Net Neutrality: A Primer for Living with the Change

by Cal Braunstein

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ISPs have allowed and charged vendors like Netflix for “preferential” access by installing systems near or on ISP backbones.

Alternatively, content delivery networks (CDNs) perform exactly this function without the need for any ISP installation. Such concerns and behaviors are primarily important only to those organizations distribution massive amounts of video, and frankly, consolidation and new-market tactics have flourished both before and after legislation.

Anti-competitive nature here is governed by the FTC.

ISP fees are tiered based on speed and/or total consumption. This is nothing new and this approach is only the concern for those disseminating and/or consuming massive quantities of video.

The destruction of the typical, high-cost cable programming services has been underway for nearly a decade and, while ISPs that also operate cable programming services may use net neutrality’s reversal to reverse declines, will find such moves stymied, again, by the FTC.

Content provider investment is everywhere despite concerns about power players. Apple, T-Mobile, and Disney are all investing heavily to compete with Netflix, Amazon, and Google.

In truth, video content delivery may not be an easy place for bootstrapped startups to compete now that net neutrality will be reversed given the massive investments and market power possessed by the heavyweights that are radically increasing their investments.

However, significant capital and multi-vendor relationships have long been an elemental construct of success in this space. But those are also basic requirements of a majority of complex, mature businesses. And, at the risk of repeating, monopolistic practices are still governed by the FTC in the same manner they’ve always been.

In part two we’ll cover Industry Stalwarts for Net Neutrality.

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