Net neutrality blocked by US courts

Posted on April 7, 2010 / 3 Comments

We have been following the emotionally loaded net neutrality debate for some time with some detachment. Our research clearly shows that low prices are critical if the BOP is to join the Internet economy and that low prices are not sustainable without the adaptation of the budget telecom network model to broadband supply.

One of the most controversial of the recommendations that came out of this work is that which said one should go gentle on regulating quality. The main reason we said that was because we believed that the poor needed access in the form of different price-quality bundles; that if high quality standards were imposed by fiat, the only victims would be the price-sensitive consumers who would get priced out. While we did not take an explicit position on net neutrality those days, we now have to, based on what we have learned. We do not believe net neutrality is appropriate for emerging economies, especially for the BOP.

Major decision has come down from the US courts on the Obama appointees’ attempt to mandate net neutrality by law:

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users.

The court decision was a setback to efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to require companies to give Web users equal access to all content, even if some of that content is clogging the network.

3 Comments

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Abu Saeed Khan
April 8, 2010, 7:36 am
“Confused? You are not alone,” said Martyn Warwick of Telecom TV.
Waqas Hassan
April 8, 2010, 3:34 pm
The developed world is fearsome of the fact that net neutrality will create a ‘class-system’ among the Internet Community which is against the openness and access-for-all mission of Internet stakeholders. However, for under developed makets, disagreement with net neutrality can actually bring down the basic Internet User’s cost of service. Therefore, Net Neeutrality may not be the best policy for developing countries.