The net neutrality debate is based on a mental model of the internet that hasn’t been accurate for more than a decade. We tend to think of the internet as a massive public network that everyone connects to in exactly the same way. We envision data traveling from Google and Yahoo and Uber and every other online company into a massive internet backbone, before moving to a vast array of ISPs that then shuttle it into our homes. That could be a neutral network, but it’s not today’s internet. Currently, ISPs favor and block contents going through their servers with protocols signed with some content providers or discriminations towards other of them because of their own commercial benefits.

Too much of the traffic is now coming from just a handful of companies, these companies are moving so much traffic on their own, they’ve been forced to make special arrangements with the country’s internet service providers that can facilitate the delivery of their sites and applications. Basically, they’re bypassing the internet backbone, plugging straight into the ISPs. Today, a typical webpage request can involve dozens of back-and-forth communications between the browser and the web server, and even though internet packets move at the speed of light, all of that chatter can noticeably slow things down. But by getting inside the ISPs, the big web companies can significantly cut back on the delay. Over the last six years, they’ve essentially rewired the internet. A typical example of a violation of net neutrality is that, Internet Service Provider Comcast secretly using forged data packets to slow the upload rate of P2P file sharing. IP designers point out that the approach of avoiding QoS(quality of service) is an important advantage to avoid the problem of net neutrality. But this requires us to be more cautious in the discussion of net neutrality. The supporters of the net neutrality cite the psychological process of human adaptation. They indicate that when people get used to better things, they will never want to go back to the worse things.

Another example about the dispute on net neutrality is Netflix issue. Netflix’s connection speed with Comcast became increasingly slow at that time and Netflix had to pay extra money to Comcast to improve its connection speed. Netflix also came to a similar agreement with Verizon later in 2014. However, Netflix thought that peering was one of the net neutrality issues and it deserved free access, which meant no extra money. They proposed to FCC to regulate the extra fee but failed.

Tension exists between commercialization of Internet and equal access of Internet users. Do Internet companies have the rights of equal access? Is extra access fee an appropriate strategy in business competition? Is that a strategy which will impede the development of Internet? We still don’t have any certain answers to these questions. Maybe some people wish that the Internet would be a liberal place and anyone would have equal access.

In the near future , we would like FCC and congress to advocate net neutrality vociferously along with certain proposals we would like to give , though these proposals might be followed by some ISPs (internet service providers ) but they need to be implemented comprehensively and in strict adherence :-

• No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.

• No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.
• Increased transparency. The connection between ISPs and consumers should be transparent , favoring or blocking no packages of data .
• No paid prioritization. No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gate keeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, we are asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.
• Coordination-   FCC works with non-government organizations as those organizations could provide evidences that ISPs violate net neutrality policy. Apart from this, government involvement would also be an effective solution by providing funding to create more ISPs so as to have more competition.In short, governments and agencies, individuals, media, corporations could all take part promoting the net neutrality. This will insure stronger report mechanism and self check on the violators of net neutrality.

Perhaps, It is a dream that the Internet would be totally free without any fee.No extra fee in peering may also come true one day in the future. Although, we are glad to see some efforts have been made to ensure equal access of Internet users.

We would like to emphasize “All bits are created equal” .

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Rogerson, Professor , Sanford School of Public policy for providing unmatched and extensive support for exploring deep into Net neutrality.