After Net Neutrality

After Net Neutrality PDF Author: Victor Pickard
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300249101
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
A provocative analysis of net neutrality and a call to democratize online communication This short book is both a primer that explains the history and politics of net neutrality and an argument for a more equitable framework for regulating access to the internet. Pickard and Berman argue that we should not see internet service as a commodity but as a public good necessary for sustaining democratic society in the twenty-first century. They aim to reframe the threat to net neutrality as more than a conflict between digital leviathans like Google and internet service providers like Comcast but as part of a much wider project to commercialize the public sphere and undermine the free speech essential for democracy. Readers will come away with a better understanding of the key concepts underpinning the net neutrality battle and rallying points for future action to democratize online communication.

After Net Neutrality

After Net Neutrality PDF Author: Victor Pickard
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300249101
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description
A provocative analysis of net neutrality and a call to democratize online communication This short book is both a primer that explains the history and politics of net neutrality and an argument for a more equitable framework for regulating access to the internet. Pickard and Berman argue that we should not see internet service as a commodity but as a public good necessary for sustaining democratic society in the twenty-first century. They aim to reframe the threat to net neutrality as more than a conflict between digital leviathans like Google and internet service providers like Comcast but as part of a much wider project to commercialize the public sphere and undermine the free speech essential for democracy. Readers will come away with a better understanding of the key concepts underpinning the net neutrality battle and rallying points for future action to democratize online communication.

Virtual Freedom

Virtual Freedom PDF Author: Dawn C. Nunziato
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804772452
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Communications giants like Google, Comcast, and AT&T enjoy increasingly unchecked control over speech. As providers of broadband access and Internet search engines, they can control online expression. Their online content restrictions—from obstructing e-mail to censoring cablecasts—are considered legal because of recent changes in free speech law. In this book, Dawn Nunziato criticizes recent changes in free speech law in which only the government need refrain from censoring speech, while companies are permitted to self-regulate. By enabling Internet providers to exercise control over content, the Supreme Court and the FCC have failed to protect the public's right to access a broad diversity of content. Nunziato argues that regulation is necessary to ensure the free flow of information and to render the First Amendment meaningful in the twenty-first century. This book offers an urgent call to action, recommending immediate steps to preserve our free speech rights online.

The Fallacy of Net Neutrality

The Fallacy of Net Neutrality PDF Author: Thomas W. Hazlett
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 159403592X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
"There is little dispute that the Internet should continue as an open platform," notes the Federal Communications Commission. Yet in a curious twist of logic, the FCC has moved to upend the rules yielding that outcome, imposing "network neutrality" regulations on broadband-access providers. The new mandates purport to prevent Internet "gatekeepers" by prohibiting networks from favoring certain applications. In this comprehensive Broadside, Thomas W. Hazlett explains the faulty economic logic behind the FCC's regulations. The "open Internet"--thriving without such mandates--allows consumers, investors, and entrepreneurs to choose the best platforms and products, testing rival business models. Networks are actively (and efficiently) involved in managing traffic and promoting popular applications, making the entire ecosystem more valuable. This is a spontaneous market process, not a planned structure, and the commission's restrictions threaten to stifle innovation and economic growth.

Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality PDF Author: Christopher T. Marsden
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1849660379
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Chris Marsden maneuvers through the hype articulated by Netwrok Neutrality advocates and opponents. He offers a clear-headed analysis of the high stakes in this debate about the Internet's future, and fearlessly refutes the misinformation and misconceptions that about' Professor Rob Freiden, Penn State University Net Neutrality is a very heated and contested policy principle regarding access for content providers to the Internet end-user, and potential discrimination in that access where the end-user's ISP (or another ISP) blocks that access in part or whole. The suggestion has been that the problem can be resolved by either introducing greater competition, or closely policing conditions for vertically integrated service, such as VOIP. However, that is not the whole story, and ISPs as a whole have incentives to discriminate between content for matters such as network management of spam, to secure and maintain customer experience at current levels, and for economic benefit from new Quality of Service standards. This includes offering a 'priority lane' on the network for premium content types such as video and voice service. The author considers market developments and policy responses in Europe and the United States, draws conclusions and proposes regulatory recommendations.

