Net Neutrality: Impacts & Insights

Net Neutrality: Impacts & Insights

(Net Neutrality: Impacts & Insights)

Management information systems 42

Read four (4) academically reviewed articles on Net Neutrality and complete the following activities:

1. Summarize all four (4) articles in 300 words or more. Please use your own words. No copy-and-paste

2. Base on your article review and the assigned reading, discuss how net neutrality will affect data networks and the availability of information to businesses. Do you believe net neutrality will lead to IT efficiency? Why or why not?

Note:-

Read and respond to at least two (2) of your classmates’ posts. In your response to your classmates, consider comparing your articles to those of your classmates. Below are additional suggestions on how to respond to your classmates’ discussions:

· Ask a probing question, substantiated with additional background information, evidence or research.

· Share an insight from having read your colleagues’ postings, synthesizing the information to provide new perspectives.

· Offer and support an alternative perspective using readings from the classroom or from your own research.

· Validate an idea with your own experience and additional research.

· Make a suggestion based on additional evidence drawn from readings or after synthesizing multiple postings.

· Expand on your colleagues’ postings by providing additional insights or contrasting perspectives based on readings and evidence.

Reply to Topic 1:-(Net Neutrality: Impacts & Insights)

In the last couple decades, there has been a surge of distance education course/program offerings. These developments have been possible because both distance learning educators and learners have maintained a relatively equal access to the Internet. Many educators will agree that online learning provides access to flexible opportunities to learners who otherwise would not be able to advance their education (Graham, 2006). The Pew Research Center recently published a report that the findings suggest access to the Internet have positive influence to lifelong learning. They found that American adults who have access to technology tools are more likely to become lifelong learners and those adults rely on the Internet to access educational opportunities (Pew Research Center, 2016). They also found that adults who have both broadband and smartphone connections to the Internet are more likely to engage in personal and job-related learning activities to advance in their career than adults who have one mode of connection to the Internet.

The purpose of this study was to introduce net neutrality and its potential impact to online learning. We believe that if net neutrality is not in place, both distance learning educators and learners may find difficulty in engaging with online materials depending on where they live, personal finances, and what features they are willing to bundle into their cable services. Net neutrality regulatory decisions has significant influence on how US residents can access the Internet (Ganley & Allgrove, 2006). We chose to engage in this research because for the most part distance education scholars have taken net neutrality for granted and have not investigated its implications to online learning. When net neutrality is not maintained, university administrators, staff, and faculty will not be able to ensure that their students will have equitable access to learning experiences in online courses. Instead, student access to online educational opportunities can be differentiated by how much they are able to pay a private cable or phone company and whether they live in a highly-populated city area or in less-populated rural area.

Our research question was: How do the complexities involved in the net neutrality debate in the United States affect public access to online information and services, and what implications does this hold for online learning? To address our question, we approached our research from a collective perspective, relying on Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) through activity systems analysis. We engaged in a qualitative investigation of US public documents and explored the effects of net neutrality and public digital access. Most documents we examined were from fields outside of education because the ongoing discussions have been taking place in areas such as economics, information science, law, and policy-making (see Choi & Kim, 2010; Krämer, Wiewiorra, & Wenhardt, 2013; Powell & Cooper, 2011; Reinard & Ortz, 2005). The goal of our analysis was to better understand the net neutrality regulatory and public debates and find how it is relevant to the future of distance education.

While there may not be abundant discussions in the current scholarly literature about net neutrality and its relevance to distance education, as researchers and practitioners we believe that net neutrality is a critical topic that need further examination by distance education researchers and practitioners. When we examined the literature to find commonly identified barriers for students taking advantage of distance education opportunities, we found that there were several conversations about learner skills, costs, and retention (e.g., Muilenburg & Berge, 2005; Simpson, 2013; Taplin, Kerr, & Brown, 2013). In one of the few publications we found that discussed net neutrality and its implications to distance education Brumfield (2010) examined factors that brought challenges to students in university environments. She found that online students felt most isolated from their learning community when they did not have access to library materials and they experienced difficulties with their Internet connection. This finding suggests that when online students have differentiated access to the Internet, they are likely to not be able to develop a sense of community and become less engaged with their learning experiences. In another article, McKee (2011) concluded that university educators and students need more information about Internet related policies to better understand their freedom to access information and be better prepared to take action when necessary. As a faculty in English, McKee provided suggestions on how net neutrality can be integrated into the undergraduate curriculum related to rhetoric and primary and secondary research.

Net Neutrality is a timely topic to investigate because at the time of writing this article, media outlets are speculating that with a Republican president and majority in both houses of Congress, the regulations that promote net neutrality and digital equality put into place by the previous administration would be altered.

Reply to 2nd topic:-(Net Neutrality: Impacts & Insights)

Net neutrality is a simple idea, but because it is present at the intersection of highly technical internet architecture and equally complex principles of the laws of administrative, it has become a very notoriously cute principle. Net Neutrality has sociocultural implication as it affects everyone from corporate ecosystem to education sector as well. According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, the principles of Net Neutrality will be enforced by powerful market forces than that of regulations. He believes the more the regulation the more things will become worse in recent future.

Major Players in Net Neutrality

FCC along with FTC(Federal Trade Commission) is the main US regulatory body which appoints commission members and Congress and is solely responsible for making decisions. FCC’s 2015 open internet order which gave the internet users strongest protection possible.

Other big players in Net Neutrality are businesses like Google, Netflix, Facebook and other infrastructure providers like engineering groups, ISPs and companies which are the true backbone of the internet.

The social implications of Net Neutrality are quite high as people feel that these big business companies will start charging more from people for using their favourite internet websites and usage. Another set of people thinks that their content will be oppressed by these companies to promote the content of their companies from which they earn money. Like we have seen with the cases of Facebook, Google who are being warned of not promoting a certain content only. The true information that needs to be provided to the information seeker will be altered if these companies are given free hand and are not guided by any regulations from the government.

These regulations are always used in the past as well to protect the rights of the common people, to maintain the perfect competition among the corporates as well on the digital platform as well. Because giving undue advantage to certain companies will be rise to monopoly which is neither helpful to the consumers as well as to the new startups who are always required for the future opportunities.

Net Neutrality is having a bad impact on data networks because of companies like Verizon, AT & T, Comcast can make good profits by charging extra money for certain websites or fast browsing of certain content by using fast lane structures for them.

In case of IT efficiency, Net neutrality is also having a bad impact because an excess of data used by companies like YouTube and Netflix are slowing down the overall efficiency of the Internet and charging the highest bandwidth users will lead to a better connection availability. Also, it will help them to protect piracy and illegal downloading of content media as well

 

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