Imagine living without the Internet... Unless you don't have access to it, it is hard to believe you could do without it. Even cellulars get access nowadays. So far, the importance of infrastructure is obvious. But, is it neutral?

Neutrality

Internet is neutral. There is no filtering or censorship. Right? I seriously don't know. It seems open and neutral to me. But filtering and censorship is not the issue here. The question is: is the service in itself neutral?

Quality and Possibilities

The access services for Internet keep getting better all the time. In the Netherlands, the home of EduSense, it is possible for some households to get speeds of up to 120Mbps for a relatively modest fee, being it over fiber optics or copper. In urban areas, anyone can get 50Mbps. So, all seems well...

What few people realize is that the Internet, the medium most people use, is a so called 'best effort' network, meaning you can't get any guaranty in terms of up time, time to repair, access of services, you name it. None whatsoever. So when you think about cloud computing for your business over the Internet, think again. When 'something' gets broken, you can't blame anyone but yourself for relying on such a service. That doesn't mean that cloud computing is worthless, it is just a reminder that Internet is not the answer to everything. Salary paychecks and banking can easily be done over the Internet, but when it comes to on line ERP systems or even remote desktops, things can get very nasty.

There's something else going on with standard Internet access. When you buy or hire an Internet service, few people realize that they get two services for the price of one. They get a connectivity service to the provider, and they get Internet access from the provider. Because the provider 'owns' the connectivity service, they decide what services you can get on top of it.

Difficult to grasp? Think about roads. Say you want to buy stuff from a super market, but there is no road from your home to the supermarket. Would you allow the super market to construct a road right to your doorstep and then accept the conditions that you can only travel using the super markets vehicles, buy only their goods and services and will have to accept their choice for you, against their prices? Of course you wouldn't. If you have a road, you will want to use it as you see fit! But, that's exactly what's going on with today's Internet providers... you can select one, choose from their offerings and then you're stuck with it. You can't buy the cable from one company, use Internet access from another, TV and radio from yet another...

Some countries have legislated the so called 'last mile', the cable from the nearest border router to your home or business, forcing telecommunication companies to let other telco's use their cables and thus eliminating real monopolies. On paper that looks splendid. The reality is however in the fine print. Very few legislators know anything about the implementation of public accessible network. That leaves a lot of room for established telco's to prevent new competition from happening. So, when it comes to choice, there are still severe limitations to this model.