There are definitely unknowns, and some potential risk to business, if net neutrality fails. But to begin to quantify those risks, it’s important to realize that the net neutrality debate encompasses several aspects.

One aspect is whether internet providers should be able to slow or block content in an anti-competitive way. Unless you happen to be an internet provider, there seems to be little debate that preserving that aspect of net neutrality is desirable. The real debate is regarding whether that aspect should be regulated, and if so, how to do so effectively.

Another aspect of net neutrality, of much greater relevance to the typical enterprise, is quality of service. Some questions to consider:

1. For example, should the internet provider be able to slow peer-to-peer (P2P) or gaming traffic in order to maintain what it believes to be a fair allocation of bandwidth?
2. If the people playing the game are paying the same monthly fees as the people who are just surfing the web, or watching a video, isn’t it their right that their application can function optimally?
3. Who decides what fair allocation of bandwidth is, anyway – the provider, the application developer, the companies that build networking equipment?
4. How do you implement bandwidth allocation guarantees and limits (it’s more complicated than it sounds)?

The answer to the first question may partly depend on whether you’re a gamer, or perhaps more to the point, whether your business sells or hosts P2P games. However – from that perspective, the ultimate goal is obvious. People who want to sell or play P2P games are going to have to pay for whatever share of bandwidth is necessary to accomplish that.

Take another example – businesses that do lots of two-way video: they are going to be happy to pay for a service level agreement that protects their business needs, if those needs include guaranteed high-bandwidth, low-latency internet service. If their business is disrupted because someone else in that same geographic area, who happens to be paying less for service, is downloading tons of porn, how is that fair or desirable? The failure of this aspect of net neutrality is inevitable.

Thus, the opportunity here is for entrepreneurs to create the equipment and network protocols that will allow net neutrality to be seamlessly implemented. For network equipment servicing an area with 1000s of homes, differentiating that many different service levels is beyond the current state of the art, at least in terms of widely deployed equipment.

This brings us back to the original question: what are the risks? Internet providers may choose to undermine net neutrality as a business practice with or without the blessing of the law. But if they do so without the support of technology, the interim period will see choppy service and inefficient pricing.

No Comments »