in which it does have an incentive to do
so—to increase its own profit, to manage bandwidth on its network, or to
exclude unwanted content. Consistent
with these theoretical predictions—
and in spite of heightened public attention from the ongoing controversy
about the need for network neutrality
regulation, examples of discriminatory
conduct have started to appear in practice. As Lawrence Lessig has put it, “if
‘network neutrality’ was ‘a solution in
search of a problem’ in 2002, and 2006,
the network owners have been very
kind to network neutrality advocates
by now providing plenty of examples of
the problem to which network neutrality rules would be a solution.”
2
For example, network providers
Does a network
provider really
have an incentive
to discriminate
against applications?
may want to exclude applications that
threaten their traditional sources of
income. In 2005, Madison River, a rural phone company in North Carolina,
blocked the Internet telephony application Vonage, which threatened its
revenue from traditional phone services. In 2007, Comcast, the second-largest provider of Internet services in the
U.S., shut down peer-to-peer file sharing connections, degrading the performance of applications such as Vuze that
legally deliver television content to end
users based on a peer-to-peer protocol
and threaten Comcast’s traditional
cable-based content delivery services.
ISPs such as AT&T or Verizon, which
offer co-branded services with Yahoo
may have an incentive to increase their
joint advertising revenue with Yahoo
by slowing down Web sites or portals
that compete with Yahoo. Network
providers need not necessarily be able
to monopolize the market for a specific
application to make discrimination
profitable; the increased revenue from
selling more copies at the market price
may be incentive enough.
Network providers may also be motivated to interfere with applications to
manage bandwidth on their network.
Because of the prevailing flat-rate pricing structure, network providers have
an incentive to block or degrade applications that consume more bandwidth
or consume it in unexpected ways. After
all, if the use of the network increases,
the network provider’s costs increase
as well, but due to flat-rate pricing, its
revenue stays the same. For the network provider, blocking or degrading
selected applications is a quick fix that
requires less investment than upgrading the network or devising a nondiscriminatory solution. Comcast’s blocking of Bit Torrent and other peer-to-peer
file-sharing applications is an example
of this type of behavior.
Finally, network providers may have
an incentive to block unwanted content
that threatens the company’s interests
or does not comply with the network
provider’s chosen content policy. In
2005, Telus, Canada’s second largest
ISP, blocked access to a Web site that was
run by a member of the Telecommunications Workers Union. At the time, Telus
and the union were engaged in a contentious labor dispute, and the Web site allowed union members to discuss strategies during the strike. In 2007, Verizon
Wireless rejected a request by NARAL
Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights
group, to let them send text messages
over Verizon Wireless’ network using a
five-digit short code. In the same year,
AT&T deleted words from a Webcast of
a Pearl Jam concert in which the singer
criticized George W. Bush. Both providers argued that the rejected or deleted
content violated their content policies.
d
While the latter two examples are not direct examples of ISPs restricting content
on their networks (Verizon Wireless restricted a service on its wireless mobile
network, not the wireless Internet, while
AT&T acted in its role as a content provider, not as ISP), it is easy to imagine
virtually identical incidents in which an
ISP enacts a content policy and restricts
content on its network accordingly.
If ISPs have an incentive to block
selected applications or content or discriminate against them, why should
we care? Preventing discrimination is
necessary if the Internet is to realize its
full economic, social, and political potential. Discrimination restricts users’
ability to choose the application and
content they want to use. This ability to
choose is fundamental if the Internet is
to create maximum value, for us as individuals and for society. The Internet
is a general-purpose technology. It does
not create value through its existence
d They later changed their view after the incidents had been widely reported.
network providers
may be motivated
to interfere with
applications to
manage bandwidth
on their network.
illUstration by leander herzog
32 CommunICatIons of the aCm | feBRuaRY2009 | vol. 52 | No. 2