Arguments Against NN - Political Difficulty of designing effective laws Poor legislation may actually cause more harm than good May interfere with existing network infrastructure Illegal Activity Legal traffic cannot be separated from illegal traffic

Arguments Against NN - Economic No ISP control of connection usage Comcast P2P case Bandwidth caps of limited effectiveness  May result in ISP simply slowing traffic down for everyone Competitors take advantage of infrastructure Google Voice vs. iPhone Telecoms vs. Internet services

Current State of Network Neutrality – United States FCC has ruled in favor of net neutrality – Four principles Consumers entitled to access of lawful content Consumers entitled to use applications and services of their choice Consumers entitled to connect peripheral devices that do not harm the network Consumers entitled to competition among providers President Obama expressed support – “keep the Internet as it should be - open and free.”

Current State of Network Neutrality – United States Comcast and bandwidth limits Google Voice – Elects not to connect calls to certain providers Tie-in with copyright issues – Google Books – P2P software and piracy Physical challenges – Signals carried across multiple providers’ infrastructure

Sources Jordan, S. (2009). Implications of internet architecture on net neutrality. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, 9(2). Obama, B. (2009, May). Remarks by the President on Securing Our Nation’s Cyber Infrastructure. Speech presented at the White House, Washington, D.C. Comcast, Inc. Announcement Regarding an Amendment to Our Acceptable Use Policy. Hansell, S. (2009, September 25). AT&T says Google Voice violates net neutrality principles. New York Times.

Sources Liberty. Liberating Cyberspace Civil Liberties, Human Rights & the Internet. New York: Pluto, Print. Tambini, Damian, Danilo Leonardi, and Chris Marsden. Codifying Cyberspace. Trowbridge, Whitshire: The Cromwell Press, Thierer, Adam, and Clyde W. Crews, eds. Who rules the net? Internet governance and jurisdiction. Washington, D.C: Cato Institute, Print.