Internet regulation and the freedom to innovate

A major reason why there is so much creative technology driving the US economy is that America’s best and brightest have historically been allowed to innovate at will. Consumers have benefited from an American policy framework that maximized technology’s ability to power economic growth, enhance productivity, and expedite the delivery of more and better internet-based experiences. Innovation-friendly policies removed the impediment to having to ask for regulatory permission to enhance the equipment that operates the basic network functions of internet connectivity. Free from regulatory obstacles, America’s best and brightest were able to develop innovative technologies like Wi-Fi and Near Field Communication, which in turn are enabling the internet of things, mesh networks, and Bluetooth capabilities. Unfortunately, supporters of so-called “net neutrality” want regulatory barriers to manage around today’s technological capabilities, something that is sure to slow the progress of American innovators moving forward.

The creation of the internet was a catalyst for getting technology outside of large companies and universities and into the hands of consumers. Innovation around the internet’s capabilities meant consumers could then begin to move away from hardwired desktops and towards mobile technologies. Cellular networks and Wi-Fi connectivity paved the path to success for smart phones and all the applications that have come about, thanks to the ability to connect and expect the network to be available on demand. The entire way, market forces, not government regulators, have created the demand for products with capabilities beyond what anyone could have imagined when the iPhone took the world by storm ten years ago.

We are just a few generations into these amazing inventions, yet some want to hobble the innovation engine with limited thinking and the promotion of yesterday’s regulations that have been proven to cut off the creative flow of thought and investment. Thanks to aggressive investment in wireless connectivity and mobile devices, we don’t think about how far we’ve come with computing power and the technology that enables smaller and smaller devices to utilize all these engineering wonders. If regulation had not been light-touch and permissive of future looking technology while enhanced wireless capabilities were being developed in the 1990s, we may currently be looking for places to plug in longer cords rather than seeking Wi-Fi connections.

Bringing the next generation of internet-based services and applications to the marketplace demands the continued expansion of the capabilities of digital networks. Rather than encouraging this expansion through private investment, some want to use the regulatory state to punish creative thinkers, investors, and engineers. Instead of creating the next iPhone, archaic and paternalistic regulation punishes anyone looking to differentiate themselves from their competitors. It stifles future growth in favor for status quo technology.

This is why the steps taken by the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) to reverse its 2015 decision to impose Title II utility-style regulation on internet service providers (ISPs) is so important – it directly impacts the future of how we manage technology. Regulations don’t keep up with the latest technologies. Rather, they sit on the books, undermining innovation and depressing investment, while regulators wrestle with interpreting their value to past actions. What is perceived as a disruption in service by a 2015 regulatory definition does not match the potential of the technologies of today and the future. On-demand media has boomed in the past few years without seeing the throttling worries of yesterday’s critics become a reality. The innovations that are now in the technology pipeline, such as industrial automation, smarter connected homes, smart cities, virtual reality technologies, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, and more, all require transformational technological innovation in the networks to move forward or risk seeing their progress frozen in place by regulatory burdens.

If you are excited about the prospect of self-driving cars or remote healthcare applications, you should also care about how networks will need to integrate information at lightning speeds to make technology function safely, as it is designed to. The network technology these innovations depend on will need to differentiate between data flowing to a healthcare device that needs real-time monitoring, an autonomous car in speeding traffic, and the millisecond buffering of a YouTube video. Making it illegal for networks to be smarter about making sure time sensitive data is transmitted on timely basis dictated by the originator of the content, not the network, interrupts these capabilities. Each interface has an importance to the user, but a fraction of a millisecond delay involving transmitting information to and from an autonomous vehicle could have deadly consequences. Ideally, being able to time-shift and buffer will allow all of the bits traversing the networks to arrive as needed without artificial delays imposed by the network.   The need for ultra-reliable, low-latency connections is key to how many of these proposed technological advances will work.

This is why the current battle promoted by edge providers to hobble their competitors while they work through technological advancement is short-sighted. There is no technical reason to keep the “edge” and the network providers in separate camps through regulatory practices. Returning the government to a process that allows for the expansive capabilities of a more broadminded era of open innovation is the best way to ensure the full potential of an open internet can be unleashed.

We have become accustomed to a world with on-demand connectivity; networks on demand, bandwidth on demand, and instantaneous downloads have become expected. Video traffic continues to push the edge of how fast you can serve the constant demand for larger files moving faster to the end user. We need to encourage, not block, these enhancements for all the players working to advance technologies capabilities. The Open Internet Order should be about encouraging opportunities for innovation and investment by all parties engaged in the technology that creates the internet of today and the internet of our future.

Πηγή: techpolicydaily.com