On February 25, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) held hearings into the allegations that Comcast (an ISP in the US) degrades P2P traffic. (The FCC makes the hearings available as an audio or video file. Listed under the February, 25 2008 “Public En Banc Hearing”). Ars Technica has a series of very good articles relating to the issue:
The hearings occured because of a complaint made last year by the Electronic Frontier Foundation charging that Comcast interfers with BitTorrent. (BitTorrent is an application that allows people to quickly download large files such as videos, movies, and music . See Wikipedia’s entry.)
All five FCC commissioners were present at the hearings, as well as net neutrality advocates, academics, and industry representatives. Comcast’s Executive Vice President David Cohen vowed that Comcast does not malvolently degrade BitTorrent but simply engages in reasonable network management. Some experts at the hearings agreed that network management is necessary, however, if it has to be done, it should be nondiscrimatory (degrading ALL Internet traffic, not just certain applications like BitTorrent, for example). Furthermore, this degradation should be disclosed to customers ahead of time.
Comcast says that BitTorrent applications eat up a lot of bandwidth, and slow down the network for everyone. However, some believe that by discriminating against and blocking (or degrading) BitTorrent specifically, Comcast is engaging in unfair competition, since some uses of BitTorrent can be competition for Comcast’s own video business. (reference)
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Andy Kessler argues that the problem is not about net neutrality but about competition in the broadband market. If there were more than two major ISP companies in your city (as there is now in most cities), and if your ISP company degraded your access to BitTorrent applications, it would be easy to switch to another company that didn’t. (Personally, I don’t think increasing competition and regulating in favour of net neutrality are mutually exclusive.)
Another issue is the network itself. One of the presenters at the hearings, Eric Klinker, CTO of BitTorrent, argued that the United States falls far behind other nations in terms of its Internet infrastructure: “Geopolitically, we might think of ourselves as a superpower, but when measured against network power we’re a third-world country at best.” (reference)
Graham Longford wrote an excellent research paper (pdf) on net neutrality and he briefly covers the network infrastructure problem in North America by comparing it to the one in Japan:
While Japan does not have specific network neutrality legislation, its national policy does mandate network sharing by telecommunications firms like NTT East and NTT West, including in the last mile, so that competitors do not have to build rival network infrastructures in order to reach customers (Gross, 2007). As Bleha describes, open access and interconnection rules were key ingredients enabling Japan to leapfrog ahead of the U.S. in broadband deployment and penetration in recent years. The Japanese government “compelled regional telephone companies to grant outside competitors access to all their residential telephone lines in exchange for a modest fee (about $2 per line a month). The antitrust authorities also ensured that these companies did not create obstacles for their competitors, helping provide a level playing field†(Bleha, 2005). The Japanese case is worth noting, as it stands in contrast to the U.S. example, where the FCC has eliminated network sharing obligations over the last few years. It is also worth noting that such network sharing obligations have had little if any negative impact on broadband deployment and investment in Japan. While opponents of network neutrality in the U.S. and Canada allege that such requirements dampen investments in broadband infrastructure, the Japanese example appears to counter such claims. Major Japanese incumbents have proceeded with major new network deployments and upgrades despite obligations to share their networks. Consumers appear to have been well-served in the process. Japan’s predominantly DSL broadband market is far more competitive than in the U.S., and consumers enjoy 50 Mbps service for roughly $30 (US) per month, whereas an equivalent amount buys 3 Mbps service from AT&T in the U.S.
It will be interesting to see the FCC’s conclusions on this investigation.