NET NEUTRALITY Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to live during the time of the…

NET NEUTRALITY Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to live during the time of the Wild West? Outlaws were abundant, and early settlers were free to stake claim to land with minimal response or oversight from the government. If you stop and think about it, the spread of Internet- connected devices has, in many ways, created a similar environment-a digital Wild West. The digital Wild West has many parallels to the old American frontier. Modern-day cyberspace bandits can commitdeviant or criminal acts (eg, cyberbullying. stealing data, denial-of-service attacks.cybervandalism, cyberwarfarel and are rarely caught or prosecuted. This lack of legal response to criminal acts is often due to an absence of existing laws needed to convict such offenders. Cybercriminals are also difficult to physically track down. In the old American frontier, land was “up for grabs” and people rushed to stake claim to valuable land. Similarly today’s digital resources are up for grabs. Companies are trying to stake claim to intellectual property, data streams. and bandwidth Internet service providers (ISP), for Source barnfotola example, have little control over the amount type, or origin of the content they deliver. Why is this a problem? Consider the fact that in roughly the past 5 years, Netflix’s streaming lanes and slow lanes. However, while on its surface it services have grown so rapidly that 30 percent of all internet would seem that this ruling can only be a good thing, there traffic in the United States during peak hours is associated may be downsides to net neutrality with people watching movies and TV shows using Netflix People against net neutrality argue that it is yet As an ISP. you may feel that Netflix should pay you another instance of the government interfering with free a fee for clogging up your liber lines with the release of markets. This argument is based on laissez-faire economics, a new season of a popular TV show. On the other hand, which advocates for a marketplace in which government consumers and content providers want net neutrality. This intervention is not allowed. According to this principle, if a would mean that all users and content providers would be company is going to fail, it should fail and the marketplace treated equally. There wouldn’t be “fast” and “slow” tanes will correct itselt on the Internet. ISPs wouldn’t be allowed to block, or even In the case of net neutrality. ISPs want to have the slow, content associated with competing ISPs. They also freedom to oversee Internet traffic flowing through their couldn’t charge heavy Internet users additional fees or infrastructure. They want to be able to throttle it up or down taxes based on whether content providers are paying them for To address these issue, the Federal Communications better access. Because this capability has been ruled out Commission (FCC) recently made an important ruling on net by the FCC, ISPs are arguing that the loss of this potential neutrality and became the new sheriff in town! revenue stream will inhibit infrastructure development, limit growth and stifte new innovation Will we ever know if this claim by the ISPs is true? Neutralizing Innovation? Maybe or maybe not. ISPs are working on finding ways to In early 2015, the FCC approved new regulations to ensure overturn this ruling So while this battle is over the larger that ISPs cannot discriminate between different types of war on net neutrality may have only just begunt Internet traffic. In short, all consumers will have access to content on an equal basis. This ruling in many ways QUESTIONS renders the Internet a utility. It would be governed much like standard utilities (eg. water and electricity) are by 1. The article states that access to the Internet can be comparable regulations. Many people applauded this ruling compared to other utilities due to the regulations that They pointed to the benefits of an Internet free of “tast government agencies are beginning to enforce.