* A Democratic victory in November could introduce IP networks to government regulation
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A Democratic victory in November could introduce IP networks to government regulation by bringing ‘Net Neutrality and other issues back to the front burner.
Democratic control of Congress, possible next year due to unease over the Iraq War and a Republican sex scandal, would be “negative” for the RBOCs by “bringing the government regulation to the IP networks for the first time” that would discourage investment and inhibit profitability, states investment firm UBS Warburg in a research report issued last week.
“If Democrats control Congress, the ‘’Net neutrality’ issue will likely come to the fore, especially in the Senate,” UBS Warburg states in the report. “They would likely make a concerted effort to pass strict ‘’Net neutrality’ legislation that prevents the Bells from fully monetizing their large investments in fiber networks.”
Strict ‘Net Neutrality essentially requires the carriers to treat all packets equally, preventing them from offering tiered levels of service to online content and applications providers, the UBS Warburg report states. This would also prevent them from providing additional high-value services such as security, advanced streaming, and multicasting, the firm claims.
“It may also require them to interconnect their IP networks on a ‘nondiscriminatory’ basis, which would mean a complete re-working of the current peering system while bringing the government regulation to the IP networks for the first time,” the firm’s report states.
A spokesman for the It’s Our Net Coalition, a proponent of ‘Net Neutrality, would not make a prediction on what might happen if the Democrats swept Congress. But he says the UBS Warburg report “mischaracterizes” the issue of ‘Net Neutrality with the statement that all packets be treated equally.
“Treating VoIP traffic differently from other traffic is fine as long as all VoIP traffic is treated equally,” the coalition spokesman says.
“You can’t differentiate traffic based on the source (of that traffic) or ownership of data,” he adds. “Company A has deep pockets and gets prioritized while the little start-up guy does not. We want to avoid the situation where big providers are treating traffic differently based on who’s paid them more. We want to preserve the concept of nondiscrimination, which has always made the Internet the foundation for economic growth.”
