If you’re a small business owner in San Diego, chances are high that you use the internet regularly. Your business may depend on high speed internet for a number of functions, including advertising, email communication with clients, or remote backups of your data. You might not know it, but net neutrality has helped your business grow. It’s vital to continue that tradition.
What is net neutrality? A simple definition is that all data on the internet is given equal treatment. This means that your data is no more or less important than anyone else’s data. An ISP, or Internet Service Provider, must give traffic for everyone the same access and priority. It allows for small businesses to compete on an even playing field with large corporations. Large companies can’t pay extra cash to get higher priority access and thereby squash smaller companies. In short, net neutrality gives you the best possible chance to compete in the online marketplace.
Though the modern internet is more than 20 years old, the term Net Neutrality has been around for less than a decade. It was originally coined by Tim Wu, a Columbia law professor. Since his paper, “Net Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination” was published in 2005, there have been several cases of ISP’s slowing or blocking certain kinds of traffic they deem bandwidth heavy. Sometimes the ISP’s even go after other high profile brands.
A recent example is the battle between Netflix and Verizon. Verizon, stating that Netflix services were using too much bandwidth, started throttling all Netflix traffic. Throughout several months, Verizon customers suffered terribly slow and disrupted video. In time, Netflix was forced to buckle and they paid an undisclosed amount to Verizon. A large corporation essentially forced a smaller company to pay a premium for equal service, and in the end consumers lost. Maybe your business doesn’t deal in online video, but this example is a stark reminder of why net neutrality is important to all of us.
How can this affect your business, exactly? To start, it can raise the fees you pay for your internet service. Removing net neutrality will give ISP’s the ability to create a tiered internet, charging different rates for different levels of connectivity. Your small business may not be able to afford the same level of tiered service as a larger competitor, automatically putting you at a disadvantage.
It can also reduce marketing for your business. If you’re forced to pay higher rates for using more bandwidth, you might choose to forego valuable marketing solutions, such as online videos. Or maybe you’ve already invested time and money into a series of how to videos on YouTube. Loss of net neutrality could affect your customer’s ability to see those videos and learn about your business.
The FCC is scheduled to vote on net neutrality sometime in 2015. The new rules propose to treat ISP’s as common carriers, similar to phone companies. The comment period for this vote has been extended, and we encourage you to take part. A strong wave of support will remind the FCC that small businesses are valuable to the economy. Don’t let the growth of smaller companies get stifled under the heavy hand of larger ISP’s who demand more money for providing the same services.
Send your story to the FCC and remind them that equal access matters.