Internet Architecture and Innovation

Internet Architecture and Innovation PDF Author: Barbara Van Schewick
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262265575
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
A detailed examination of how the underlying technical structure of the Internet affects the economic environment for innovation and the implications for public policy. Today—following housing bubbles, bank collapses, and high unemployment—the Internet remains the most reliable mechanism for fostering innovation and creating new wealth. The Internet's remarkable growth has been fueled by innovation. In this pathbreaking book, Barbara van Schewick argues that this explosion of innovation is not an accident, but a consequence of the Internet's architecture—a consequence of technical choices regarding the Internet's inner structure that were made early in its history. The Internet's original architecture was based on four design principles: modularity, layering, and two versions of the celebrated but often misunderstood end-to-end arguments. But today, the Internet's architecture is changing in ways that deviate from the Internet's original design principles, removing the features that have fostered innovation and threatening the Internet's ability to spur economic growth, to improve democratic discourse, and to provide a decentralized environment for social and cultural interaction in which anyone can participate. If no one intervenes, network providers' interests will drive networks further away from the original design principles. If the Internet's value for society is to be preserved, van Schewick argues, policymakers will have to intervene and protect the features that were at the core of the Internet's success.

Network Neutrality

Network Neutrality PDF Author: Christopher T. Marsden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781526105486
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
This book explains the concept of net neutrality, its history since 1999, engineering, policy challenge, legislation and regulation, dividing it into its negative/'lite' and positive/'heavy' elements. He compares national and regional legislation and regulation of net neutrality from an interdisciplinary and international perspective. He also examines the future of net neutrality battles in Europe, the United States and in developing countries such as India and Brazil. He explores the case studies of Specialized Services and Content Delivery Networks for video over the Internet, and zero rating or sponsored data plans. Finally, he offers co-regulatory solutions based on FRAND and non-exclusivity. This book is a must-read for researchers and advocates in net neutrality debate, and those interested in the context of communications regulation, law and economic regulation, human rights discourse and policy, and the impact of science and engineering on policy and governance.

Regulating the Web

Regulating the Web PDF Author: Zachary Stiegler
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0739178687
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Since its popularization in the mid 1990s, the Internet has impacted nearly every aspect of our cultural and personal lives. Over the course of two decades, the Internet remained an unregulated medium whose characteristic openness allowed numerous applications, services, and websites to flourish. By 2005, Internet Service Providers began to explore alternative methods of network management that would permit them to discriminate the quality and speed of access to online content as they saw fit. In response, the Federal Communications Commission sought to enshrine "net neutrality" in regulatory policy as a means of preserving the Internet's open, nondiscriminatory characteristics. Although the FCC established a net neutrality policy in 2010, debate continues as to who ultimately should have authority to shape and maintain the Internet's structure. Regulating the Web brings together a diverse collection of scholars who examine the net neutrality policy and surrounding debates from a variety of perspectives. In doing so, the book contributes to the ongoing discourse about net neutrality in the hopes that we may continue to work toward preserving a truly open Internet structure in the United States.

Access to Broadband Networks

Access to Broadband Networks PDF Author: Angele A. Gilroy
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437984541
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
As congressional policymakers continue to debate telecomm. reform, a major point of contention is the question of whether action is needed to ensure unfettered access to the Internet. The move to place restrictions on the owners of the networks that compose and provide access to the Internet, to ensure equal access and non-discriminatory treatment, is referred to as ¿net neutrality.¿A major focus in the debate is concern over whether it is necessary for policymakers to take steps to ensure access to the Internet for content, services, and applications providers, as well as consumers, what these steps should be. Contents of this report: Intro.; FCC Activity; Industry Initiatives; Network Mgmt.; The Policy Debate; Congress. Activity. A print on demand report.

