The Persistent Problems of Net Neutrality or Why Are We Still Lacking Stable Net Neutrality Regulation
Posted by Social Science Research Network
Konstantinos Stylianou (University of Leeds)
Abstract: The debate on net neutrality has been around long enough to allow its various aspects to emerge and develop sufficiently. Yet we are still far from reaching a resolution that garners multi-stakeholder support and offers some guarantees of stability. The volatility of net neutrality regulation is evidenced by the failure of various jurisdictions to enact stable rules, even after years of persistent efforts.
The second problem concerns the fixation of stakeholders with certain historical features of the Internet, which are seen as immutable axioms that should define today’s Internet the same way they did decades ago (e.g. end to end, neutrality, openness). This clinging is impractical because the Internet and the marketplace around it have evolved and the continuing application of historical principles without justifying their modern relevance obscures rather than illuminates the debate. To set the discussion on the proper base, it is therefore advised that the starting point for the debate is not how to ensure neutrality, openness, non-discrimination and the end to end principle, but whether those characteristics apply with the same force today as when the Internet was first conceived and commercialized. Once there is agreement as to which principles serve the Internet better, the discussion can continue on how to safeguard them.
Third, and on a related topic, to determine whether regulation is needed to safeguard the Internet’s desired features (as per above), regulators need to determine the competitive conditions in the market, which includes the identification of potential bottlenecks and the power interrelations among them. Current practice seems to ignore a prevalent form of competitive pressure in telecommunications, namely vertical competition, which, if taken into account, should affect the way way regulators view the necessity or type of appropriate regulation.
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