Long the regional leader in telecommunications technology, Chile has now grown to be a world leader when it comes to the Internet, becoming the first country to safeguard the principle of net neutrality in law.
In a near-unanimous vote (100 for, 0 against, with 1 abstention), the Chilean Board of the Chamber of Deputies recently introduced a set of new provisions to the country's existing General Telecommunications Law, foremost among which was the prohibition on ISPs to “anyway interfere with, to discriminate or to obstruct content, applications or services, except for action destined to guarantee the privacy of the users, the protection against viruses and the security of the network…”
The new law also forces ISPs to “guarantee access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network and to offer a service that does not distinguish content, applications or services, based on their origin or ownership. It also prohibits activities that restrict users' freedom to use the content or services unless at the specific request of users.”
Other wording compels ISPs to be more transparent regarding contracts, especially the maximum and average speeds users can expect. ISPs also will have to differentiate between international and national connections and their respective levels of quality.
Lastly, the new law obliges ISPs to provide users with parental control services, guarantee user privacy, protect against viruses, and ensure network security. (The full details of the bill can be seen here.)
Incumbent Minister of Transport and Telecommunications Felipe Morande said the government supports the measures: “It’s an important project, as it makes clear the provision of Internet services and allows users are better served, because they will know the type of service they are buying.”
He went on to set out the goal to expand broadband coverage to 100 percent of the country within the next eight years.
Ever since we visited the country to film an episode of Web Wide World, I have been following events in Chile with great interest.
It was obvious when we were there that the then government had grasped the significance of the Internet with both hands, developing and deploying various e-government and universal access projects with great success.
But the big question, following the elections at the end of 2009, was whether or not the first center-right presidency for 20 years would continue the good work of the previous center-left administration.
And to all intents and purposes it seems it has.
While the bill regarding net neutrality still needs presidential ratification (an apparent formality), it seems that Chile has achieved a landmark that has clearly proved too problematic for the more Internet-developed countries, such as the US and the UK, where the vested interests of the ISPs and the likes of the music industry appear to have greater sway.
Indeed, it has been the case for several years now that when it comes to the fundamentals of the Internet, whether in government, access, or usage, the lead is often to be found away from the well connected early adopters.
In fact, with the Western obsession with meaningless stock-market values, we are rapidly becoming second- if not third-tier players in the future development of one of the most important and influential technologies the world has ever seen.
— James Lambie is the Producer/Director of the online documentary series "Web Wide World" on Internet Evolution.
I'm a supporter of Net Neutrality but I'm worried that countries lead into allowing it without fully understanding the consequences of their actions. I'm pretty sure they don't (them or anyone for that matter).
IMHO, net neutrality isn't 100% good. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
It has become a kind of knee-jerk response to think that when some kind of large scale social regulation needs implementation that we must turn to formal authority figures. For many reasons this isn't always the case.
Many large scale determinants of behavior are cultural rather than governmental.
We often forget about them because the "reward" and "punishment" associated becomes naturalized into our everyday expectations in life in general. For instance, there are no laws dictating that one ought to bring some kind of gift when invited to a dinner party, for instance. This kind of "reciprocity" is a carry over from the cultural norms that regulated pre-civilization societies.
No one enforces such norms, but conforming to these norms benefits the individual and the group as a whole. Often, however, "pre-civilization'"cultural norms work so well because there is no anonymity. With the Internet, there is arguably less sense of accountability for one's actions since one may hide, shape shift from network to network, and never really owe up to one's actions.
That being said, we do still see a budding and evolving "Internet ethic", suggesting that we are interested, even when acting as a small, chameleon-like fish in a giant ocean, in behaving in certain ways online, and not in others. Never before has there been a "global culture" as there is today, nor has there been a "global marketplace". Perhaps a good place to start in terms of 'doing something new' (rather than defaulting to government) is in behavioral science.
We need to learn more about how individual behavior changes in the context of acting in a very large group. Most social-psychological research done to date aims to explain behavior in one culture. This kind of insight just isn't suitable in giving indication of human behavior in the giant context that is the Internet.
Ethical behavior is very much dictated by degree of social anonymity. When it comes to Internet ethics, not only can we hide in the large group, we can change our appearance. No previous social circumstance in human history is of this character. Why would we think that we have an understanding of it, or that we could manage it?
In social science (i.e. social stats), it is well understood that much social and psychological behavior changes as 'n', the number of people in a group, changes. Because in life, thankfully, there are outliers and much variety, studies including more people are better predictors of behavior.
