Net Neutrality Bad for Google, Good for AT&T?

The last 48 hours have born witness to the latest flareup over net neutrality, only this time things were a little different.

Instead of a multi-billion dollar ISP being accused of unduly interfering with Internet traffic, the brouhaha stemmed from the company that's often seen as net neutrality's biggest supporter: Google.

It started with this Wall Street Journal article that suggested yesterday that Google wants to establish its own fast lane on with network operators.

Before the article even hit print on Monday its implications sparked a maelstrom of criticism, with a wide range of bloggers condemning Google for seemingly going over to the dark side. And as a sign of just how much the speed of information dissemination has increased, by Sunday evening Google's top lobbyist Rick Whitt had already responded on their policy blog, strongly arguing that this article was the result of shoddy journalism and a lack of understanding of the issues, and that Google hadn't changed its position in any way.

Serendipitously, I had already scheduled my first sit-down meeting with Rick for yesterday. While my primary intent was simply having a chance to start getting to know each other and opening a collaborative dialog, it provided the perfect opportunity to get the real scoop on Google's perspectives on net neutrality. And I came away with three intriguing thoughts:

1. The net neutrality debate is bad for Google.
With many major corporations pulling back their public support of net neutrality, Google's one of the last ones left and they're the one most identified with this issue. The challenge with that is it makes it politically difficult for Google to make any concessions towards reconciliation with the carriers. This reality is exemplified in the reaction to the WSJ's story, where many pummeled Google for being spineless and nothing more than a profit-driven corporation. So it's not that net neutrality the concept is bad for Google, but it seems to me like net neutrality the debate has put them in the uncomfortable position of being tied to an ideology with a group of ardent supporters, some of whom don't have patience for nuance when it comes to crafting policies related to this matter.

2. The net neutrality debate is bad for AT&T.
This was an especially interesting observation Rick made: ISPs would be better off having clear net neutrality regulations in place so they can know what the rules are rather than the current situation of regulatory muddiness. This gets back precisely to the issues brought up in my last VidChat with Michael Johnston of Jackson Energy Authority, where he lamented the FCC's Comcast/BitTorrent ruling as not giving enough details on the rules of what is and is not allowed, and as a result forcing JEA to not offer a new 50Mbps down service lest they fall afoul of these undefined rules. No regulation means no one knows what's right or wrong, but Rick argued and I generally agree with him that if we could just lay down some more specifics that network operators would be freed from worrying over uncertainty and could instead focus all of their attention at making the most out of their networks.

3. The net neutrality debate has a light at the end of the tunnel.
What I was most excited about is that Rick supported the distinction I've been trying to make for a while between the concepts of Internet and network neutrality, and that Google supports the rights of broadband providers to create next-gen services on the portion of their pipes not devoted to broadband so long as they agree not to interfere with the traffic going through the portion allocated to broadband. While his positions certainly had more nuance than that and he strongly suggested that there are a lot of specifics to work out, I can't help but feel optimistic that on the core underlying issue of net neutrality I've now had both Google and AT&T generally agree. And like Rick said at the National Broadband Strategy Call to Action, now that we're starting to agree on the end we can begin to have a more robust, respectful discussion of the means by which we can achieve them.

A final thought to share on this matter for now is that I can't help but think that this WSJ/Google brouhaha stems directly from the general lack of definition over what net neutrality actually means. Ideology has in large part been driving the debate, and while many of the people on both sides of the issue here in DC are moving past that we've still got an energized base of supporters for whom net neutrality equals free speech and another front in the war between citizens and corporations.

What I'm hopeful though is that in talking with the major players in this debate I'm increasingly finding more and more sentiment that a solution can be found, that the two sides aren't as diametrically opposed as they used to be, and that because of this we have the opportunity to see a pragmatic solution based in reality come together in the near future that can move us past these unproductive ideological shouting matches (for which both sides are guilty).

I'm going to be putting together a list of my predictions for broadband in '09 to be posted later this week, but for now I'd like to add my first one: by the end of '09 the net neutrality debate will have produced a new regulatory solution that all sides can get behind in order to protect the openness of the Internet as well as the rights of network operators.