Navigating net neutrality analogies

[Commentary] In the net neutrality debate, commentators such as Susan Crawford have repeatedly called for a “public option for Internet access because Internet access is just like electricity or a road grid.” The argument typically goes along the lines that the Internet is simply a utility, like roads or electricity, so at the very least should be regulated in the same manner as these networks. Alternatively, in some utopian world, they should be owned and operated by governments -- local, state or municipal -- to ensure that they are operated in the ‘public good’.

At some point, the issue of needing only one wire to every house is brought up as some sort of justification for this stance. They also argue that, because consumers have paid a (fixed -- i.e. ‘all you can eat’) fee to connect to the network, they are entitled to the uninhibited right to consume as much content as they wish without either themselves or the providers of the content they consume being billed any further. But are the analogies really as simple and useful as these commentators imply?

Analogies comparing the Internet to electricity and roads illustrate some of the implications for regulating the Internet. But it is neither simple to consider the Internet in the same way as other utilities, nor axiomatic to invoke incomplete similarities in calls for changes to regulation or ownership. To do so denies the Internet’s unique characteristics and vastly different potential. The Internet IS different and needs to be considered on its own merits where regulation is concerned

[Howell is general manager for the New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation and a faculty member of Victoria Business School]