Unleashing the Open Mobile Internet

Abstract

Today’s society increasingly relies on mobile technology while remaining limited to a handful of Internet service providers (ISPs). Policymakers continue to struggle with how to provide nondiscriminatory Internet access without undermining the financial incentives needed to encourage continued infrastructure development. Applications like streaming media or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing consume significantly more Internet resources than a traditional voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephone call. In response, Internet providers frequently degrade these bandwidth intensive applications to maximize profit. Many consider this practice discriminatory, believing that each user should be free to run the application of his choice on an equal basis with other users. With few exceptions, Internet users pay the same price to access the Internet regardless of which application they run. Without a mechanism to fairly price each application based on its consumption of Internet resources and value to the consumer, ISPs are incentivized to continue discriminating.