- Image via Wikipedia
You can be forgiven for missing the news. In the middle of the Christmas shopping season, the FCC approved new Network Neutrality rules. This comes shortly after the supposed ‘deal’ between Google and Verizon that in the end, looks very similar to the FCC framework on the surface. As with any set of regulations coming from Washington, D.C., there are intricacies and details that will quickly make your eyes glaze over. There are however two main points that most of the punditocracy seem to agree on:
1. Net Neutrality is largely intact for the wired web from fixed-line providers (i.e., your desktop PC and your router and anything else connecting to the Internet via the broadband wire provider to your home or office)
2. Wireless/Mobile web from mobile network providers is mostly unregulated and being called the “Wild West”
My take away on these two points is that Net Neutrality will live to fight another day. It did get a little help for those of us who still use our desktop and laptop PCs way more than our smart phones. That’s good news for web developers today, though not so much for tomorrow. Smart phone, and mobile web in general is on the rise, so obviously web developers will be moving along with that trend to retain traffic opportunities. With mobile being Mad-Maxed (think state of lawlessness for non-movie fans), independent developers and small web development companies will likely face roadblocks when trying to gain web traffic for their clients and themselves. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will be allowed to charge them whatever the market will bear for speedy delivery of content, which may price small businesses out of the market.
The housing and financial industries should be proof enough that the market place is not self policing or self correcting. This will, if left unchecked, lead to affordability and access problems for mobile web. I say “if unchecked” because I don’t think this is the final word. Some of the testimony suggests that the loose regulation of mobile web is by design, temporary, to allow for faster innovation than a more regulated landscape would allow. This argument, in my opinion, has some validity. An industry like satellite television service (or direct broadcast satellite-DBS) had trouble establishing itself because of the media landscape at the time. The major players were very opposed to letting DBS into the game, saying it would damage their operations. They fought the industry and tried to lock them out, but the FCC stepped in to require content providers (networks and cable stations) to sell programming to DBS companies at a fair market value. Without this kind of intervention, DBS might have sputtered and died on the launch pad. If you can remember as far back as the 80s, you may recall seeing a few people with huge satellite dishes on their rural lawns, as opposed the the little grey dishes you see hanging off houses in any given subdivision. If it weren’t for a period of minimal regulatory restriction on the DBS industry, the progress made might never have happened.
What’s your take on the FCC’s new split rules for wired and wireless Internet? Is creating two classes of Internet access, one for fixed-line providers and the other wireless the best solution at this point in time? Please chime in with your own predictions in the comments below.
