Having grown up in Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, and seeing what other countries like China, the UAE and North Korea are doing to block content, I had (and continue to have) serious concerns about the loss of net neutrality in the United States. I believe unfiltered access to the internet is a human right, and in an ideal world, everyone would be able to access information on the web without hindrance or censorship. Like many opponents of the repeal, I worry these changes give too much control to corporations, which are focused on their bottom line and not consumers’ best interests. Without net neutrality, these corporations essentially have censoring power.
It’s been a year since we’ve given them that power, so what has that year looked like? Have we actually seen any drastic changes to our internet service? The short answer is no, we haven’t. But it’s not that simple, and it doesn’t end here. Just because corporations haven’t abused their power in the last 12 months doesn’t mean they never will, especially when that option is within their legal rights.
As we look at the years ahead in an age of a deregulated internet, we need to look at the business models of ISPs and investigate what they are trying to achieve. We can’t simply take them at their word; we need to understand the process to understand the risk. These companies are making significant infrastructure investments by upgrading all the necessary hardware, including cell towers, cables, switches and more.
Over the next three to five years, I expect to see changes in areas that impact voice, video and competition.
We are seeing more and more people making their phone calls over the internet and utilizing voice-over IP (VoIP) and apps like WhatsApp and Facetime. But countries such as the UAE have actually banned WhatsApp and Skype (though, there are steps being taken to lift that ban). And while it may seem far-fetched for similar bans to take place here in the States, it still serves as a reminder as to the power that ISPs and telecoms possess.
According to a Business Insider article, ISPs are also offering more video services and content as acquisitions increase, which could create competition with companies like Netflix. We could see these ISPs giving more priority to their programs, leaving other content providers with subpar streaming quality or getting blocked altogether -- as we’ve seen already, even before it was legal.
There is one positive side to all this: The repeal of net neutrality rules could potentially spur competition in the ISP market. If we saw a completely new provider in the market that provided transparent, complete internet access as its competitive advantage, that would provide net neutrality to users and break up the power ISPs currently hold. Whether a company like that would last is hard to tell, as they would likely need to charge users more and people simply might not pay for it.
Thankfully, there are solutions today to circumvent the loss of net neutrality. Security solutions on the market include virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers. Both solutions have one thing in common: they allow you to appear as if you are connecting to the internet from another location, but that's where the similarities end. Proxies only hide your IP address and act as a "middleman" for your internet traffic. A VPN captures the entire network connection and passes data through an encrypted tunnel between your computer and the remote network. This means ISPs won't be able to access your true location or private data and therefore won’t be able to censor or throttle the sites you visit.
Ultimately, we probably won’t see drastic consequences in the immediate future. If consumers do see changes, they will likely be incremental changes that will happen over a number of years. This is precisely what we need to be on the lookout for -- because, again, nothing of note has happened in the first year. It wouldn’t work. But the more time passes, we as consumers need to remain vigilant in order to hold ISPs accountable.
