What happens when a network isn’t neutral? Look at cellular SMS.
There’s a fabulous article in NewsForge outlining an example of what happens when a communications network isn’t neutral. Ironically, the example chosen is the cellular telephone network, especially in regards to SMS.
The gentleman who wrote this article is currently trying to get his service on SMS. Compare what he’s going through to putting up a website with Net Neutrality in place:
It turns out that we have a privately owned and controlled network all around us, one that closely mirrors the technical functionality of the Internet, but where there has never been a requirement for net neutrality: the US cellular phone network.
Almost all cell phones sold in the developed world have the ability to send and receive SMS (short message service) text messages. SMS is gaining popularity in the US, but only as a way to send quick messages to friends. So why aren’t there a wealth of amazing and interactive services available for mobile devices? Why is there no MySpace, Craigslist, Amazon, Flikr, or eBay accessible through this network? Why are cell phone payment systems and email systems nearly nonexistent? Why haven’t charities raised money or awareness of their causes through this system?
It’s simple. Because the cell phone carriers control what services are allowed to use their networks. There is no net neutrality on the cell phone network.
Imagine you want to create a user-moderated news service like digg.com that operates on SMS. On the neutral Internet, you rent a Web server ($7-$100 per month to start), register your name, and start programming. Total time required: less then two hours in most cases. But getting a service on the non-neutral US cell phone network would be a little different:
The first step would be to contact a company known as an aggregator. This company manages your relationships with the cell phone carriers — and that’s carriers, plural, because making an agreement with just one carrier ensures that your service will fail because it cannot effectively spread via word of mouth. The first requirement from an aggregator is a service charge, which starts at $1,000 per month. Then, you must buy a shortcode (which kind of serves as your Web site name) for an additional $500-$1,000 per month. But you’re not done.
The next step is satisfying the requirements of the cell phone companies. Many of these steps, such as requiring affirmative opt-in before a subscription can start, are not burdensome, and serve to protect the carriers’ customers. Others, however, border on ludicrous. Requirements vary by carrier, but some prohibit operators from offering games or sweepstakes, or require that subscription periods can only be monthly: not daily, weekly, or yearly. Others require that content, such as ringtones, be locked so users can’t forward them from their phones to their friends’ phones.
He goes on to outline numerous other riduculous and expensive hoops service providers need to jump through to MAYBE get in place. One of the fees paid is a few cents per EACH message either direction. So, as in the example of CraigsList, if someone placed an ad and had a hundred responses, CraigsList would have to pay a few cents for each one AND another fee for every advertiser response to those messages. No wonder there aren’t any services.
Imagine this thievery and greed applied to the internet.
I foresee the day when, if Network Neutrality is killed, a new network will somehow come into being, one that does not depend in any way on the Telecomms. Somehow their stranglehold will be broken. I don’t know how yet, whether it will be by encryption that only browsers can read by that the cisco sniffers can’t, or whether it will be all that dark fiber Google has been buying up, or whether it will be by grassroots wifi. However it happens it will be awesome. Let’s see if AT&T and Verizon can then survive off pushing the Home Shopping Network and twenty minute commercials interrupted by ten minutes of crapola TV programming over a dead network.
The American People are just not going to sit still for this one. Washington, get ready for the change. November is going to get VERY interesting.
Technorati Tags: SMS, Cellular network, Verizon, AT&T, Network Neutrality, Save the Internet
