On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal net neutrality rules set in 2015.
The change drastically loosens regulations on the operations of internet providers, potentially allowing them to charge more for service and specifically charge for certain websites.
Mississippi State University associate professor of computer science Mahalingam Ramkumar explained probable effects of the change to the SDN.
He said the change would affect what the selective enforcement providers could do for information traveling through their networks.
“The big internet service providers, initially are big communication providers, they have cable networks and telephone networks and so on and so forth, so no they have the capability to say ‘OK, I’m not going to let traffic from Netflix or Amazon through,”’ Ramkumar said. “They can kind of charge each one independently.”
He said the changes would be most tangible to the average internet user mainly through increased costs. However, he said the changes would be more gradual.
He said there were unspoken agreements among providers as far as the areas they would cover, and with the changes, the quality of service could also change in those areas.
“A lot of issues related to net neutrality are already getting worse,” Ramkumar said. “I don’t think there will be much of an issue regarding mergers of media companies with internet service providers, but if you relax net neutrality, it’ll also allow mergers, then it’s going to be a really serious issue. That’s what will happen now, initially the mergers happen. They’re all huge media companies. They’re also the service providers.”
He said in Starkville, the situation was somewhat unusual due to more than one internet service providers operating in the area.
“We have Cspire and we have Metrocast. Here, they provide reasonably OK service,” Ramkumar said. “In this place right now it is not an issue, but it may happen that somebody will buy out Cspire probably Starkville is not going to be affected that much right away is what I would think, compared to other places that I have seen.”
He said there was likely to be less resistance to the change in the rules from politicians than in past attempts to scrap net neutrality, because of more pressing issues currently in progress.
“I think people are more worried about healthcare and taxes,” Ramkumar said.