IDEAS Insights Net Neutrality & Development - lessons from Zambia | Page 3

The internet today is an essential part of the public infrastructure. Indeed, it is
increasingly treated as a utility by consumers in the way it is used. A utility is defined
as a large firm that owns and/or operates facilities used for generation, transmission or
distribution of crucial services to the general public, and the internet certainly shares
similar characteristics. Before the arrival of the internet, telephone networks were
conceived of as a utility. Indeed, the Obama Administration supported the idea of
reclassifying internet service as a public utility, in a similar fashion to our road or electric
networks.
Net neutrality is a principle intended to compel internet service providers to treat all
data as open and fair, without any discrimination. Conventional utility providers already
have to ensure the same quality services are provided regardless of their customer:
customers may not receive different quality water in the same city, just because they
belong to another service provider. If the internet is treated as a utility, service
providers will also lose the ability to segregate network traffic by either its source or
content. As the internet has also become a democratic concern around the world, its
treatment is gaining increasing political salience.
2018 is already a significant year regarding internet regulation, with authorities around
the world introducing new policies that have gained traction in the aftermath of the
Cambridge Analytica scandal. While the European Union has recently launched the
comprehensive GDPR data privacy regulation, there are still many legal uncertainties
that are giving rise to shortcomings in the everyday use of the internet, which continue
to generate controversy. This year has seen a dramatic turn in the United States to
abolish net neutrality, under the direction of Ajit Pai, Chairman of the United States
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). [1] Under Pai, net neutrality was repealed,
only to be rescinded again a few months later after the U.S. Senate voted to reverse
the FCC’s order of reconditioning 2015’s net neutrality laws. [2]
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In some developing countries, where there is an essential need for more general access
to the internet, rather than to specialised services such as entertainment content, a
restricted internet is becoming more common practice. Ensuring access to a sustainable
internet infrastructure still remains an economic and social imperative, but the
provision of a sufficient connection to the general population also continues to fall
short by a wide margin in several countries.
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