Net Neutrality and PR

Net Neutrality. Definitely a thorny subject.

Downloading music. A potentially thorny subject, depending to whom you are talking to.

It all takes up space and bandwidth, and ISPs are responding in such a way that is alarming many of those who advocate an open model for the internet.

This article in Exclaim explains how this is not a potential issue, but an issue that’s occurring as you’re reading my blog. For better or worse, peer-to-peer file sharing has changed the way we get and even listen to music. Now streaming videos are the norm, and larger networks can handle a large volume of traffic to create online communities that could not exist before.

And apparently, ISPs (good old Rogers and Bell) want to put a cap on all that. Or actually have been:

“We’ve also seen Shaw (which provides telephone and internet services) charge its customers a $10 “quality of service” fee for using competitor Vonage’s VoIP phone services. Also not cool. Lately, and perhaps most uncool, we’ve seen Bell Canada do away with unlimited access plans, steer new customers into capped plans and bump existing customers out of the unlimited access they already enjoy by any means necessary. Bell is not coincidentally engaged in “traffic shaping” — slowing down and restricting the pipe at peak or specific hours — which has the immediate effect of choking traffic to file sharing sites and limiting peer-to-peer activity in general.”

Alison Outhit, Exclaim June 2008

Now with the music downloading aside, if ISPs continue to limit the amount of bandwdith available to customers and business, and it becomes a premium service to have unlimited access to the internet, what happens to the new notions of PR and conversing with public? It has been repeated in many blogs and publications by PR practioners that with the internet and online social networks, everyone from the CEO to the mail clerk can influence and build relationships with the public and vice-versa.

Does that adaptation go out the window if Net Neutrality is eroded? Does the public change their habits again if the internet as a medium becomes a top-down model?

There are many more articles I could cite about Net Neutrality, but this one brings up a point I could relate to: Whoever has the power to control the cables and hardware, will have the power to determine what kind of content will be distributed.

And unfortunately, it is going from an academic debate to your own surfing habits.

It’s a complex issue, but if you want more reading check out:

http://www.neutrality.ca/

http://whatisnetneutrality.ca/en/node/3

http://www.savetheinternet.com/