Net Neutrality – South Africa

Net Neutrality is currently, and has been for some time, a raging hot topic in the US. The FCC recently took Comcast to court for throttling customers’ bandwidth – and lost. NN basically means allowing data to flow from source to destination without interruption or alteration. But the big ISPs and carriers in America would like to control everything you do on the Internet, and charge for it. This is anathema to the original concept of the Internet of being a free network for innovation and growth.

Lobbying is the method that big industry in the US uses to get laws passed that allow and promote their own causes. Formerly the music and movie industries were the main culprits in this area but it looks like ISPs and Telcos are now joining that lot. And typically they get their way if they throw enough money around.

In the SA context, Net Neutrality is not something that’s been overly spoken about. Yet we’re subject to some severe limitations from our ISPs in the form of caps, bandwidth throttling ( shaping ) and other mechanisms. This is not what the Internet was meant to be about. On any other day, I would hesitate at involving the government in issues like this, however perhaps we need some regulation to make sure that the local Internet market does not end up like one that’s starting to form in the US.

Lawrence Lessig is best known for his legal work for the Software Freedom Law Centre and as a former member of EFF. For an insight into Internet freedom, take a listen to his take on this charged subject – this is highly recommended for anyone with a hand in the Internet pot..