Net Neutrality and Education
What Net Neutrality means for education, and why it matters to you.
I was recently at a meeting organized by SaveOurNet.ca. I agreed to help take up the challenge of explaining the meaning, and the relevance, of Net Neutrality to the audience I can reach. It’s a cause I believe in very strongly.
Keeping the Internet neutral is in everyone’s interests – minus perhaps the few big players who want to wring more money from it. Unfortunately, explaining what “neutral” means, in this context, is often very difficult.
Net Neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic is treated equally. It means that the very few big companies that control the physical infrastructure of the Internet should not be able to pick and choose what kinds of traffic get priority, or in extreme cases even get through at all. This may not seem like a big deal, but in an environment where speed and convenience rule the day, almost anyone can appreciate how a few big players with the power to decide which service is fast and easy, and which service is not, can easily come to dominate the marketplace.
Examples are easy enough to come by. Voice over Internet (using the Internet to make phone calls) is a great one. You can already exchange data around the world without paying for it by the bit. Voice transmission is just data. So why do we all still pay for long distance? Well, phone companies control the Internet. If they can possibly squash services that are going to compete with theirs, you’d better believe they’re going to do it.
Some examples of how Net Neutrality gets fought on the ground are very techy, and for most people extremely boring. But just like Freedom of Expression, the principle has to be protected whenever it is challenged in order for the principle to mean anything at all. There may be justifiable exceptions, but each and every one of them must be individually justified. We absolutely can’t leave it to the discretion of corporations to decide for themselves what gets through and what doesn’t – especially when the infrastructure of the Internet is so monopolistic already.
Now, how does this affect education? Simply put, the Internet is the most incredible form of free education in history. Period. Thinking about how the Internet has levelled the playing field in terms of available education and information is just staggering. There’s still an entry threshold, and not everyone can afford a computer in the home, but compare that to where we stood only a generation ago. Simply buying a set of encyclopaedias for the home used to be a major investment. Families would pay for them on instalment. Now compare that to the ocean of information available, for free, to every kid who can get on-line.
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Well put, muchly needed, and great to see Jeff!
I agree with the need for Net Neutrality, for some of the reasons outlines here, and because, as a Computer Engineer, I tend to do… unusual… things with internet traffic. For me, having all my data treated equally is essential.
That being said, there is one legitimate technical reason opposing simple Net Neutrality that I think deserves mention. As Jeff mentioned, different types of internet traffic do different things to a network. The simplest examples come from streaming services, such as VOIP and live video, versus the traditional bulk data transfer.
These different kinds of traffic have different needs. For VOIP, for instance, latency is the key factor; that is, it is essential that relatively small amounts of data make from point A to point B very very quickly, and preferably in order. For that 500MB movie trailer, latency is not nearly as important as sheer throughput. How quickly the individual bits arrive is not as important as how many arrive per second.
As different types of traffic have different needs, smart network engineers can design their networks to improve performance of both streaming services and bulk data transfers. A situation where everyone wins.
Again, given the realities of competitive service providers, I’d rather have the assurance that I can do with my internet connection as I damn well please, but it is important to understand that an overly simplistic approach to net neutrality effectively stifles a whole (if limited) area of potential innovation.
Completely agree with Travis on this. As we move more to distance based working and learning, net neutrality will need to be tempered. The doctor operating on you by tele-robotics cannot suffer a lag-spike because the guy in the care ward above is grabbing streaming video of his stock quotes.
Net neutrality needs to be pursued in terms of private entities remaining neutral to traffic origins or destinations, but net non-neutrality based on the type of traffic is certainly worth keeping on the table.
I do agree with Travis’ points, and I nodded to them in general terms in the original write-up. There may be justifiable exceptions to absolute Net Neutrality, but let’s damn well hear the justifications each and every time. There’s an awful lot of bad reasons to depart from neutrality, and only a few good ones.
I’ll be happy enough if we get laypeople into this dialogue. Like most issues, at the end of the day, policy is written by a small group of very specialized people who understand the issues in depth. But policy also has to be motivated by a large number of people who know, at least in broad terms, what they want and what’s at stake.
As long as Canadians voice their concern on this topic, I trust that the appropriate complexity will be added in execution. Or at very least, I’m willing to leave that problem until nearer to the end of the discussion. But I do agree with the points made.
Jeff, thanks for getting the word out, glad you were able to attend the meetup. I am recommending the following video from Amber MacArthur to explain the state of net neutrality in Canada:
http://ambermac.com/articles/2008/04/05/net-neutrality-in-canada-video-news-update
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