Recently, several communications companies including AT&T and Comcast began approaching the US Congress with the goal of repealing net neutrality. How does that affect the Philippines? Here’s a discussion of Net Neutrality and why Filipinos should care.
What is Net Neutrality?
If you are online, net neutrality applies to you. Net neutrality is the concept that when you pay a company for service — say for example, 1GB of data — you are free to use that 1GB any which way you see fit. You can send emails, or you can read emails. You can download files, or you can watch videos from any site. With net neutrality, 1GB of data is 1 GB of data no matter what form it comes in. Its price is fixed.
Net neutrality also applies to the speed which you pay for. If you pay for 1GBPS, you expect to browse all sites and receive data from all online services at the same rate capping at 30MBPS. Generally speaking, net neutrality plays a big part in allowing the Internet to exist the way we see it today.
US Repealing Net Neutrality?
Okay, so net neutrality is a big thing. What happens when you remove neutrality? Well, removing net neutrality means that companies like AT&T and Comcast can charge differently based on how they see fit. Oh, so you want to watch YouTube? That’s a very popular site. That will be $5.00 per month. Oh you want to use your email? That’s an important service you can’t live without. We’ll hold it at $3.00 per month. You want to play video games? Luxury service. It isn’t a necessity. That’s $10.00 per month.
But that is only focusing on the bad side. There is a good side to the argument. Repealing net neutrality would allow basic internet access to be cheaper. This is because you can get all functional services without “luxury” add-ons like live streaming or peer-to-peer sharing. It would also prevent bandwidth abuse, and result in better Internet speeds overall. This assumes that ISPs do not abuse their power and go for maximum gains for minimum input.
Net Neutrality and the Filipino People
Here in the Philippines, there are a few laws that regulate the Internet. We don’t directly have to worry about net neutrality. No communication company is going to abuse lack of regulation services when their competition won’t because people would likely flock to the competition. Selective social media prepaid service is the only example we have of a non-neutral Internet. But indirectly, should we be worried that American ISPs are making a move against neutrality? Even with neutrality regulations in place, they have demonstrated lack of constraint before.
People like to forget that the “Inter” of Internet stands for “Interconnected.” It doesn’t matter if we aren’t a part of the United States. It affects everyone. Do you value family? Imagine you have family members abroad. Do you value business? Imagine your current contacts and associates overseas. At the moment, if you need to communicate with them, they’re only ever a Skype chat away. Now imagine if that Skype chat didn’t exist. Visualize if they couldn’t access Facebook to show you they were doing fine. Imagine if you couldn’t send them pictures of your college graduation. Imagine if all those rights were held hostage beyond a paywall.
Is Net Neutrality Worth Saving?
At the end of the day, there are advantages and disadvantages to both sides. It’s terribly difficult to find an unbiased source of information on the matter. Batte for the Net represents one side of the arena. The United States’ FCC represents the other. If net neutrality ends, will we be able to count on the corporations not to abuse their power? Will the benefits outweigh the risks? If neutrality remains, will we ever know if things could have been better or worse? Time will tell.