What is net neutrality and why should we care?
Excited much – you should be!
Are we about to see the biggest change to the internet in history?
For once I am excited to hear a policy Trump is going to make: Trump ‘an architect to the internet’.
A free and open internet may be taken away if Trump has his way. Will this be a bad idea? To put it simply Donald J Trump want’s to overturn the work of the Obama presidency and make the use the internet more consumerist. This monopolizes the internet in a way never seen before. Usually the internet is open to everybody and everybody can enjoy the service and the service speed they pay for which does not differ drastically. Basically everybody enjoys the use of the internet at similar speeds. The capitalisation of the internet was not what the internet was intended for however with the way the internet has evolved over time and the dramatic impacts it has had on humanity through its size and capabilities. Are we about to see the biggest change to the internet in history?
First of all let’s take a journey through time from the invention to public use and present day. J.C.R Licklider had first notion of the internet in a globally envisioned network of computers in his concept of a ‘Galactial Network’. DARPA’s ARPANET was developed originally switching packets at 2.4kbps, it increased 50 kbps and the world’s first network of computers was developed. Augmentation of human intellect and voila the internet was evolving, with software developments, third dimensional concepts and so forth.
Internet was based on the idea that there would be multiple independent networks of rather arbitrary design (without restriction). The internet embodies OPEN ARCHITECTURE networking “In this approach, the choice of any individual network technology was not dictated by particular network architecture but rather could be selected freely by a provider and made to interwork with the other networks through a meta-level "Internetworking Architecture".
In an open-architecture network, the individual networks may be separately designed and developed and each may have its own unique interface which it may offer to users and/or other providers. including other Internet providers. Each network can be designed in accordance with the specific environment and user requirements of that network. There are generally no constraints on the types of network that can be included or on their geographic scope, although certain pragmatic considerations will dictate what makes sense to offer.
Obama once stated ‘The internet is the cornerstone of innovation. It should be open and free, an equal playing field for entrepreneurs, writer’s, activists, businesses for all of us to share our ideas and unlock new possibilities’.
Obama asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to implement a plan that will preserve net neutrality. He asked the FCC to take four simple, common sense steps:
1.No blocking: If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player, not just those commercially afilliated with an ISP gets a fair shot at your business.
2.No throttling: Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others through a process called ‘throttling’ based on the type of service or your ISP preferences.
3.Increased transparency: The connection between consumers and ISPs. To apply net neutrality rules to poins of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the internet
4.No paid prioritisation: Simply, no service should be stuck in a slow lane because it does not pay a fee, it would undermine the level playing field essential to internet growth.
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/11/10/free-and-open-internet-what-you-need-know-about-net-neutrality
New modes of access and new forms of service will spawn new applications, which in turn will drive further evolution of the net itself. The most pressing question for the future of the Internet is not how the technology will change, but how the process of change and evolution itself will be managed. the architecture of the Internet has always been driven by a core group of designers, but the form of that group has changed as the number of interested parties has grown. With the success of the Internet has come a proliferation of stakeholders - stakeholders now with an economic as well as an intellectual investment in the network.
Net neutrality and 5g
A new spectrum of the internet: If we enter into a world of 5g of course there needs to be distinction in terms of how the service is used and who uses the service. It is a new hope for hospitals and doctors who should be the pioneers of 5g services. For far too long have the medical services had to put up with outdated technologies, pressures from patients amongst other pressures. Technology could now help the burden.
Healthcare Services being the pioneers of 5g technology with IOT software, the IOT platform is a suite of components that enable deployment of applications that monitor, manage and control connected devices, remote data collection from connected devices and ndependent and secure connectivity between devices and device, sensor management.
Current wireless networks assign equal priority to all third-party application traffic, regardless of the application type. An analogy is a freeway on which fast-moving cars and slow-moving trucks use all lanes equally. The goal of intelligent traffic prioritization is to maximize the quality of experience across the largest number of users and application types possible, allocating higher priority for those applications that need it while not adversely affecting those that do not. As ITIF states in a report, “Traffic differentiation simply is not a zero-sum game.” [[http://www2.itif.org/2015-alternative-title-ii.pdf]]
There will be a revolution in the way healthcare is provided, allowing them more free time and more development in research with growing technologies and connectivity speeds, there will be more miraculous cures. Again I can’t hold my excitement!
Evolved virtualization, network programmability, and 5G use cases will change everything about network design, from planning and construction through deployment. Network functions will no longer be located according to traditional vertical groupings in single network nodes, but will instead be distributed to provide connectivity where it is needed. To support the wide range of performance requirements demanded by new business opportunities, multiple access technologies, a wide variety of services, and lots of new device types, the 5G core will be highly flexible. Minimizing cost for services. https://www.ericsson.com/res/thecompany/docs/publications/ericsson_review/2016/etr-5G-core-vision.pdf
One should not conclude that the Internet has now finished changing.