Net neutrality: Discrimination, competition, and innovation in the UK and US

Journal article

We analyze UK and US experiences as they relate to two central net neutrality questions: (1) whether competition serves as a deterrent to the discriminatory treatment of Internet traffic, and (2) whether discrimination creates barriers to application development and innovation. Relying on consumer switching behavior to provide more comprehensive competitive discipline was insufficient for a variety of reasons, including the presence of switching costs. The process of correcting errors in the technology used for application-specific management revealed that such management creates costs for application developers and innovators regardless of whether their products are targeted for traffic management or not.

Authors: Cooper, A; Brown, I

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery
• Journal: ACM Transactions on Internet Technology
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 1
• Article number: 2
• Publication date: 2015-01-01
• Edition: Accepted Manuscript
• DOI: 10.1145/2700055
• EISSN: 1557-6051
• ISSN: 1533-5399
• Language: English
• Keywords: markets; regulation; network management; packet-switching networks
• Subjects: Socio-legal studies; Shaping the Internet; Presidential; Law and the internet; Innovation, productivity and growth; Media and Public Policy; Commerce, communications, transport; Congressional; Industrial economics