[governance] Not Network Neutrality: Bandwidth pricing is the

[Milton L Mueller]

> From: Robert Guerra [mailto:lists at privaterra.info]
> 
> As the issue you raise is really more related to network neutrality, i
> hope you don't mind that I've changed the subject line...


Actually, Robert, I respectfully disagree, so I changed the subject line
again! 

Whether or not ISPs change the way they charge for bandwidth is not a
net neutrality (NN) issue by itself. NN only comes into play if ISPs
allocate their bandwidth in ways that _discriminate_ against independent
content and applications providers. 

Note that bandwidth is already "metered" in many ways. You can buy a
slow dial up line, pay more for a DSL service, or pay a lot more money
and get a dedicated OC3 with orders of magnitude more bandwidth. More
money, faster bandwidth. Nothing wrong with that. Bandwidth costs money.

The current debate, however, is about shared bandwidth, when multiple
users are relying on the same capacity. In these cases, usage-sensitive
charging may be employed to make people who use more bandwidth pay more
than people who use less. Think of your electricity meter. Would you
squawk if someone came up with the radical idea that people who consume
vast quantities of electricity should pay more than people who use less?

Usage-sensitive charging policy is not by itself inimical to net
neutrality. In fact, it can help poorer people by making cheaper classes
of service available and it can be an enormous collective good by
discouraging wasteful use -- improving the performance of the network
for everyone. 

Somewhere along the line the net neutrality movement got confused about
the difference between discriminatory bandwidth tiering and rational,
"metered" pricing for bandwidth. They have done themselves a huge
disservice by diverting the focus from discrimination to the idea that
charging more for more bandwidth is "unjust". Fighting against pricing
mechanisms to make bandwidth hogs pay more than smaller users is not in
the public interest. Duh.

Indeed, the strategy is totally counterproductive: if ISPs can't ration
bandwidth using pricing, guess what they will do? They will start
interfering with applications. In fact, they have already done so (like
Comcast and BitTorrent). They will start deciding for users what
applications and content is acceptable and which are not. That's the
Opposite of NN.

ISPs are currently in a flat-rate pricing world for the most part. There
are strong competitive pressures to give users as free a hand at using
the internet as possible (isn't the market economy just awful?). 

The ISPs who complain about the BBC are either too uncreative to come up
with effective pricing policies suitable to the broadband age, or afraid
that if they do so, they will lose customers to ISPs who promise flat
rates and high speeds but deliver slow, crowded service in reality. 

The only way out of that dilemma is for customers to wise up and realize
that you don't get something for nothing. Customers will need to learn
to perceive the difference between a good service that costs a bit more
and a shared flat-rate service that keeps them waiting.

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