Net Neutrality and Education

I love free.

As an educator, free is good. And fortunately, in this day and age, it doesn't necessarily mean low-quality. The old adage "you get what you pay for" is not necessarily true anymore, thanks to the world's most popular equalizer: the Internet. From MIT's Open CourseWare to a host of free online textbooks to a wealth of open educational resources, there's a huge amount of stuff that teachers can use in their classrooms and online courses. These are not just the individual web pages thrown together by tech-savvy teachers during web 1.0 (although there are plenty of those as well) - these are professionally vetted sites with large customer bases.

However, all that may be in jeopardy.

The issue here is net neutrality, which has been getting a lot of attention the last several months. Here's the gist of it. Net neutrality is the idea that all data on the Internet should be treated equally, whether by governments or by internet service providers ("ISPs"); nor should there be any discrimination based on user, content, site, platform, device, and so forth. The issue has been taken up across the globe since the turn of the millennium, but has particularly heated up in the last 5-7 years. The European Union began looking at the legal issues of net neutrality in 2007, and proposed measures to ensure a minimum quality of service and an obligation of transparency within ISPs. In June 2010, Chile became the first country to legally enforce net neutrality by amending its laws governing telecommunications to prevent the aforementioned discriminations. In the United States, the FCC Open Internet Order of 2010 was enacted to make broadband ISPs adhere to the same standards as telephone networks, and to prevent "unjust or unreasonable discrimination" in what they charge, what they provide, or to whom they provide it.

The analogy that's going around is about building "fast lanes" on the internet, allowing certain content providers access to those lanes - possibly to the detriment of smaller content providers. Here's one problem - the internet is actually already set up that way. High volume content providers - Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook, just to name a few - often already have peering connections or content delivery servers within the structure of some major ISPs like Comcast or Verizon. This means that, in some ways, they're already getting preferential treatment because such connections make it easier for the ISP to provide the content requested by the end user. (Here's a great graphic representation of that setup, courtesy of Wired magazine.)

What needs to be governed by the FCC is not keeping the internet neutral, but rather keeping it competitive - enacting policies and laws that prevent ISPs from showing content favoritism through financial means. ISPs currently haven't been charging for any of these special connections for their content - having a more efficient network connection provided by peering or CDS's allows the ISPs to provide faster service to their customers. What we don't want to happen is for the ISPs to get to the point where they want to - or have to - start charging exorbitantly for such preferential treatment.

Several weeks ago, John Oliver epically ranted about this on Last Week Tonight:

As an individual and a consumer, this has some far-reaching impacts on you...but it also impacts us as educators. How does net neutrality affect schools?

Financial Considerations
In an era of increasing budget constraints and selectivity of resources, no longer having access to a wealth of free resources can be hugely impactful no matter what level you're at - school, district, even state.

• Free and open-sourced resources may not be able to afford the same access as high-priced competitors, thus limiting schools' access to those resources.
• The cost of the increased internet access could be passed on to the users - schools, parents, teachers, students.
• Schools may have to choose between lower-value resources provided by corporations able to pay for the increased access - for example, schools having to resort to YouTube for access to video content, instead of the educator-vetted TeacherTube.

Pedagogical Considerations

The influence of a non-neutral internet would also most likely be felt at home, by parents and students. Depending on how technology-forward a school or a district is, this could also be a major issue.

• Schools using learning management systems (LMS) to house homework and assignments online may find students' access reduced, depending on whether that particular LMS has access to higher- or lower-speed internet.
• Student access to internet at home may also affect their ability to complete homework assignments. If a particular resource has paid a particular ISP for increased service, those students who don't subscribe to that ISP may find themselves at a disadvantage - possibly furthering the digital divide educators already struggle against.

Technological Considerations

Schools and districts may also face some basic technological challenges.

• More and more educational organizations are moving more services into the cloud, to allow for increased time and range of access to their digital resources. If a particular cloud service isn't permitted access to the "fast lane" of the internet, that could significantly hamper that cloud's effectiveness - especially when you're talking about tens of thousands of users attempting to access it.
• Ironically, between the federal e-rate program and President Obama's ConnectED vision seeking to increase more robust broadband to schools, the FCC ruling on two-tiered internet access could simultaneously hamper that effort - if the FCC doesn't take educational requirements into consideration when making their policies.

What else do educators need to consider in the Net Neutrality debate? I'd be interested to hear in your comments below.

If you want to let the FCC know your thoughts on the matter, jump on over to their comments page at http://www.fcc.gov/comments and do so!

Posted in: internet, laws, politics