Net neutrality and Non Discrimination

How many of us know, “TIM-BERNER LEE”? 

This person is the reason; we are been able to read this article. Not only this article but he is the reason for this whole concept of “WORLD WIDE WEB”. This article is not about him or his achievements or his role in the making of “www” but of higher concern.

When it was made- our internet, the main focus was on the word, “no discrimination”.  It means there is no partiality to whatever service is demanded, or to whatever website we want to log in, every feature and every service should be treated without discrimination. This is the reason, when we try to find something using “search engines”, the sites with closest or probable match is given to us in form of list not the ones that are highly paid.

Now the question arises, is this impartiality really happening?

No, this is a clear answer. Yesterday only i tried to open a simple website that came into my “Google search”. And what i got was, “this website cannot be open in your country.” This is not the end of it, many of us must tried at some point of time to search something on YouTube, and many a times the statement was the same as above.

What we are talking about is- “NET NEUTRALITY”. It simply means network neutrality that is; no favourites should be played with the contents that are on the internet. 

Like in every story there are some people who want the “good guys” to die.  In this context they are the big telecom companies who want it. They want to act as a “gatekeeper” checking whose website or apps should go fast, and who’s slow. This scenario is like bribing the watchman with a 20 Rs note and asking him to enter the college late without notifying anyone.

What will happen if this internet will become as “pay per view” types? By pay per view- it means we may have to pay a network tax to run voice-over-the-internet phones, to use advanced search engines.

May be, the free-flowing internet as we know, will be a history.

The telcom’s have two general complaints with a non-tiered, neutral network.  They argue that the improvement of infrastructure is costly and without proper compensation, results in major content providers not paying their fair share. 

Let take a neutral point- let’s see the whole scenario in a form of pros and cons:

To be in favour of Non- neutrality, one of the points is- Capacity is finite.  So concept of prioritization comes up. If there is no prioritization, a few apps will consume too much bandwidth; and also it reduces the service provider’s motivation to increase bandwidth

But to counteract these statements

The net neutrality is essential for-Innovation- ISP/operators can kill innovative apps if they are allowed to discriminate; another point is that of “competition”- operators can kill competition by selectively disallowing certain applications.

At last the consumer only will suffer.

 

In conclusion, Net neutrality is not a law yet, it is still practiced. If it is not there then consumers fear that they will discriminated by network provider on the content. The future is still unset, why not take our bid, there are various sites for these petitions and who are working for “our right” of net neutrality. Why not support them.