How do you predict and understand behavior online, which will include one day, most of humanity? You do large studies. You do new research. Google knows this. Thats why they keep shoveling in as much information as they can get their hands on from as many people as they can find. You can't do a study of a few people's behavior online and surmise an effective marketing plan. Nor can you apply marketing insight from the pre-Internet era.
The Internet changed and continues to change us more than I think most people are willing to admit. Those on the ball trying to understand these changes have and will continue to have an advantage in many realms, especially marketing.
So how does this apply to "net neutrality"? Well, I suggest we could study Internet ethics with comparable rigor that we study Internet consumer behavior. Relevant questions would contain, "What are 'Internet ethics'? How do they change? How do 'movements' in Internet ethics develop? When will people comply? When will they not? And given all this, what should be our Internet ethics? (what 'rules' would benefit all people the most?)"
If we could have a better understanding of how humans behave in the context of the Internet, we might be able to piece together new Internet ethics, enforced socially (via the policies of influential companies perhaps) rather than governmentally, that could achieve larger goals and visions that we have for the Internet, like, "net neutrality". Sure, at first, it might seem easier to pass the job off to the government, who would, likely, spin the rules to their benefit.
Beyond that potential disaster, I don't think this is the right role for government, nor do I think it would be most effectively implemented by this route. As an avid Libertarian I cannot and will not support government-instituted Internet regulations, rules, and statutory "laws" (such as the latest ACTA draft.)
So, the bottom line, is I think we jump the gun when we pass off "net neutrality" regulation to government as if it were just any other law to be enforced. The issue requires new ideas, new research, a better understanding of human behavior in the Internet environment, etc.
There is much yet to be discovered here, but I am confident we will find that a lot of the neutrality interests we have can and will be best regulated without strict and formal law.
The spirit and power of the Internet is at stake in allowing too much government involvement through central planning, so lets at least try and find a way to avoid such a future and do some more thinking and researching first... and let's keep an open mind! I am willing to bet that the Internet is of a greater consequence to human behavior than any other force in history. We should expect to find that the best way to do something online will not be the same way that we have been doing things since the dawn of civilization!
The unfettered Internet is an individualist movement that utilizes a beautiful free-market approach with mutually-consented cooperation to solve problems. Let's not lose control.
Hi nathanwosnack, just want to correct you about the current goverment. Socialist party was on charge of the former ruling coalition, but since 4 months ago there is a new goverment formed by right parties, wich even supported dictatorship 20 years ago. The current law project, anyway, comes from 2007 and is wide accepted in our country.
I think that consumer protection should not be consider as intervention of the industry, since it's just intend to give more transparency to the product that ISPs are offering. Now we can expect real competition on price and service quality.
Integrity of content is the other protected value on this law. The ISPs sell the conection, but not the contents, why should they be allowed to alter other industry's product?. Some of them could decide that their own mail service get faster than any other, or have special contrats with specific news services, and would be difficult to the user realize why the difference on speed... Maybe are things that have not happened, but don't hurt have it on writing in the law.
Take a look at what I said to begin with. While it may have appeared to you that I feel that anyone who doesn't agree with me is a fool, this was not the intended message and in all fairness I'll admit that I should have stated that I was open to a real debate on the subject (technologically and politically) because I truly am.
On the other hand, you stating "I'm with you sbondy, makes Chile look great and the rest of us like fools" is unfair. Why do you feel this is the case? It is as if you're stating: "Net neutrality is perceived as good, and Chile is supporting net neutrality, so therefore they deserve praise while we deserve the opposite... we are in essense fools."
So while you may call strawman on me, I call inverse ad hominem on you, and ask you to defend your argument a bit more. Why? Not because I wish to continue a flame-war with you, but rather that I'd like to hear your thoughts on net neutrality. You've clearly brushed me off and won't even read the rest of my posts. Please don't be so closed-minded.
Here, I'll be fair and start the debate:
1) I feel the Chilean people and companies are intelligent and capable enough to manage their own networks. What this government instituted net neutrality essentially does is take away the power of the people to decide how their Internet connections are run. Education from the west through the private sector could be a wonderful start. Teach these Chilean companies and users about managing their networks properly since it is apparent from this article that they are in some dire need of it.
