Everyone Wants ‘Net Neutrality

But finding common ground won’t be easy Ask Peter Bissonnette, president of Calgary Internet service provider (ISP) Shaw Communications Inc., about the $10 fee his company charges customers to ensure that the Internet phone services they use work as well as possible, and he’ll sound bemused. Ever since Internet phone provider Vonage pegged the fee as anticompetitive at best – and, at worst, an indication that Shaw is on the wrong side of the wide-ranging "‘Net neutrality" debate buzzing about the telecom industry these days – Bissonnette finds himself having to explain what he sees as merely a fact of business. After all, if carriers enhance networks to ensure quality service, someone has to pay for those improvements. "It’s giving people choice," he says. The charge is no different from offering a 3 Mbps Internet service for one price and a 6 Mbps service for another price. Customers don’t have to pay, so this is no draconian measure, Bissonnette tells us. Vonage, of course, disagrees. For this firm, Shaw’s $10 fee could make it that much harder for Vonage to sell its VoIP service because it’s that much more expensive. It’s also unnecessary, says Joe Parent, Vonage’s vice-president of business development. "We feel our phone service should work just fine over a normal Shaw Internet connection. There’s no reason for Shaw to charge an additional fee to ensure quality." Vonage says Shaw has waded into the ‘Net neutrality debate. "Shaw’s actions are…part of a bigger issue of network neutrality and who controls how Canadians use their Internet service," reads a Vonage press release. It also says Vonage has taken its complaint to the CRTC and hopes the commission will investigate. Thus the ‘Net neutrality debate comes to Canada. It’s a big deal in the US, where the government is considering enshrining the notion in law. But even though the debate started south of the border, the Shaw-Vonage fight suggests it might be just as important in this country. It might, in fact, be important around the world. And although people on both sides of the issue say the other is wrong, everyone seems to agree some kind of middle ground must be found. But no one seems quite able to put a finger on the solution. What Is ‘Net Neutrality?The answer depends on whom you ask. Here’s our interpretation, gleaned from various sources: ‘Net neutrality refers to the idea that networks and network operators should not discriminate among communications services. No matter the service, no matter who offers it, the product in question, be it Internet phone or Instant Messaging (IM) – sourced from the carrier or from another company – it should travel unhindered. According to Vint Cerf, a Google Inc. executive, ‘Net neutrality is the Internet’s state of nature. "The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers," he told a US congressional hearing late last year. But that’s just part of the issue. More than ever companies and citizens rely on the Internet – and the individual service provider infrastructure that supports it – to carry big, important applications. Voice over IP (VoIP) is becoming popular. Multimedia files sent across the Internet seem to be growing in size and volume daily. The network needs to keep up, and it also still has to feed the coffers of its owners – network operators like Shaw, which are, after all, commercial entities and not in this business for the feel-good quotient. Profit and high-quality services are the name of the game. Perhaps that which others decry as discrimination is nothing more than a new "normal" for service providers, struggling to meet escalating end-user expectations. In March the news came out: AT&T Corp. would set up Internet "fast lanes" for select services and content. A content distributor would pay the carrier a certain amount of money, and AT&T would ensure that the content in question reaches its destination as quickly and smoothly as possible. This was no surprise. AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre as much as told Business Week last November that his company was looking for ways to make the network pay. "We and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts." But AT&T’s Internet tolls are just the sort of carrier move that ‘Net neutrality proponents fear. They’re worried that carriers would not only give certain content and services preferential treatment, but also that carriers would treat services living outside of this exclusive realm like second-class citizens, in the hopes of convincing customers and content distributors to pay up for the better versions. "These actions or threats of restrictions are key to carefully calculated plans by ISPs to give ‘walled garden’ preferential treatment to their own service offerings, and to extract ‘premium access’ fees from remote Web services and other Internet services who are not their subscribers," write the founding members of the International Open Internet Coalition (IOIC) in a letter online. In early March, US Senator Ron Wyden introduced his bill, the Internet Nondiscrimination Act of 2006, whereby "network operators would be prohibited from charging companies for faster delivery of their content." On April 5, a government subcommittee voted down a proposed amendment to US telecom laws that would force carriers to provide enough bandwidth to support any service at no additional charge. The States’ government seems divided on the issue as to whether or not ‘Net neutrality should be part of the country’s communications