Future of the Internet: We’re All in This Together

‘Net neutrality is back in the news with an expected FCC ruling against Comcast's secret manipulation of BitTorrent traffic. We note that application performance is at the heart of the ‘net neutrality debate—it's about who can use what applications and how well they will perform. The debate is fraught with emotion and vitriol—but will approaching ‘net neutrality with a "good guy/bad guy", "us versus them" mentality of mistrust get us where we need to go? We think not because like it or not, we are all in this together.

The Comcast scenario is a sterling example of how not to do things. In 2007 it came to light that Comcast was secretly intercepting BitTorrent-based peer-to-peer data and injected its own data impersonating the BitTorrent service with the aim of slowing it down. Comcast failed to disclose, and at first denied what it was doing. Later Comcast defended its actions as a legitimate attempt to slow file upload activity in order to manage congestion on its network. User advocates objected to Comcast's actions, holding that they violated users' rights. Adopting an "us versus them" approach landed Comcast in a very thick PR soup, and is expected to result in FCC censure.

To prevent scenarios like the Comcast kerfuffle and ensure mutually workable outcomes, all stakeholders must cooperate to hammer out solutions. This cooperation requires three critical attributes: transparency, accountability, and diversity.

This post is the first in an ongoing series on the future of the Internet. We will explore anticipated Internet performance challenges, and how we can put mechanisms in place to protect the Internet's future by fostering transparency, accountability, and diversity.