So you decide one day you’d like to use this fancy doodad called the Internet, and you go down to your big box store and bring home the shiny new computer, and modem, and set it up on your desk. With bated breath, you plug it in, type in a World Wide Web address, and wait for the magic to happen.

Fact is, it won’t happen at that point unless you have built your own Internet server, an expensive and not-user-friendly proposition. Instead, most of us sign up with one of the thousands of Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the country, and that ISP will assign your computer an Internet Protocol (IP) Address, so that when you send queries, email, etc., out into the ether, the Internet knows where to route it back to you. Some examples of ISPs you may know are America Online, Earthlink, PeoplePC, and many other smaller, more regional phone and cable companies.

The ISPs get these addresses originally from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which oversees the Internet on a global scale, coordinating IP numbers, managing Internet protocol numbering systems as well as the Domain Name Systems. The IANA is operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is an international non-profit that helps coordinate this huge body of information and responsibility.

Once ICANN sells a block of IP addresses to the ISP, then the ISP goes to work to assign the IP addresses to their main line, or trunk line, servers. Behind the trunk line servers they create their own DNS routing servers, to help split up the addresses into more addresses than they bought. They then break their service into smaller networks with their own IP addresses through cable, broadband, DSL, or dial-up.

When you sign up with an ISP, what you’re paying for is a connection to one of their DNS servers and the IP address that’s assigned to your individual location, as well as a small amount of bandwidth, typically five megs or less. (Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred over a set period of time; the more bandwidth you use, it’s like adding lanes to a highway—you can serve much more traffic at the same speed.)

Think you’re ready? Choose your ISP, get your surfing gear on, and prepare for a wild ride on the Internet. As it stands today, the next thing you do is get wet. But there is a lot of ongoing discussion about the idea of Net neutrality, and what might happen in the near future that would make your surfing trip come up short real fast.

What is Net neutrality? Here’s how Google defines it: "Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days... Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online."
A more graphic demonstration was given by “I’m a PC” man John Hodgman on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in July of 2006.

The question arises as to how the ISPs can consider changes in the current structure of the system, which from the user’s point of view, seems to be working fine. After all, most of these ISPs are phone and cable companies, like the two largest, AT&T and Verizon, that already have the phone/cable lines in place—it’s not like they have additional expense in running service to your individual location.

And after all, what gives the ISPs the right to change the rules in mid-stream? They don’t own the Internet. They didn’t buy the bandwidth when they bought in—only the IP addresses. As Bruce Sterling says in his Short History of the Internet, THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, February 1993:

The Internet is a rare example of a true, modern, functional anarchy. There is no "Internet Inc." There are no official censors, no bosses, no board of directors, no stockholders. In principle, any node can speak as a peer to any other node, as long as it obeys the rules of the TCP/IP protocols, which are strictly technical, not social or political…The Internet is also a bargain. The Internet as a whole, unlike the phone system, doesn't charge for long-distance service. And unlike most commercial computer networks, it doesn't charge for access time, either. In fact the "Internet" itself, which doesn't even officially exist as an entity, never "charges" for anything. Each group of people accessing the Internet is responsible for their own machine and their own section of line.

There are two potential avenues of harm for the average residential user if we lose Net neutrality. The first is a clearly commercial tier system where companies could buy up the bandwidth offered by an ISP for business use. So, for example, all businesses would get priority service, by virtue of the fact they paid a premium to access the fastest servers. Residential users would be relegated to a lower tier, if they could gain access at all.

Continuing our highway metaphor from above, this would be like a trip driving from Cleveland to Chicago. The business class, having paid their premium, would be allowed to use Interstate 90. They could make the trip in five and a half hours, with multiple lanes and Interstate speeds available to them, as well as preplanned rest areas, access to Highway Patrol, etc..

The residential users, however, would not be allowed to drive on the Interstate, so they would likely have to take Route 20 through every small town and hamburg from Cleveland to the Windy City. It could easily take eight hours or more to make the exact same trip, simply because you weren’t a commercial customer.

More insidious, perhaps, is the second possibility, where a particular business could buy up bandwidth and then exclude other web businesses or make it so difficult to reach them that consumers will give in and use that business’s products/sites.

For example, if ask.com bought the bandwidth that included your ISP, it’s possible they could manipulate any search inquiry you made to route through ask.com, even if your preferred search engine was dogpile.com, Google or Yahoo. Even if you were not totally blocked from alternate search engines, they could slow the requests to certain addresses, making theirs so much faster that it is inevitable you would turn to them. They could limit email accounts or services from your ISP, or hours you could use them. They could sell you different access software that was more difficult to use than their preferred choice.

In our highway metaphor, let’s imagine that our ISP had sold the freeway to Chevrolet. Chevrolet then decrees that only Chevrolet drivers can use that road. So if you drive a Ford or Toyota, you are out of luck and MUST buy a Chevy in order to receive preferential service. Or, if you somehow manage to get your Honda onto the Chevy road, the Honda is transformed into a Chevy and you lose the Honda altogether.

Perhaps they don’t want to be seen as heartless and monopolistic, so instead of keeping you from using the road unless you have a Chevy, the company says fine, you can drive any make of car on this highway, but we will put a governor on your engine so you can only go three mph. They haven’t denied you service—but haven’t they made it intolerable?

Does this sound crazy or impossible? It’s not, according to a list at Save The Internet. Companies have randomly censored, blocked and banned information in text messages, emails and webcasts to serve their own interests, and continue to do so. The site prints quotes from several ISP gatekeepers who come right out and say that they intend to make changes based on profit. The list of who will be affected goes right down to the grandmothers and grandfathers who wait each week for your pictures of your children on your blog or in your email.

It behooves each of us who values the free access we have to the Internet to get educated on this subject. Over the last several years, broad pieces of legislation such as the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006 have been introduced to protect the neutrality of the system, but none have yet been passed. The head of the Federal Communications Commission has pledged as recently as February 25, 2008, that he is "ready, willing and able" to stop broadband providers that unreasonably interfere with subscribers' access to Internet content.  The topic is a hot one, and action is likely to come sometime soon.

The Ninja sums it up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibStAFDqw_Y. If you know what you want, make sure you can still have access to it.