The Paradoxes of Network Neutralities

The Paradoxes of Network Neutralities PDF Author: Russell A. Newman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262551810
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
An argument that the movement for network neutrality was of a piece with its neoliberal environment, solidifying the continued existence of a commercially driven internet. Media reform activists rejoiced in 2015 when the FCC codified network neutrality, approving a set of Open Internet rules that prohibitedproviders from favoring some content and applications over others—only to have their hopes dashed two years later when the agency reversed itself. In this book, Russell Newman offers a unique perspective on these events, arguing that the movement for network neutrality was of a piece with its neoliberal environment rather than counter to it; perversely, it served to solidify the continued existence of a commercially dominant internet and even emergent modes of surveillance and platform capitalism. Going beyond the usual policy narrative of open versus closed networks, or public interest versus corporate power, Newman uses network neutrality as a lens through which to examine the ways that neoliberalism renews and reconstitutes itself, the limits of particular forms of activism, and the shaping of future regulatory processes and policies. Newman explores the debate's roots in the 1990s movement for open access, the transition to network neutrality battles in the 2000s, and the terms in which these battles were fought. By 2017, the debate had become unmoored from its own origins, and an emerging struggle against “neoliberal sincerity” points to a need to rethink activism surrounding media policy reform itself.

The Net Neutrality Debate

The Net Neutrality Debate PDF Author: Congressional Research Service
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781973781448
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
As congressional policymakers continue to debate telecommunications reform, a major discussion point revolves around what approach should be taken to ensure unfettered access to the Internet. The move to place restrictions on the owners of the networks that compose and provide access to the Internet, to ensure equal access and nondiscriminatory treatment, is referred to as "net neutrality." While there is no single accepted definition of "net neutrality," most agree that any such definition should include the general principles that owners of the networks that compose and provide access to the Internet should not control how consumers lawfully use that network, and they should not be able to discriminate against content provider access to that network. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in its February 26, 2015, open meeting voted 3-2, along party lines, to adopt new open Internet rules and released these rules on March 12, 2015. One of the most controversial aspects of the rules is the decision to reclassify broadband Internet access service as telecommunications service under Title II, thereby subjecting Internet service providers to a more stringent regulatory framework. With limited exceptions, the rules went into effect June 12, 2015. Various parties challenged the legality of the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in a June 14, 2016, ruling, voted (2-1) to uphold the legality of all aspects of the 2015 FCC Order. A petition for full court review was denied, leaving the next legal option a petition for U.S. Supreme Court review. The FCC's May 18, 2017, adoption (2-1) of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to reexamine the rules adopted in 2015, with an eye to considering a less regulatory approach, has once again opened up the debate over what the appropriate framework is to ensure an open Internet. Reaction to this proposal has been mixed. Some see the current FCC rules as regulatory overreach and welcome a more "light-touch" approach which they feel will stimulate broadband investment, deployment, and innovation. Others fully support the current 2015 regulations and feel that their modification will result in a concentration of power to the detriment of content, services, and applications providers, as well as consumers, and refute the claim that these regulations have had a negative impact on broadband investment, expansion, or innovation. To date, congressional action in the 115th Congress has focused on two aspects of the current rules: privacy (S.J.Res. 34, S. 878, S. 964, H.J.Res. 86, H.Res. 230, H.R. 1754, H.R. 1868, H.R. 2520) and transparency (S. 228, H.R. 288). Separately, legislation (S. 993) to nullify the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order has also been introduced. The FCC's move to reexamine its existing open Internet rules has reopened the debate over whether Congress should consider a more comprehensive measure to amend existing law to provide greater regulatory stability and guidance to the FCC. Whether Congress will choose to address more comprehensive legislation to amend the 1934 Communications Act, to provide a broad-based framework for such regulation, remains to be seen.