Here in the U.S., net neutrality has become a hot topic of debate. Essential to the debate is the topic of whether or not the government has the right to control private companies in the public interest. While some have resorted to name-calling and labelling this as “socialism”, the reality is that the government manages several private utility agencies as a way to ensure that everyone has access to the offerings that happen to be a hallmark of a developed society. There isn’t any purpose in excluding the Internet from the position of an utility. Indeed, the United Nations and nations around the world like Finland have already declared Internet access to be an essential human right.
Presented this, it’s troubling to observe that a number of European Union ISPs have been found openly implementing measures such as traffic shaping and preventing applications like VoIP using deep packet inspection or DPI. There are a couple of issues here. The foremost is that there is a distinct conflict of interest concerning companies that provide Internet service and at the same time offer a conventional telephone service also.The latter has turned out to be significantly more profitable than the former and when people start using their Internet networks in place of the traditional PSTN one, there is a good bonus for ISPs to block or otherwise impede VoIP traffic.
However this is artificially limiting the interest in Internet communications and paves the way for additional discrimination by private companies for specific benefit. It’s about time we started to address Internet services like any other utility like water or electricity. Internet service providers need to be regulated in a similar manner and must be forced to ensure that they behave as passive pipes merely providing people with the data connections that they require.
Another problem that is central to the subject of net neutrality is the challenge of transparency. Supposing we take for granted for now that ISPs have the right to carry out their enterprises in whatever manner they want and give special consideration to certain kinds of programs, there’s no denying that they need to be extremely open regarding their methods and keep customers fully advised about the quality of service that they’re offering. Generally there is simply no justification for secretly reducing or blocking some kinds of traffic without the approval or even understanding of the customer who will be purchasing the solution.
Transparency requirements are merely one step toward tighter net neutrality requirements. It’s about time that we as customers started challenging the kind of Internet access we are really receiving.
I am a VoIP and cutting-edge communication geek. Hosted VoIP PBX and Unified Communication have a marked effect on the way companies conduct business in the 21st century.
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