Over the past few months, the issue of Net-Neutrality has dominated the communications landscape of the United States. A lot has already been said by the different parties concerned and the FCC has come out with its new guidelines. I would like to draw attention to the seriousness of the issue and how it affects the future of business, especially online.
I will begin with an analogy. Recently, Google tweaked its search engine. The ostensible reason given out by Google was to give more weightage to “authentic” sites and eliminate “content farms”. A number of respected online business were affected by this tweak. Google too admits that its search engine is not 100 percent perfect.
Similarly, if the concept of net-neutrality is abandoned, then access speeds to various websites could be prioritized. This has the potential to dramatically affect online behavior. Very few people would visit sites which have slow access speeds. Upcoming competitors against established businesses may suffer and innovation may be hampered.
There are benefits to differently treating different kinds of data. Illegal downloads of music and movies could be stopped saving millions of dollars for the entertainment industry. Priority speeds could be provided to the healthcare industry.
However, as we move further into an era of convergence between the web and telecommunications, the future might be very different to what we are used to. Should one one service provider have a tie-up with a particular search engine or a particular app store offering greater bandwidth. Is it illegal or unethical? Maybe Not. However, this scenario may not be unconceivable in the future. I believe that we are just testing the waters of what the future might be.
We experienced glimpses of the future during last years IPL(Indian Premier League), which went almost unnoticed. Airtel provided significantly greater speeds for streaming of IPL matches.
However, we have an exciting future ahead of us in the communications arena and hope that the interests of all the stakeholders: equipment manufacturers, service providers, consumers are protected along with innovation and overall health of the industry.
To get in touch with the writer:tushar.2035@gmail.com
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