Net neutrality

Net neutrality...

Portuguese Internet service provider MEO offers smartphone contracts with monthly data limits, and sells additional monthly packages for particular data services.[1] Critics of the EU's net neutrality rules say they are broken with loopholes that allow data for different services to be sold under zero rating exceptions to data limits.[2] Consumer advocates for net neutrality have cited this pricing model as an illustration of Internet access with weak net neutrality protection.

Topics and issues...

Bandwidth throttling Data cap Data discrimination Deep packet inspection End-to-end principle Internet Protocol (IP) Net bias Net neutrality law Search neutrality Tiered Internet.

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Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers treat all data on the Internet equally, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. For instance, under these principles, internet service providers are unable to intentionally block, slow down or charge money for specific websites and online content. This is sometimes enforced through government mandate. These regulations can be referred to as "common carrier" regulations. This does not block all abilities that Internet service providers have to impact their customer's services. Opt-in/opt-out services exist on the end user side, and filtering can be done on a local basis, as in the filtration of sensitive material for minors. Net neutrality regulations exist only to protect against misuse.

The term was coined by Columbia University media law professor Tim Wu in 2003, as an extension of the longstanding concept of a common carrier, which was used to describe the role of telephone systems.

A widely cited example of a violation of net neutrality principles was the Internet service provider Comcast's secret slowing ("throttling") of uploads from peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) applications by using forged packets. Comcast did not stop blocking these protocols, like BitTorrent, until the Federal Communications Commission ordered them to stop. In another minor example, the Madison River Communications company was fined US$15,000 by the FCC, in 2004, for restricting their customers' access to Vonage, which was rivaling their own services.AT&T was also caught limiting access to FaceTime, so only those users who paid for AT&T's new shared data plans could access the application. In July 2017, Verizon Wireless was accused of throttling after users noticed that videos played on Netflix and YouTube were slower than usual, though Verizon commented that it was conducting "network testing" and that net neutrality rules permit "reasonable network management practices".

Research suggests that a combination of policy instruments will help realize the range of valued political and economic objectives central to the network neutrality debate. Combined with strong public opinion, this has led some governments to regulate broadband Internet services as a public utility, similar to the way electricity, gas, and the water supply are regulated, along with limiting providers and regulating the options those providers can offer. In the United States, in April 2015, the FCC issued its Open Internet Order, which reclassified Internet access - previously classified as an information service - as a common carrier telecommunications service; i.e. a public utility. But on December 14, 2017, the Commission, which was led by Chairman Ajit Pai, voted to partially repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order, classifying Internet access once again as an information service.