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Yesterday the FCC sent some shockwaves through the Internet world by suggesting that it is going to try to force telephone and cable companies to "play nice" with our packets. Big news, but first some background....

Imagine paying your local cable company for Internet access, then being forced to also pay for their phone service because the cable company is blocking or slowing access to Skype. Imagine paying your telco for DSL only to find that you can’t access iTunes because Rhapsody has paid for preferred treatment on the telco network. You may wake up one morning and find that paying your Internet access bill no longer gets you access to YouTube because both companies have decided that YouTube also needs to pour money into the hopper for the privilege of reaching you.

It can happen. Welcome to the world of net neutrality.

Net neutrality involves the relationship between the folks that provide services and content on the Internet (i.e. Yahoo, Google/YouTube, Vonage, Apple, etc.), and the telco/cable companies that carry it all on wires to your computer. The carriers argue strongly that they have the right to decide what content and services can travel on thier networks, citing both operational and economic concerns to support their position. Net neutrality proponents argue that the small handful of carriers that are our only choices for Internet access should not be allowed to dictate what we can and can not do online. Both sides have valid arguments.

The carrier point of view has technical merit and isn’t wrong in the context of always maximizing shareholder wealth, but the carriers would have a stronger argument if they were not the only games in any given town. Here on Long Island, you have only two choices for Internet access – Verizon or Cablevision. They already have duopoly control over our access to cyberspace. Do we really want them to also be able to dictate what we can do there? The other thing that really undermines the carrier position is the fact that the carriers have shown a strong propensity toward owning both the pipes, and the services that run over those pipes. Since Cablevision also provides voice service, they obviously have more than just technical and operational incentive to block and/or throttle Vonage or Skype packets.

One one side of this argument is the Internet – that beast that grows wildly and often unpredictably. Its sometimes good, sometimes very good, and sometimes really awful, but it is here to stay. On the other side we have the telecom giants, forced to deal with the reality of the expanding and resource-hungry Internet and struggling to control it in the name of preserving world domination.

If Verizon has its way in this neck of the woods, it will spend Cablevision into oblivion with its FiOS project, and will be your sole source for voice, data and video service on Long Island. It will also make money by manipulating who can reach you via those services – double dipping at its very best. Don’t be worried about Cablevision, though. Cablevision has similar aspirations. The net neutrality crowd would have both of them stick to the business of moving bits and bytes efficiently, staying out of the content and services side of the equation.

Its a complicated issue, but one that can't be ignored because how this all plays out has far reaching implications for so many people and in so many facets of our society. The Internet is now a vital part of the fabric of who we are and how we communicate with each other. Will we allow it to fall under the almost total control of 5-10 large corporations, or will we force it into "every man for himself" mode, potentially creating operational issues that might slow or even stop growth and innovation in online services.

Either way, if you're in the business of delivering content of any kind online (which most of our customers are), this issue is going to impact you sooner or later. Right now the argument is focused on the heavyweights like Apple and Google, but at some point even yourlittlewebsite.com is going to have to pay to play if the carriers are allowed to make the rules.

We'll look more at the issue of net neutrality in the next few blog entries. Stay tuned ...

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