The Issue of Net Neutrality

There is a lot of debate with the big internet and telephone corporations over the issue of network neutrality. The big companies want to be able to regulate the internet through fees. Also to determine what internet content you want to see gets to you fastest than others.

The principle of net neutrality is that all information on the internet is treated equally. AT & T , Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon all argue that they should be able to charge internet sites a premium for delivering faster content on better known sites like Google or Youtube than on lesser known sites. Does an internet company have the right to limit the content that you wish to view?

Many of the internet companies feel that the due to the increasing use of games playing and video content being used, that it is taking up much of the bandwidth. As a result of this they propose a plan to charge heavy internet users fees to used websites with data rich, heavy content within them.

The argument against this is that this is practice threatens internet freedoms that we have always enjoyed. Opponents also fear of internet discrimination. The internet is the extension of free speech written in the first amendment of the Constitution. Also the fact that the lack of so called regulation of the internet has led to the technological revolution. MySpace, Facebook and Youtube exist with net neutrality and without it, online entrepreneurs are at risk of being at the mercy of the internet providers to be able to share their content.

Another issue to deal with is the issue of government being involved in such regulation. Should government be involved with such regulation or should the free market work itself out? Usually when government tries to regulate business, they do so with good intentions. But those good intentions often lead to unintended consequences. New regulations could help to stifle new competition from entering the arena. They would have to go to the government to seek approval wasting time in the process.

I support net neutrality because I want all of the content online to be equally distributed to everyone and not have certain sites available for users for a fee. As a supporter of the first amendment, I feel that the internet especially during this decade, has been a bastion of freedom of information and innovation, the likes of which no one has seen. In this case I don’t support government legislation for net neutrality and as a result , the market just needs to work itself out.