Apparently the Court of Appeals in DC has stated the FCC does not have the authority to enforce net neutrality amongst broadband service providers (source). While this debate has been going on for years, with the more liberal ideas plentiful across the net, has any one considered the potential effect this may have on gaming?
First, what is net neutrality?
In a nutshell, it's the concept that internet service providers should not tamper with internet traffic. The tampering is presumed to be in the form of tiered pricing, and exclusivity to a provider's own traffic over a competitors. This would mean that Cox may slow down any Qwest packets (of information) going through their part of the net in favor of keeping the Cox packets at high-speed.
Alright, but how can this effect gaming?
Perhaps this jumping the gun a little bit on this new ruling, but can't DLC (downloadable content) and online-gaming quality be at risk? DLC files available on Xbox Live, Playstation Network, and Wii Shop range from small files to larger files. Xbox Live and Playstation Network have a bigger selection of larger files considering the HD-content they are providing their users. If a major internet provider were to side with one of these services, it could limit the quality of the other. Meaning, Comcast could create a deal with Microsoft, enhancing the transfer times of the mentioned files, while limiting their relationship with Sony--thus sacrificing the stream of transfers on PSN.
Perhaps even massive-multiplayer online games could see a pinch in quality. As graphics improve, the content file size increase. Bandwidth needed to transfer content from hosts to users undoubtedly rises as well. With the increase of bandwidth and how deregulated, profit-seeking service providers view that increase can be a bad thing. Perhaps there may be additional fees to play MMO titles in the near future. You could buy a new MMO title, pay a monthly subscription to keep the developer hosting, and dish out an additional bandwidth charge to your ISP to be apart of their "gamer tier." Otherwise, you'll be a victim of network lag.
This is horrible news -- for gaming specifically and for the Internet in general. Free Press does a lot of great work on this issue, and I can only hope that they are able to help overturn this ruling!
I don't think you even have to wait until those types of deals to for the ruling to affect gaming. YouTube is often cited as a possible target, which would affect tutorial and gameplay videos, and streaming sites probably fall into that "high bandwith" category as well. Torrent sites will probably also be affected since they're often associated with illegal downloading. With illegal downloading I can see where Comcast is coming from, but it might affect legitimate uses like OCRemix's music as well.
Don't quote me on any of this though since I only have a very basic knowledge of net neutrality.
Bit torrent won't be targeted because of pirated works -- it'll be targeted because it's a bandwidth hog, plain and simple.
@Rob - Thanks for the clear up.
Thanks for this post Frank. I wasn't exactly sure what all this talk really meant.
@Alex: Yeah, I think the biggest issue is that few people really know what net neutrality means and won't know the implications until it's too late. It makes it easy to distort facts on both sides, and I'm worried when Obama or the FCC fights this you'll be getting the same government-takeover/ socialism rhetoric from the health care debate.
Chris, the FCC's position is the status quo. Currently, the Internet is neutral -- all data is treated equally. And as a result, we've seen tons of innovation and competition in this space. If that's "government-takeover/socialism," I'll have some more, please.
ISPs and telecommunication companies want to change that by building an Internet with price tiers and "sponsored" content. What do you think will happen when Comcast buys out NBC Universal (which they are trying to do)? In this model, Comcast can prefer NBC video traffic (meaning that it will run faster than other services, like YouTube), and thus, visitors will be more likely to go to NBC. This is just one example.
In fact, this model makes a success story like YouTube very unlikely -- how's a little Internet startup supposed to compete when its traffic is shoveled into the slow moving lanes while the established media conglomerates take the fast lanes exclusively?
Rob, I agree. Even Bitmob's a startup at the moment. I can't see how this can lead to anything good.
With any luck if some negative change comes out of this it will end up just pissing so many people off that we will end up doing huge protests and forcing it to be changed to be more fair.
@Rob - Damn, you paint a scary picture. Soooo, is it too late for us to try to make some sort of effort to not let this happen?
Alex, it's not too late, but this decision is a big setback. Free Press continues to do a lot of good work on this issue, so I'd recommend checking them out and supporting the organization if you're so inclined.
You can be more proactive, too -- get Congress involved. Write your state Senators or district Representative. Tell them why you're worried about what's going on, what's at stake for you, why this matters, etc.