Technology is outsmarting network neutrality

[Commentary] Network neutrality is having a Gilda Radner moment. After years of debate, protests, name calling, and the like, technology is leaving net neutrality behind. Here are at least three indicators that technology is outsmarting net neutrality:

1. 5G will use network slicing, which enables multiple virtual networks on a common physical infrastructure. Each slice can be customized for specific applications, services, customers, etc. Network slicing means the end of treating all internet traffic the same — if that ever really happened — which was supposed be a core principle of net neutrality. 5G explicitly customizes the network to different types of traffic.
2. Netflix and other large edge providers are bypassing the internet. More specifically, they are building or leasing their own networks designed to their specific needs and leaving the public internet — the system of networks that only promise best efforts to deliver content — to their lesser rivals.
3. Mobile internet is leaving wireline internet in its dust in numbers of users and traffic. Mobile internet increasingly bypasses the World Wide Web because about 90% of customers’ mobile time is spent in apps, not the web. Apps are gatekeepers that direct customers only to resources that the app makers choose.

[Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business. He served on the Trump FCC Transition Team.]