Internet Neutrality

In all the hubub surrounding Tuesday night's presidential debate and the continuing election campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain, I came across this article earlier today that I think merits mentioning. Popular Mechanics undertook a report to look into how the two candidates view the neutrality of the internet. The differences couldn't be more clear. As the article states, "McCain believes in a lightly regulated Internet, while Obama believes in more government involvement," while at the same time, each candidates campaign "can make a credible case that they're the ones defending freedom of innovation and open communication." The issues at stake revolve around the changing of the method of connection to the internet, from the phone-line based dial up services of the 1990's to a more cable/wireless/bluetooth/3G network society. With all these different possibilities, there is the possibility for a variety of different opinions.

When you look at both of the candidate's positions, it is not actually the data flow that they are interested in, rather the regulation over ISP's and internet access. These both follow their respective political philosophies, where Obama believes it is the government's mission to provide free and available internet, especially broadband, to communities where it is lacking, while McCain sides with the free market approach, with the private market promoting broadband access. What they can agree on, though, is that the internet access should be universal to all Americans.

With this, I agree completely. For better or worse, there is no more convenient, easy, and generally reliable source of information in such a quick fashion. Gone are the days when students use encyclopedias and other reference works to find books and articles for their research, now most subjects are a quick Wikipedia or Google search away. Access to information is key in having a well informed, well educated, and free society, and of all methods for information conveyance, the internet is the most universal, and if left unregulated for the most part, unbiased source for information. That's not to say that there is bias on the internet, as their certainly is; however it is easy enough for one to find opposing viewpoints of view, and with little effort to form their own opinions of the facts. Thus, while I think that given the current economic situation we'll have to wait and see how feasible either candidate's plan is, they are both pointed in the right direction in this aspect

Wall Street and Tech

In light of the recent financial crisis on Wall Street, yesterday and this morning I came across several interesting articles detailing the crisis from a more technical side. On CNET yesterday, Charles Cooper wrote an article detailing the extent of the crisis into the internet business sector, specifically, advertising. And this morning, on Tech News World, I read an article that details a key aspect that I think differentiates this situation from those previous; the minute by minute knowledge of the public into news and financial affairs.

Both of these articles tie into what I think is the concern that needs to be addressed in dealing with this situation: the role of the internet in our economy. With more and more people becoming internet savvy, the economy is slowly shifting to accommodate them, with more and more options being made available for internet purchasing, and up to date news streaming. With a more up-to-date populace, the entire climate of politics and management needs to move to accomidate them, and in most cases this means increasing the pace at which things are done. Now, whenever Joe Stockholder gets an update on his iPhone that there is the hint of financial trouble in the stock market, he is quick to use the same device to manage his assets. Gone are the days when independent brokers dealt with issues for their clients, and transactions could take hours or heaven forbid, days, to get in contact with the pertinent parties. With this rise in online business also comes the corresponding rise in capital being invested online. While I think the market is still wary of the dot com bust in the early 2000's, I think for many companies, these recent years have been times when they have begun exploring investing more into online infrastructure, to keep up with an ever growing technological world.

Where does this leave us? In many ways, more precarious than where we would be in previous situations. Online business and advertising is completely dependent on a consumer economy, and with the predicted slump in the consumer market, there is no easy to get reserve capital out of these investments as opposed to possibilities with physical reserves. While I think the online market will be in some part shielded because if it's ease of access, never the less, as Cooper addresses, there doesn't look to be any upturn in financial investment in the near future, a prospect which all business everywhere, be they big, small, online or not, should be wary of.

Metered Internet?

An article in the New York Times today discussed what could quite possibly be the next wave in internet access following the propagation of broadband access to the masses: metering the internet and charging by bandwidth used.

Now, as a moderate internet user, I can certainly see the validity of the argument for this style of accounting for internet use. I certainly don't mind that the p2p user next door would have to pay a surcharge for all of his 'illegal' file sharing that slows down my internet speed. And, as the article relates, at least in terms of Time Warner, they will, for the first time, have different internet plans based on the expected bandwidth use of the client. Sounds good right? If you're a light internet user, using the 'net only for mail and google searches, then you can get off paying much less than the high-end WoW gamer.

There's a catch. Anyone who has run a NETSTAT on their computer knows that there are many, many more hidden programs running in the background that use bandwidth, such as iTunesHelper or the notorious Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. Given that the majority of computer users most likely have no idea that there are processes running that use bandwidth even if they are not actively surfing the net, this could pose problems for those users. Furthermore, from personal experience in the IT field, many, many internet users have no idea about the concept of bandwidth being limited, and some even go so far as to complain about slow buffering times when watching youtube videos, for example. Who knows, maybe if this procedure takes hold, the average user will become more conscious about their bandwidth use, and about the structure of the internet in general, instead of simply viewing it as a collection of tubes.

The other major concern I have about this is something the article briefly touches on, the procedure for actually metering internet use. For starters, the internet has vastly outgrown what anyone expected it to become in the late '80's and early '90's. There was never any thought for a mechanism to monitor bandwidth use; and while it wouldn't be too hard to implement, there are many problems that could arise. First is bandwidth piracy. If the ISP doesn't monitor bandwidth at the site of the client's router, then it would be feasible for others to tap into that client's data stream somewhere along the line and run up the legitimate user's bandwidth at no cost to themselves. The second would be wireless networks. The bandwidth of wireless networks fluctuates greatly with the number of users at any given time. This could prove tricky for a household or company who sees usage patterns fluctuate, as there is the desire not to pay surcharges for excessive bandwidth use, while at the same time to not be paying for unnecessary bandwidth. It's a tricky situation that I think needs to be pilot tested under a variety of circumstances before being foisted upon the unsuspecting public.

So all in all, I'm up in the air about this one. I would have to see some more definitive figures from the ISP's to compare them to current prices before I could judge this effectively. It is just a slippery slope to walk down, for there are plenty of methods that could prove disastrous to the entire industry if mismanaged. And lord knows what an economic disaster that would be.