SHOCKING!! Cisco Position on Net Neutrality
The title, of course, is what we in the business call irony. I’ve been a bit surprised from some of the coverage that we’ve received on our “net neutrality” position…posted on our external site here. We are said to be siding with service providers on their position and against legislation to mandate net neutrality rules. Both of those sentiments, it seems, could be said about many, if not the majority, of our public policy positions. I would tweak it a bit and say that we are siding with consumers, but that’s me with a Cisco hat on.
Seriously, our number one goal here is to give consumers the best experience on the web that they can possiby get. Our other goal is to keep government from over-regulating anything that touches the web. Technology moves so quickly (Moore’s law anyone?) that by the time a regulation or law is made the technology has generally already moved past the regulation or law’s perceived effectiveness.
I was talking to a colleague about this issue and he asked a great question, “How is this different from a cable or satellite subscriber wanting basic cable versus premium channels, on-demand, DVR, etc.?” “Great point,” says I. Very similar models. Our position says that a consumer should be able to access any legal website and application over the web that his/her bandwidth enables, i.e. basic cable/basic broadband - you get everything you pay for and any premium channels you don’t get because you don’t pay for. If you want a pay-per-view, for example, however, you could pay for that movie (or that web application) on a one-off basis. No different.
One of my colleagues who is more policy focused and/or technology focused could come along and tell me that I’m not understanding this fully and that’s fine, but the understanding that I have delineated above makes perfect sense to me from a cable/satellite subscription model as well as a broadband subscriber model. Further, if a content provider wants to make sure that you get their content even though you only pay for a “basic” bandwidth, then that content provider should be able to reach an agreement with the service provider to allow you to access the application that may take more bandwidth than you pay for in your basic broadband subscription.
Ultimately, it’s for a better consumer experience and that’s all we’re talking about.
Posted by John Earnhardt at 06:56PM PST
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