Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination

Communications regulators over the next decade will spend increasing time on conflicts between the interests of broadband providers and the public’s interest in competitive innovation environment on the internet. As the policy questions this conflict raises are basic to communications policy, they are likely to appear in many different forms. So far, the first major appearance has come in the “open access” (or “multiple access”) debate, over the desirability of allowing vertical integration between Internet Service Providers and cable operators. Proponents of open access began to see it as a structural remedy to will guard against an erosion of the “neutrality” of the network as between competing applications. Critics, meanwhile, have taken open-access regulation as unnecessary and likely to slow the pace of broadband deployment.