Net Neutrality Compendium: Human Rights, Free Competition, and the Future of the Internet Primavera de Filippi, Luca Belli To cite this version: Primavera de Filippi, Luca Belli. Net Neutrality Compendium: Human Rights, Free Competition, and the Future of the Internet. Springer, 2015. hal-01382021 HAL Id: hal-01382021 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01382021 Submitted on 6 Jan 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Luca Belli Primavera De Filippi Editors Net Neutrality Compendium Human Rights, Free Competition and the Future of the Internet Preface by Vinton G. Cerf Postface by Louis Pouzin Net Neutrality Compendium [email protected] [email protected] Luca Belli • Primavera De Filippi Editors Net Neutrality Compendium Human Rights, Free Competition and the Future of the Internet [email protected] Editors Luca Belli Primavera De Filippi Center for Technology & Society e-Gouv Fundação Getúlio Vargas CERSA / CNRS / Université Paris II Rio de Janeiro , Rio de Janeiro , Brazil Paris , France ISBN 978-3-319-26424-0 ISBN 978-3-319-26425-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-26425-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015953442 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) [email protected] Pref ace Net neutrality is a term that has taken on many apparent meanings and has served to provoke many debates over the past several years. The issues that invoke the use of the term vary depending on geography, economic and business conditions and regu- latory environment. A consequence is that the arguments for or against net neutral- ity may be inconsistent when compared side by side. This year’s meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality is an opportunity to compare notes and observations on the ongoing debate. In the USA, there is limited competition for provision of broadband Internet access. Historically, the dial-up Internet had many providers (some reports esti- mated more than 8000 ISPs), but broadband technology tended to be associated with coaxial cable television networks, hybrid fi bre/coax, digital subscriber loops on copper (DSL, ADSL, etc.) and fi bre to the home (FTTH). The usual providers of these broadband services were traditional telephone companies and television cable companies. Residential subscribers might have a choice of two broadband providers (a telco and a cableco), or perhaps only one of them or, especially in rural areas, no broadband service choice at all. Alternative access methods including Wireless Internet Service and satellite tended to have limits either with regard to speeds or latency or both. In all cases, the residential services tended to be asymmetric, providing higher speeds in the down- load direction. In the recent past, some providers, notably Google, have been offer- ing very high capacity in the gigabit per second range in both directions. After lengthy debates, the American Federal Communications Commission decided to reclassify Internet service as a Title II Telecommunications Service, while forbearing to apply most of the regulations found in that title to the providers of Internet service. This was a controversial decision but understandable, given that court cases disputing the FCC’s jurisdiction in the space turned on the earlier deci- sion by the FCC to declare the Internet a vertical information service. The new clas- sifi cation appears to give the FCC authority to respond to potential anticompetitive behaviours by Internet service providers. A risk is that the forbearance might be reverse and a more elaborate regulatory practice might be adopted. Perhaps the most v [email protected] vi Preface practical outcome would be a new title in an amendment to the Telecommunications Act that would be specifi c to Internet and suitably constrained. In other jurisdictions, while the same term , net neutrality, is used, the local regu- latory conditions may be different. In some countries, broadband services are pro- vided on a wholesale basis to any party that wishes to use the infrastructure to provide residential customers with access to Internet. In the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and New Zealand, variations on this theme have been undertaken with varying results. There are also debates about quality of service, fueled by the belief that the Internet should be sensitive to application requirements and provide low latency or high bandwidth, depending on the need. Some take the position that there is no need for special controls for quality of service if the absolute capacity of the access is high enough. Others think that users and application providers should be able to obtain the appropriate quality of service needed for specifi c applications. It is com- mon, however, to argue that the broadband access providers should not be in a posi- tion to selectively extract additional rents from the application and content providers, effectively controlling which application can be used or content providers can be reached and used satisfactorily by users—essentially dictating user choice. It seems important to preserve the notion that the Internet should support what is sometimes called “permissionless innovation”—that is, that innovators of new applications and services should not be forced to conclude some kind of contractual agreement with every Internet access provider in the world before a service can be offered. One must accept, however, that some services may work poorly or not at all if adequate capacity is not available to support them. The conundrum in the net neutrality debate is to fashion incentives for access providers to continue to invest in and upgrade service capacity while preserving user choice and provide incentives for new applications to be brought to the Internet and made accessible to all access subscribers without inhibiting new entrants into the marketplace of Internet services by erecting barriers to their entry. Vinton G. Cerf Google Mountain View , California , USA [email protected] About the Authors René Arnold has studied business administration at Heilbronn University and holds a Ph.D. in Consumer Behaviour from the University of Edinburgh. He is head of the Department “Markets and Perspectives” and a frequent invited speaker at various European universities and industry events. With his team, René focuses on demand side issues of electronic communication and Internet-enabled markets. His main research areas include net neutrality, over-the-top (OTT) services, economic plat- forms and business model analysis. He has been leading projects for both public and private clients. Before he joined WIK-Consult, René was a research analyst with IW Consult, a subsidiary of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research. His main area of investigation was ICT and Internet where he was responsible for various projects from private as well as public contractors. Luca Belli , Ph.D., is a full researcher at the Center for Technology and Society (CTS) of Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School, Rio de Janeiro, where he leads the Internet Governance Architectures project. Before joining CTS, Luca worked for the Council of Europe Internet Governance Unit, served as a Network Neutrality Expert for the Council of Europe, worked as a consultant for the Internet Society and completed his Ph.D. in public law at Université Panthéon Assas (Paris II). His monograph “ De la gouvernance à la régulation de l’Internet ” is published by Berger-Levrault, Paris. Luca is also the founder and co-chair of the Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as well as co-founder and co-chair of the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility. Vinton G. Cerf is a computer scientist and widely recognised as one of the “Fathers of the Internet.” He