sharp relief.

Should traffic over wireless networks be treated differently to that over fixed networks? How would you define “additional services online”? Where does the “open” internet begin and end? And who makes those decisions anyway?

The announcement opened a lid on a debate that has always been emotive in the States. Concerns about whether the nature of the broadband market provides operators with a clear incentive and ability to block or throttle traffic has led to political capital around net neutrality. Openness has been seen as crucial to prevent consumer harm and support innovation.

The debate has been more muted in the UK and EU where market structures have not led to the same level of concern about net neutrality and where there has been a greater level of consensus about the role traffic management can play in the operation of today’s internet.

However that is not to say that the issues thrown into the spotlight by the Google and Verizon announcement are irrelevant to the UK and EU debates.

There are still various open questions to discuss and debate:

Would allowing deals that would deliver guaranteed quality of service benefit the consumer or would that damage consumer choice?
How important is traffic management in ensuring access to good quality services?
How can you explain traffic management to the consumer in a meaningful way that allows them to make informed choices about the types of service they wish to access?
What is the best platform for innovation for all players, the big, the small and the new?

These questions are fundamentally about how today’s internet should evolve into that of tomorrow – and that is ultimately what the net neutrality debate should be all about.

We think there is a great opportunity to debate these issues and make real progress on building a view about the nature of the internet of the future.

The BSG conference on the impact of net neutrality takes this very approach. Our agenda goes beyond the rhetoric and looks at the issue in a pragmatic way with the consumer front and centre to debate.

We’ll be looking at consumer and business demand for quality, the correlation between better quality and innovation, technical bottlenecks and solutions, commercial collaboration as well as what regulators and policy maker should or shouldn’t be doing.

We’d love to hear your views on this issue and hope to see you there.

Also posted on www.broadbanduk.org