2) Why is net neutrality even needed across the board for all network connections? Without sounding like former US Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and calling the Internet "a series of tubes", and that "it's not a big truck you can dump something on", we should think long and hard about an example that I'm familiar with in my industry: QoS (Quality of Service) on VoIP.
If my company didn't route (UDP) SIP VoIP traffic on our network ahead of anyone on our VPS (Virtual Private Server) TCP traffic we'd end up with many hundreds to thousands of complaints about the quality of the calls... a result of a network bottleneck. In this sense, this policy goes against network neutrality does it not?
3) Telecommunications companies own private property (switches, fiber optic trunks, and they route the bandwidth, etc). Customers who pay more and who have specific requirements should have better network connections to faciliate this. While this could be abused by ISPs/Telecom companies in which traffic is routed so well to certain higher paying customers, such as resellers and carriers and simultaneously routed poorly for the majority of their end-users/SoHo (Small Office Home Office) customers. But would they really do this? I don't see this being in their best business interests. Lop-sided connections to this extreme degree would be business suicide.
Not pointing at the sarcasm -- it's the senitment BEHIND the sarcasm and its application I'm pointing at. It suggests that anyone not siding with you thinks along those lines.
Every time I've seen sarcasm used the argument falls into strawman territory. Why? Sarcasm is typically used as a retort to a stupid question. The sentiment behind it is "you're stupid or foolish for thinking that way" -- and thus when used to support an argument has the hidden message of "And anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool".
Look at the statement -- it basially tries to prevent anyone from supporting the government's decision without appearing to agree with an outrageous statement which was "being sarcastic". It doesn't do so directly, it does so through implications.
"You of course speak from the luxurious viewpoint of someone who hasn't lived under a brutal fascist dictatorship."
- That's an unfair assumption to make. I don't have an autobiography of my life online, and if you found one, please direct me to it.
"Transparency and free access to information are extremely important issues in Chilean society"
- I agree with this, James. This is an important issue to almost everyone isn't it?
"and this is just another example of the government (currently right-wing, not Marxist as you suggest) continuing to protect the rights of its citizens."
- The Socialist Party of Chile is part of the ruling left-wing Coalition of Parties for Democracy coalition - right wing in comparison to their historical governments, but still politically left-wing.
"Governments in the well developed western democracies are indeed the least qualified to legislate on the Internet, but things are not quite so straightforward everywhere around the world."
- No, of course not, James. However, my concern is that while the government may promise one thing and perhaps deliver on it in the short term for the citizens, what does this mean in the future?
1) My concerns are these: will the government give the power back to the people and the private-sector or will they continue to centrally manage it... will more regulations come?
2) Will this set a precedent for other governments around the world for centrally managing net neutrality just as a western-world government of Australian's censorship, I mean "Clean Feed", has set the precedent for disallowing particular information online to "protect the rights of its citizens"?
"Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet Service Providers or governments on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as communication that is not unreasonably degraded by other traffic."
- Let's wait and see what happens. I'm just pessimistic about government management of anything, especially rules and regulations concerning net neutrality. I do appreciate your article though, James.
It's called sarcasm... I don't feel everyone on IE believes that but given some of the viewpoints in response to this article, it is apparent some of the commenters believe the government can efficiently faciliate any real change that won't result in a form of political blowback in the form of more unwanted regulation (as history has shown it does).
Had you read the rest of what I wrote you would have seen that I did indeed post points to support my argument. So please, go back and read what I wrote and let's have a real and honest debate on this.
Bravo to Chile for their progress and forward thinking leaders and government. I suspect that although the leftist leaning prior government got things rolling, and planned seemingly well for the future (i.e. 100% broadband coverage for the nation) it will be hard for any sucseeding government to back down and reverse course.
Once you've seem the future, it's unlikely you can be led back, or held back. While undoubtedly some financial sacrifices had to and will have to be made for well into the future, the investment in internet services and infrastructure will serve the country well.
May other South American countries be able to follow the lead of Chile.
"Of course, what am I thinking... the government is this impartial, all knowing and loving omnipotent entity that knows what is best for everyone and these evil corporations (ISPs and other telecom providers) must be regulated for the good of all of us."
Right. Like anyone here believes that.
Going to have to be honest here -- the moment you posted that, I ignored everything else you said.
Next time, please just post points to support your argument.
It is a welcome development that such a broad and extensive law has been promoted by Chile, it would at least allow other governments to consider whether some of their rules are necessary or are rather a barrier to progress.
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