‘Consumers must pay for profit boost to telcos, cable firms’
15 Dec 2017
In 2015 under President Barak Obama, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formalised net neutrality into law, blocking internet service providers (ISPs) from being able to receive payments for prioritising content. But on Thursday, the FCC, under Donald Trump-appointed chairman Ajit Pai, made a U-turn and abolished net neutrality (See: US sweeps aside net neutrality, allows telcos to erect paywalls).
So what does this mean for internet users? Fortune magazine gives us a critical look.
If legal challenges do not reverse the FCC decision, ISPs will be able to create a fast lane and sell ''paid prioritization''. The word ''prioritization'' here is misleading, as ISPs will not provide faster internet access. The content of providers who pay fees to ISPs will be delivered at normal speed. But the content of those who do not pay will be slowed down.
In essence, the FCC has given ISPs the legal power to blackmail any content provider that does not pay them with the threat of a slowdown in service delivery. The FCC clearly has put the ISPs profits above the benefits of consumers and of the overwhelming majority of businesses, according to Fortune.
So, what could the Internet of tomorrow look like? Take Google and Bing, who are rival search engines. AT&T could offer to put each one in the fast lane (that is, not to slow them down) if they pay a fee. Both companies know that consumers may not wait for their search results before switching to the other engine, and therefore both companies would pay AT&T. AT&T could collect these new fees without making its service any faster than it already was.
Imagine what would have happened if we did not have net neutrality in 2000, before Google's initial public offering (IPO), when Internet search was dominated by Yahoo, Fortune further asks. Yahoo would have paid for prioritisation, a price Google at the time could not afford. If that happened, we would have been stuck with Yahoo's low-quality search much longer than we had to be. As this makes clear, killing net neutrality will make ISPs rich but kill innovation - and even potentially slow down the growth of the US economy, which is partially driven by the success of its major tech companies.
Where news dissemination through the internet is concerned, without net neutrality, AT&T could threaten to place The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times in the slow lane unless they paid a fee. If the Journal paid but the Times did not, it would be a massive advantage for the Journal. Many readers would not know why the Times content was delayed and would likely blame the newspaper's staff. This would be a disaster for the news media.
With the FCC's vote, the internet as we know it is over, says Fortune. Now ISPs might serve us faster content from financially robust companies that are able to pay arbitrary fees. Content and apps from new, small, and innovative companies or non-profits could be slow and unusable; news access will be distorted; and consumers' choices will be diminished. The FCC is forcing consumers and businesses to pay a huge price in order to boost the profits of telecommunications and cable companies.
