After my last and controversial post on net neutrality networkin which I voluntarily emerged as devil’s advocateI am going to give a little “cane” on this subject again. I know my message in all of this is not popular at all and that it is much easier to embrace and defend net neutrality at all costs. I have no interest in defending the interests of telecommunications especially, but I want us to think about all the possibilities and think: can net neutrality be negative for users?
If Google TV, Apple TV or other similar services will become popular in the near future (they are Internet television consumption services) and will arrive, for example to the five million users in Spain, could current networks support this traffic without using any network intelligence (that discriminates against protocols) and without damaging the quality of service for browsing the Web?
In addition, for these services to be extended with quality guarantees the telcos will surely have to undertake significant investments. Net neutrality will force networks to treat this traffic in the same way as, for example, Web traffic. This requirement will actually make it necessary to oversize the network, causing the cost per byte of bandwidth to increase. In addition, telcos will not be able to prioritize streaming video over P2P, which will make it necessary for all of us to contract higher bandwidths: Wouldn’t we all end up paying more than necessary for the Internet? Wouldn’t it be preferable if Will only those who actually consume them pay for the resources consumed by these types of services? However, this would mean breaking net neutrality.
News leaked in the US that Comcast charged a fee to Netflix to allow it to offer its IPTV services over its networks. We are not talking about the Web but Internet services that are very demanding with network resources. Shouldn’t these companies also invest in the resources they consume? Are these services co-substantial with the resources they use?
We must properly define net neutrality and know what it entails. Obviously, discrimination of traffic based on origin and destination or content should be prohibited whenever there is no real competition but: is it always positive to prohibit discrimination regarding protocol or type of traffic: voice, video streaming…? Are the right incentives being generated for the diffusion of technologies and for technological investment? Should Google TV and its rivals invest in infrastructure?
And here I return to my previous post: There is a fine line here in net neutrality on which deep analysis must be carried out.