laws. So what’s the story in Canada? Phone HomeMichael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, points out that ‘Net neutrality might make its way into Canadian law books. He notes that the Telecom Policy Review Panel, which was charged with scrutinizing our communication regulations, said any new law should "confirm the right of Canadian consumers to access publicly available Internet applications and content of their choice by means of all public telecommunications networks." The panel also recommended that the CRTC should be authorized to enforce these rights. Geist is pleased about that. "I think the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel rightly identified the need for a legislative provision," he says. "I also think that the Competition Bureau must be vigilant to ensure that the major telco providers do not use their position in an anti-competitive manner." But the panel’s recommendations are just that: recommendations. There are no guarantees that ‘Net neutrality will become part of Canada’s legislative landscape. Bill St. Arnaud, senior director, network projects at CANARIE Inc. – a non-profit network development organization – says it doesn’t matter. "I think the problem will disappear, ultimately, without regulation. For one thing, this is impossible to regulate. And there are so many new infrastructure-free applications. Attempts by the carriers to build walled gardens and express lanes are self-defeating." In his opinion, the carriers will alienate the infrastructure-free services and the people who use those services if they continue down the service-enhancement road. "They’ll try things like blocking and offering QoS services, but the intelligence at the edge will allow users to circumvent those efforts." Shaw’s president Bissonnette says it’s important to ensure that networks provide high-quality service and access to everyone. With the $10 fee, "that’s what we’re striving for," he says. It’s not as if all customers have to pay: Shaw only introduced the charge after some customers requested enhanced quality of service. Parent from Vonage says the ‘Net neutrality answer must satisfy both sides. "I think there is an achievable balance, but anyone who would suggest that the ILECs or cable companies need any kind of regulatory support to maintain profitability isn’t looking at the books. These guys have been making money for a long time. They have a lot of equipment in the ground, lots of assets generating lots of return. They do not need to make more money by applying taxes to competitors’ products." Ron Gruia, an industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, is worried about the long-term consequences. "Right now we’re in an interim stage: the networks are still good enough and we haven’t discovered any huge bandwidth hogs. But they are more and more becoming predominant – all these movie downloads. When we get to the next stage, doing video telephony and real-time applications relying on delay-sensitive data, that’s the point when we’re going to have to put some other elements in the network. That will further the case for service providers to invest in network equipment, and make the case for them…to be compensated." We Have the TechnologyAn emerging concept in wide-area networking might make that possible. The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is said to give network operators the ability to control access and services through traffic prioritization. It’s an emerging technology, by no means here and now. But standards bodies are working on it. Control is "built into the IMS model, and it will happen," Gruia says. "The carriers don’t want to be just bandwidth providers. They want to do so much more. That’s where applications play a role, but even if they don’t have the applications, they can create these mini ‘walled gardens’ where they can control access." Network gear providers are part of the equation, and at least one of them is speaking up. Cisco Systems Inc. released a statement saying the US government should only regulate for ‘Net neutrality if problems occur. "Imposing specific network neutrality rules now to address hypothetical problems would only compound the problem," the company says. Meanwhile, ‘Net neutrality proponents and their opponents continue to butt heads. Vonage, for one, insists that Shaw’s service-enhancement fee is disingenuous. The company says the service provider might be trying to push a competitor out of the market. "Because Vonage competes directly with the telephone services of the network operators that also provide the high-speed Internet access, the incentives to discriminate against us are clear," reads Vonage’s submission to the CRTC. Shaw says that’s hogwash. "Shaw does not offer an Internet telephony service in direct competition with Vonage or any other Internet phone provider," the company wrote in its own press release, reacting to Vonage’s missive. "Shaw’s Digital Phone service is a carrier-grade, primary line, local and long-distance residential telephone service that uses a managed IP network….The result is a more reliable and higher quality service." Will these companies ever see eye-to-eye? There are so many aspects of this issue that it’s impossible to predict. Government regulations, technology, customer attitudes – they all have an impact on the outcome. As Gruia says, "We’ll be writing about this for a very long time."

Everyone Wants ‘Net Neutrality

News | 05/01/2006 4:00 am EDT

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