A quick peek at the net neutrality repeal

We all have our favourite websites and apps which are essential to our work (and daily scrolling through social media). But imagine your Twitter feed, weekly Peaky Blinders catch-up or Amazon checkouts were slower to load than their less-convenient competitors, or even blocked?

Well, thanks to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), this could happen. On 14 December 2017, the FCC repealed the ‘Open Internet Order’, a regulation governing so-called ‘net neutrality’.

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality basically considers the internet as something that benefits humanity as a whole and cannot give some people an advantage over others. In a country where net neutrality is protected, the internet is a road with no fast lane or slow lane; everyone can access the same content at the same pace, assuming they have the same line speed their competing ISPs provide.

In a country where net neutrality is not protected, the ISP can slow or block content according to their preferences, leaving them with the power to decide if, for example, Peaky Blinders should stream faster on Netflix than on BBC iPlayer. Similarly, the ISP can decide if Peaky Blinders should stream faster than Suits on Netflix. But now that a significant portion of our lives is engaged with online content, streaming services are only one straw to grasp for.

What does the repeal of net neutrality bill mean for agencies?

In the US, the repeal of the net neutrality regulations runs up serious implications for businesses, consumers and brands. The prospect of higher costs for advertising, data and broadband packages can have knock-on effects in other areas of expense.

In 2016, advertising agencies collectively spent over US$30 billion. Paid prioritisation, the technically-savvy term for “you pay, you win”, could increase costs for agencies already strapped onto tight budgets. The argument goes: if a company like Facebook pays a premium to an ISP like Verizon, Facebook's websites, apps, data and content are more easily accessible to consumers who are Verizon customers.

However, if a brand’s adverts or promotional content is slow to load or stream, or is blocked entirely, because of tight budgets, this could affect the metrics we rely on so dearly for reporting and justifying our employment. If users won’t take the time to wait for an ad to load, agencies might have to spend more on each ad or suffer the metric blues.

Startups and small-to-medium sized businesses similarly could face high overheads to enter the marketplace.

How does this affect the rest of the world?

In the UK, net neutrality is secured under EU law, enforcing Open Internet Access. Some premium social and streaming packages can be purchased from certain ISPs, but no throttling is permitted.

Fortunately, the UK government recently took extra measures to ensure high-speed, open access internet remained available to all Brits, with a 10Mbps goal for all UK connections to be achieved by 2020.

For the time being, there’s not much to worry about. The repeal, like any regulatory move, will work itself out in commissionary panels and boardrooms, and campaigners are sleeping open-eyed to ensure our daily social media scrolling is uninhibited.