While the FCC is in the process of determining what sort of regulation should be applied to the telecommunications industry,Level 3 drops a bombshell. Will these additional concerns further complicate the FCC’s decision making on Net neutrality argument?
A recent post on the company’s blog, written by Level 3’s vice president of Content and Media, Mark Taylor, claims that six major ISPs, five of them in the United States and one in Europe, have intentionally restricted traffic for more than a year.
The dispute revolves around “peering” agreements, contracts which stipulate the terms of data exchanged between backbone providers like Level 3 and Internet Service Providers which sell services to consumers. These agreements generally don’t involve an exchange of funds even when one party might be burdened a bit more than another. Leaving money out of the arrangement ensures that data can travel across the globe without prejudice, a concept that’s fundamental to the Internet.
Timing couldn’t be better
Level 3’s blog post comes just a few days after Netflix signed yet another expensive peering agreement with Verizon so that it could boost performance. As we saw in April, Netflix was able to increase the average speed of its subscribers’ streams by paying off Comcast. According to Level 3, the ISPs want these agreements to become even more common.
By degrading the quality of Internet services, Level 3 says that the ISPs are looking to receive additional money from Tier 1 providers. However, Level 3 is refusing to pay those fees, meaning that consumers are the ones who will ultimately lose out.
“Our policy is to refuse to pay arbitrary charges to add interconnection capacity,” Taylor said.
Rather than this being a case of neither company wanting to pay for an increase in interconnection capacity, Level 3 claims that the ISPs are intentionally limiting that capacity. The deal between Netflix and Comcast seems to be a perfect example of this, as once the peering agreement was signed, Netflix speeds immediately improved.
Should changes be made?
The Federal Communications Commission is in the process of determining what sort of regulation should be applied to the telecommunications industry. With additional concerns being brought to the table by Level 3, there are new dynamics that the FCC must consider. However, members of the industry argue that significant regulation should not be applied.
Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told us that since the slowing down of the Internet affects consumers, the FCC may have a role to play, but it would likely prefer to have the parties settle the dispute by themselves.
“Though the throttling of network performance is aimed at content providers, consumers are also being injured by these activities, which could spark government interest or FCC intervention.” King said.
Actual intervention by the FCC is not likely according to King, but it is possible that outrage among consumers could become a force for change.
“If that happens, all bets are off and we could see what amounts to a sea change in the FCC’s attitude toward Net neutrality,” King said.
