A HUGE Win for Gamers
The Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit today struck down the FCC’s attempt to enshrine ‘net neutrality’ principles in law. Net neutrality is like much nanny state policy – it seems like a great idea on the surface, but when you dive in, it’s a giant mess. Today’s decision is a big win for online gamers.
Net neutrality, in theory, simply means that no Internet traffic may be given preference over another. ISPS were barred from, for instance, prioritizing video traffic over email creating what is referred to as “a dumb pipe”. Further, the laws prevented any content provider – say Netflix or Blizzard – from purchasing better delivery from the ISPs.
Again, this sounds perfectly fine assuming you know ABSOLUTELY nothing about the way networks manage traffic. The problem for gamers in particular is their susceptibility to the effects of jitter and latency. Every gamer understands the concept of lag. If you have ever played an online game you will have noticed the effects of lag as your opponents movements appear choppy or halted. They’ll move sporadically around the screen or you will freeze up momentarily (and likely die).
Net neutrality exacerbates this problem by prohibiting ISPs from prioritizing video game traffic and making it compete with spam, YouPorn, Facebook posts. or any of myriad other sources of noise on the wire. The game for which you need a high-qulity, stable connection is forced to duke it out with traffic that has no such requirement. Delaying that incoming email for a split second has no impact on the email. But delaying a game bit can mean the difference between a frag and death by stupid.
For gamers, this news could not possibly be better.
Now proponents of net neutrality would argue that this opens the door for ISPs to charge content providers a premium for better service. What will happen, they argue, if EA pays up to guarantee Battlefield players a decent ride, but Activision shorts Call of Duty? Or what happens if Xbox inks a deal to prioritize its traffic, but Sony doesn’t give similar love to the PlayStation fans?
That’s unlikely to happen. Even if it did, game title success depends on happy players. It would not be long before such errors were corrected to keep up with gamer satisfaction.
Share Tags
I’m afraid the “death of net neutrality” is a bit premature, unfortunately.
Likely. Jon Henke and I were discussing today whether they appeal, try to go back for more targeted regulation, push for Title II, concede defeat, or some other previously undisclosed option. But it’s likely to drag on for a while.
So, what happens to Web start-ups who happen to use bandwidth? This is a position that looks more like a barrier to entry to me.
Everything uses bandwidth. There’s no barrier.
Net neutrality ruling is a huge win for gamers http://t.co/OBdgOVSIfc via @JonHenke
[…] Many people feel otherwise. I already mentioned the anti-corporate doomsayers; now, from the anti-regulatory side, here’s Michael Turk: […]
Yes, but now telecom providers, who have a legally-guaranteed monopoly on the provision of the last mile can go back to those start-ups and say something like, “We know you’ve paid for Internet service for your product but we think you’re using too much bandwidth. You now need to pay us additional fees or we will slow packets to and from your service to the point where your service becomes unusable or we will block access to your service entirely.”
I think that the providers of last mile services need to really address these concerns and to engage in an active discussion with the public. If they weren’t the holders of legally-protected monopolies, I would not be quite so exercised about it.
Predatory and anti-competitive practices have nothing to do with technology. If that’s the fear, then the FTC needs to fulfill its mission. That’s like saying somebody might commit mail fraud, so we will regulate FedEx so they can’t offer guaranteed delivery.
There is no legal monopoly. Anybody who wants to compete can get a franchise. The cost to compete is massive, so few tackle it. That’s not the same as a legally protected monopoly – like ownership of the poles telecom companies attach to, for instance.
[…] The article is sort of the counterpoint to my post last week cheering the court’s decision. […]