Network Neutrality: Regulating with More Questions Than Answers

“Network neutrality,” while subject to varying definitions, can be summed up as the principle that “all like Internet content must be treated alike and move at the same speed over the network. The owners of the Internet’s wires cannot discriminate.” The policy implication is that network operators should not be allowed to “create different tiers of online service” by selling different levels of access at different prices to different providers of on-line content and services. Proposals for network neutrality regulation have sparked particularly intense debate. Advocates and opponents of regulation have each predicted dire consequences from, respectively, leaving networks free to vary terms of access they offer to upstream providers of content and services or restricting them from doing so. As the debate has continued between those who argue that network neutrality regulation is necessary to preserve applications innovation and those who argue that such regulation would harm the growth and development of underlying network infrastructure, Congress has been awash with legislative proposals from both perspectives.