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from: Multichannel News

Why Cable Should Want Net Neutrality

By Art Brodsky, Public Knowledge 4/30/2007

Think of network neutrality as the mirror image of a traditional cable system. In a cable system, the operator alone (must-carry requirements aside for the moment) decides which programming services will be offered and which channel position they will occupy. Even in an a la carte universe, the subscriber can only pick from the choices on the menu.

But the Internet is different, and that’s because the service providers don’t have the same type of control over content. On the Internet, it’s the user who picks and chooses from an infinite variety of destinations, content and activities. That’s the reason the Internet developed as it did.

Telephone companies, the original carriers of Internet traffic, were required by law to carry all phone calls without favoritism to any particular service. Cable-modem service was never subject to that requirement, and the Federal Communications Commission made certain that high-speed Internet services by any provider wouldn’t have any common-carrier obligations.

At its root, net neutrality is very simple. Broadband-network operators should carry all Internet traffic without privileging, degrading or prioritizing any content based on source, ownership or destination. The principle would apply to any technology, cable, or telephony or wireless. It means those who operate networks — cable multiple-system operators, telcos and others — have to play fair and not play favorites. Cable should also recognize this principle because it ties in with something operators desperately need.

It’s nothing short of amazing to see how the basic concept of fairness and non-discrimination has become totally distorted. Net neutrality is not about giving anyone below-cost access to the cable network. It is not about government price controls. It is not about protecting the business plans of Google or Yahoo or any other Internet company. It is about allowing every customer access to content and applications on whatever speed network they pay for. It is about allowing individual consumers or small companies or large companies to reach consumers with whatever resources they have without the network operator influencing the choice.

Network operators can still manage their networks, can still block or screen content and even prioritize some data, as long as it’s done on a nondiscriminatory basis. If one bit of Voice over Internet Protocol is given special treatment, then all should be, regardless of whether the supplier is a cable company or a competitor.

This net neutrality model puts the customer in control. The customer can buy as much bandwidth as he or she wishes and pay the going rate for it. After all, it’s the customer who requests the data to be sent along the network. It’s not YouTube filling the network with video — it’s the customer who requests the video. The companies fulfilling the request pay for their own Internet access.

Cable companies should support non-discrimination because they need it too — when they connect to the telephone company network. Cable operators need fair treatment from the telcos for their interconnection rates. They don’t want their traffic sent to the back of the queue. Cable doesn’t want to be discriminated against and shouldn’t be able to discriminate, either.

Author Information
Art Brodsky is communications director of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group focused on telecommunications issues.