Management Information Systems

Closing Case 1 : The Network Neutrality Wars

By

: Group 5

Deansi Novad

1310531029

Tika Gusmawarni 1310531067

Nurul Andini

1310532010

INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING
FACULTY OF ECONOMICS
ANDALAS UNIVERSITY
2016

The Network Neutrality Wars

What does net neutrality mean?
Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and
governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or
charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of
attached equipment, or mode of communication.
What are the net neutrality rules?
The "Open Internet" is the Internet as we know it. It's open because it uses
free, publicly available standards that anyone can access and build to, and it
treats all traffic that flows across the network in roughly the same way.
What is the FCC and what do they do?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent
government agency responsible for regulating the radio, television and phone
industries. The FCC regulates all interstate communications, such as wire,
satellite and cable, and international communications originating or terminating
in the United States.

I'll explain with an example of how Net Neutrality works. So if you are accessing
Netflix site, the video will be sent in the form of data packets to the user and let's
say there are 10 packets sent to Netflix users. At the same time, let's say you're
accessing the video from YouTube, YouTube also send 10 packets to the user.
Here, ISP serves as a provider for those packets. With Net Neutrality, packets
from Netflix and YouTube will be delivered equitably by the number and the same
time, so there is no lag between the video from Netflix and YouTube. But if Net
Neutrality does not exist, for example, Netflix pays the internet point to Comcast,
then the packets that are sent by Netflix takes precedence so it will be received
by the users more quickly and consequently, video from YouTube will be
hampered.

We can imagine what will happen if there is no Net Neutrality. Internet content
providers who do not have much budget should be losing access for not paying
Internet access to ISPs. On the other hand, netizens also would be harmed by the
ISP alignments.

On the one hand, regulations of Net Neutrality help content providers and
netizen access to the Internet that in fact they have already paid to the ISP. On
the other hand, many ISPs oppose Net Neutrality regulations because they can
not control Internet access as subscribers are able to block sites, requesting
additional charge to the content provider to get a special internet lines, and
monitoring all activities of Internet access subscribers.
Questions:
1. How do you feel about the net neutrality issue? Do you believe heavier
bandwidth users should pay for more bandwidth? Do you believe wireless
carriers should operate under diferent rules than wireline carriers?
We feel that the net neutrality issue is getting more serious, but we
disagree with the idea of tiered pricing. We can understand the point of
tiered pricing and having heavier bandwidth users pay more than people
that use less bandwidth, but we dont like it because I would be someone
that uses more bandwidth. If it does go to tiered pricing, we would hope
there wouldnt be a lot of tiers, perhaps just two that separate what a lot
of bandwidth is from a little. Something like anyone that uses less than
7GB a month would pay a cost, any more than that and you would pay the
premium.
We dont believe that wireless carriers should operate under different rules
than wireline carriers because they both provide the same service, just in
different forms. Sure, usually wired connects are more stable and reliable
but wireless is starting to come around to the same standards, so why
charge based on type of connection. We think it would do more harm than
good for the ISP if they choose to both do tiered pricing and connection
type regulation.

2. Should businesses get involved and monitor network usage? Do you think
there is a problem with employee using company-purchased bandwidth
for personal use?
Businesses should get involved and monitor network usage because many
people who work for the companies could easily take advantage of them.
Monitoring network usage will assist the companies in running more
efficiently and effectively by not letting its employees use the companies
systems for personal use during workhours.
The problem with employees using company-purchased bandwidth for
personal use is that they could download personal items as well as
participate in illegal downloading and piracy. Having monitoring systems
inplace will reduce any unnecessary usage of their bandwidth.