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Will Net Neutrality Ruling Doom Education to Second-Class Status?

Education could well see major changes to how it's able to deliver learning content to students with this week's ruling by a federal court on the Open Internet (Net Neutrality) Order.

The ruling this week by a federal court on the Open Internet (Net Neutrality) Order may turn out to be, as one commenter called it, "a terrible idea," or, as another observer put it, a source of "a lot of overheated rhetoric." Education, for its part, could well see major changes to how it's able to deliver learning content to students online while at the same time positioning itself to become a major alternative supplier of broadband in this country.

Net neutrality is the idea that all data on the Internet should be treated equally, no matter who's providing it, where it's coming from, what it consists of, what devices it touches, or who it's going to. A YouTube video from Khan Academy, for example, should receive the same treatment by an Internet service provider (ISP) as a movie from Netflix or a commercial from Procter & Gamble.

Verizon, one of the largest ISPs in the United States, took on the Federal Communications Commission to call into question the idea that Internet service is a utility that needs close regulation, akin to electricity or the telephone. The seeds of the case were planted 12 years ago when the FCC declared that Internet service shouldn't be subject to the same rules as those other kinds of services. As Time magazine laid it out in a recent article, "The FCC made the fateful decision to classify broadband as an 'information service' not a 'telecommunications service,' which would have allowed the agency to impose 'common carrier' regulations prohibiting discrimination by the broadband companies."

In 2010, the FCC turned around and established "Open Internet Rules," which, as Time explained, "boils down to three rules": 1) ISPs need to be transparent about how they manage network congestion; 2) they can't block traffic on wired networks, no matter what the source; and 3) they can't put competing services into an "Internet 'slow lane" to benefit their own offerings. It's those last two rules that crumbled this week in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In a statement Verizon noted that the ruling confirms FCC's jurisdiction over broadband access and maintains the transparency requirements. But now, the company added, "The court's decision will allow more room for innovation, and consumers will have more choices to determine for themselves how they access and experience the Internet."

Some observers in education interpret that to mean ISPs will be allowed to throttle delivery of services depending on how much those needing to make the delivery — the content providers — pay.

"Rather than a single, open network, we face a future where different networks offer different performance for different applications," explained Michael Berman, vice president of Technology & Communication for California State University Channel Islands. "It's not hard to imagine, for example, a commercial network that has Apple as a major sponsor and makes it harder to use an Android phone or vice-versa. Or, a network where the video for courses from the University of Phoenix or Coursera run quickly, but those from edX and your local community college run at slower speed and lower resolution."