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Aditya Singh
English 111
Dr. Tess Evans
3 November 2014
Internet Neutrality: Is it Time to Act?
This June, the FCC, or the Federal Communications Commission, opened an
investigation into deals between internet service providers, or ISPs, and entertainment service
providers such as Netflix. These deals were supposedly about paying for faster delivery of
internet service, a concept that has the potential to escalate into the division of Internet service
into fast and slow lanes. Controversy surrounding this idea is still present to this day, with critics
dismissing the US governments efforts to enforce Internet Neutrality as not being strong
enough. I believe that more awareness should be raised about this issue, because this topic is
one that affects all of us. Placing control of the internet in the hands of a few large ISP
companies can restrict or even prevent the ease of communication and access to information
that the internet has been providing, an act that would go directly against the freedom of
expression that is given to us by the United States Constitution.
Internet Neutrality is the concept that all information and data found on the internet
should be treated equally and without discrimination based on content, platform, or user.
Supporters of Internet Neutrality believe that it allows for a free internet, a place where people
can exchange ideas and conduct business without influence of a third party member such as an
ISP. These supporters are also hesitant to give any modicum of power to the ISP companies, as

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they believe it will lead to a slippery slope, allowing many possible consequences, such as the
crowding out of less competitive businesses, or undesirable content be filtered out.
Internet Neutrality as an issue gained national popularity in late April, when the FCCs
Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed a set of rules that would allow for certain broadband
providers to make independent deals with particular providers, as well as allowing certain
providers to charge more for faster and more reliable service to certain companies. American
lawyer and political activist Marvin Ammori describes the response in his article, The Case for
Net Neutrality, when he says:
Word of the proposal leaked to the press and sparked an immediate backlash. One
hundred and fifty leading technology companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, and
Kickstarter, sent a letter to the FCC calling the plan a "grave threat to the Internet." In
their own letter to the FCC, over 100 of the nation's leading venture capital investors
wrote that the proposal, if adopted as law, would "stifle innovation," since many startups and entrepreneurs wouldn't be able to afford to access a fast lane.

In this quote, Ammori recounts not only the response of a few large companies, but also their
justification of Internet Neutrality. According to these companies, if this bill were passed,
smaller businesses would have a harder time keeping up with Internet giants such as Netflix or
Amazon, simply because they would have to allocate funds to gain access to a fast lane in order
to even be competitive. As Ammori said, this could eventually lead to the stifling of innovation,
and potentially change the Internet from a place with equal opportunity for all businesses to

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one with only a select few large corporations who would have a monopoly on their trade
because of their ability to pay for internet fast lanes.
Another reason why Internet Neutrality is a significant issue today is that this neutrality
is what allows for the free exchange of ideas that is one of the main aspects of the internet
today. If more control is given to Internet Service Providers, they may have the ability to control
what people who use their services see. This is a form of censorship, and has become a
significant issue especially since 2010, when a federal appeals court rejected FCC rules that
forbade broadband providers from blocking or discriminating against any content. The
repealing of this rule means that ISPs can filter out or block access to any unwanted content,
and prevents the exchange of free ideas that is considered essential to the Internet today.
There is, however, another side to this argument, which acknowledges that while
Internet Neutrality may be an inherently well-meaning concept, some steps must be taken in
order to ensure the best service for the people. As Edmond Baranes states in his paper titled
The interplay between network investment and content quality: Implications to net neutrality
on the Internet, he says:
Consumer willingness to pay is usually an increasing function of the quality of content,
the network operators incentive to invest should be potentially even stronger when the quality
of content is high. At the same time, content providers incentive to upgrade the quality of
content should also increase with the quality of the network infrastructure.
This quote gives a different side to the Internet Neutrality debate, as it describes one of the
positive effects of the recent actions taken against Net Neutrality. Baranes says that if the

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quality of content is increased through use of Internet fast lanes, content providers will have a
greater motivation to invest in improving the users experience using the Internet.
Another counter to the Internet Neutrality argument is that if more power is given to
ISPs, they will be able to filter out any potentially illegal activities such as piracy. With the
advent of the internet, piracy has become a significant issue, with everything from movies to
music albums being pirated and sold for free, reducing the producers overall revenue. If ISPs
are able to severely limit or even prevent piracy from occurring by blocking access to sites that
offer illegal services, the amount of illegal activity would go significantly down, and could result
in a safer Internet.
More awareness needs to be raised about Internet Neutrality, as the events surrounding
it have the potential to significantly change the internet. If the FCCs recent laws go through,
Internet users will have to pay more in order to receive faster service. Although people have
tried to repeal these rules, they have been rebuffed in courts, with the federal government
allowing companies like Amazon and Netflix to make deals with Internet Service Providers that
would allow them to have faster Internet delivery service over competing companies that
would not be able to pay that kind of money. However, this may not necessarily be a bad idea,
as being able to provide higher quality service, albeit for a higher price, would allow for further
investment in improving the system, and could serve to better the Internet as a whole. Giving
more power to ISPs could also mean that they could limit or even restrict access to sites that
condone illegal activity, an action that could serve to improve users experience on the internet.
Either way, more people must know about this debate; if their voices are heard, both the US

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government and FCC will not only have a better understanding of what the people want, but
also be able to maintain a stronger stance in this debate.

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Writers Reflection
The goal of my paper was to accurately summarize the debate going on about Internet
Neutrality. Originally, I wanted to take a stance in support of Internet Neutrality, but as I read
more into the subject, I realized that there were arguments for both sides that could not be
easily refuted. As a result, I decided to talk about both sides of the debate in an equal manner,
talking about the pros and cons of each idea. To write this paper, I broke down the topic into
four sections: the first one describing the debate and its origins, the second talking about
reasons to support internet neutrality, the third discussing justifications of recent events that
violated Internet Neutrality, and the fourth section using the previous point to summarize why
it is important to raise awareness about this subject.

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Works Cited
Ammori, Marvin. "The Case for Net Neutrality." Foreign Affairs 93.4 (2014): 62-73. Political
Science Complete. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
<http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=69d32fd9-a32a-4d91-bfb9d2f4c609ac82%40sessionmgr198&vid=0&hid=112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=
poh&AN=96522027>

Baranes, Edmond. "The Interplay Between Network Investment And Content Quality:
Implications To Net Neutrality On The Internet." Information Economics & Policy 28.(2014): 5769. Business Source Premier. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167624514000304>

Wyatt, Edward. "F.C.C. Begins Investigation Into Quality of Internet Download Speeds." The
New York Times. The New York Times, 13 June 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/business/media/FCC-inquiry-into-ties-betweencontent-companies-and-service-providers.html>.

Wyatt, Edward. "Rebuffing F.C.C. in Net Neutrality Case, Court Allows Streaming Deals." The
New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2014. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/technology/appeals-court-rejects-fcc-rules-oninternet-service-providers.html>.