INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION 4 (2011) 135–136 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijcip The elusive goal of net neutrality Pramode Verma Telecommunications Engineering Program, University of Oklahoma – Tulsa, Schusterman Center, 4502 E. 41st Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74135, USA ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 10 December 2010 Accepted 15 July 2011 Published online 14 September 2011 “Net neutrality” is a relatively recent addition to the rich lexicon of telecommunications professionals. It was conceptualized after the advent of broadband access. In the earlier narrowband world, dial-up networking was the only access medium available to consumers. The telecommunications service provider was the de facto access provider. The provider had no control over the circuit that could be selected on the trunk side of the local switch. Also, it had no control over the availability and quality of a trunk, except (in the grossest sense) by way of the grade of service, a macro-level performance parameter associated with circuit- switched networks, that was applicable to all users on a non- discriminatory basis. The telecommunications service provider could not control the access of an individual user to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or to a site. The latter was a matter between the user and the ISP. The number of ISPs and the perception of competition among them ensured that users were not discriminated against. The technology of access, based on circuit switching, ensured that once accessed, a circuit would maintain its quality and the access provider had no ability to control the speed, latency or, indeed, any other performance parameter on a discriminatory basis during the session. Alas, this simple model, which is both universal and non-discriminatory, has been turned upside down by the implementation of broadband access. Broadband access has enhanced the speed of communications by orders of magnitude and has also changed the underlying technology E-mail address: pverma@ou.edu. from circuit switching to packet switching. These changes are irreversible and they are here to stay. Meanwhile, the speed of communications will likely increase at the pace predicted by Moore’s Law. The new world of broadband access has four major stakeholders: (i) the broadband access provider, (ii) the Internet service provider, (iii) the content provider, and (iv) the user. Any of these stakeholders, except the user, can have multiple avatars. For example, the broadband access provider could also be the Internet service provider, which could also own the content. Note that the core Internet service provider is not included among the stakeholders because Internet service is offered through a consortium of global telecommunications companies. There is little opportunity to discriminate against specific users in the core network. Since resources in this global Internet are shared by a vast number of users, any costs incurred in increasing network capacity is also shared, which easily justifies the value received against the attendant costs. One way to provide a truly neutral net is to separate the four stakeholders by erecting Chinese Walls between them. Thus, the broadband access provider could no longer be the ISP; and the ISP also could not serve as the content provider. Such separation is feasible, but it would be costly to implement. Moreover, it would degrade performance at the user level. The reason is that wherever one administrative domain formally interfaces another – the “D-mark point” in telecommunications parlance – there is usually a termination of one protocol accompanied by the generation of a new 1874-5482/$ - see front matter c ⃝ 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijcip.2011.09.001