If one were to go out on the street one day to do pedestrian interviews and ask "Are you in favor of net neutrality?", you might find many positive answers.Even when most of the We don't know very clearly what that network neutrality means , probably because we confuse it with other types of Internet neutrality such as a less biased Wikipedia or more reliable news.Do you know what neutrality is? of the network, and what does it imply?
What is net neutrality, and what does it contribute?
In this case, the neutrality of the network is based on the idea of a fair and balanced Internet in which all users have the same type of access and in which all bits are treated in the same way .In other words, some bits are not blocked or others are given wings so that they run more on the Internet.
If we imagine the Internet as a highway full of vehicles (bytes) of eight occupants (bits), the idea is not to allow overtaking between them.
This idea requires that Internet providers give access to all spaces (social networks, blogs, news networks, forums...) with the same priority, so that none of the users is favored or harmed in function of your use of it.
For example, let's imagine that both the reader and who writes this article share a city and we will watch a movie in streaming , each one in our house and using Netflix and HBO respectively.Casually, both movies they occupy the same MB, so they are perfect for us to make the comparison.
If we apply the net neutrality to the letter, we will both end up downloading the movie in the same period regardless of where the data came from or where we are.Assuming, of course, that our coverage was similar, since network neutrality cannot occur if one of us uses WiFi and the other Ethernet cable to the router.
This neutrality acts on the part of the Internet that is far from us, in its fiber optic guts and information servers.For example, if we choose the option of 3G in our telephone compared to that of 4G, it's impossible that we don't get hurt in terms of speed, but that doesn't mean that the network isn't neutral.
Seen from this perspective, the net neutrality seems great and fair , the kind of values we need for the 21st century.A goal to pursue at all costs.
However, the Internet is a network that still has a lot to contribute to our society, which is still growing, and where not all future services seem to have the same urgency.Network neutrality may not be as fair as it seems to large number of services.
Future cases where net neutrality should not apply
The net neutrality debate usually works on the present, where the urgency of data packets is not very different between users.For example, if I browse Instagram and you access a personal database looking for some document, it seems logical to think that neither should have priority over the other.None is an urgent task from an objective point of view, although surely each of us will want to access our respective content the faster the better./p>
That is why public opinion has been declining in favor of a strict net neutrality in which each bit is tightly controlled and cannot advance to another Don't give it more or less preference.
However, national, European or global policies with laws born based on this concept could pose a serious risk to the safety of people (and some objects).We give two examples to talk about it.
Network neutrality could cause traffic accidents
The first of these is that of the autonomous vehicles .Although much of this autonomy is born from a processor placed inside the vehicle, this type of mobility requires constant connection to the Internet and other networks to operate normally, especially within cities.
Let's think of an intelligent vehicle that wants to turn right on a street with poor visibility through which a manual vehicle circulates at a faster speed than it should (of course, this is not an isolated case).We see as the autonomous vehicle He slowly pulls out his nose to look out at the street he wants to access, and as the driver hits him, causing an accident.
What happened? Why has the intelligent vehicle had to make use of its front camera instead of the grouped data of nearby traffic cameras or vehicles that have observed the reckless driver?
What has happened is that this data on the conduct of the vehicle in manual had been sent, but that the Internet traffic in the area had delayed its arrival, for example, because in the immediate vicinity there is a large influx of people who attend a party, a fair, a concert or some other mass event.
Another example related to autonomous vehicles includes those who make the decisions using data processing in the cloud.That is, on servers.The current network latency , the time it takes A signal to go and return to the server is too high for a vehicle to drive on its own using this type of technology, but the 5G will make it possible by reducing the latency to historical minimums and allowing cars make decisions almost in real time.
However, the latency increases as other users connect to nearby networks, and could add enough for the autonomous vehicle to lose autonomy in a critical maneuver.For example, it crashes into a wall because the order turning has not arrived on time.
Chirophans in the distance and net neutrality
In a second example are the remote operating rooms or telesurgery .Far from being somewhat futuristic, today they are used relatively frequently, especially in classes and assistances in operating rooms.The robots that help us during operations they have the virtue of not needing the surgeon to be present in the room.
Operating 400 km away can save a patient's life.Not only because a medical emergency requires the knowledge of a doctor who is far away, but because it may become the way to operate in the future, much more hygienic.
Robots, unlike humans, do not have bacteria in their body, so it is most likely that in a few years all operations will be performed by telesurgery, even if it is a matter of a few meters away.
Now let's think again about the example of autonomous vehicles and how network neutrality limits the speed of your data .The same example applies to operations.Imagine an operating room in which attendees begin to suspect that the robot is going too slow.The operation usually lasts about an hour, but this time it has taken almost two.Why?
For a robot (autonomous or remote control) to operate on a patient, he needs to see what he is doing, and therefore to process the information of his cameras.So much if that processing is done in a human brain hundreds of kilometers away, as on a server to many others, the signal has to go and return .If this trip gets in line with the download of the movies in streaming that we mentioned before, the patient will have a problem.
It seems logical to think that this signal has priority, but this collides fully with net neutrality.In fact, it is clearly a violation of neutrality .So, should we apply it, or not?
Urgent and non-urgent data, a new paradigm for net neutrality
Currently, the net neutrality debate starts with the contract between the user and the operator, for example, I can hire 10 mbps, 20 or 30, and I must be aware that if I choose 10 my connection speed will be three times slower than that of the neighbor I chose 30.In another example, if I have hired 4GB of 4G data on my mobile phone and there comes a time when I spend them, as a user that the connection speed will fall to a minimum.
But this debate completely ignores the urgency in sending data, precisely because it still does not exist, something that does exist in calls, regardless of our respective rates, area of Spain or operator, anyone has the same preference when contacting 112 because it is a priority call that also does not depend on the type of mobile phone we use.
However, a new thread is being formed within the discussion about net neutrality in anticipation of the new services that will settle on the Internet.This new topic is that of urgent data and non-urgent data .
We close with a more mundane example, that of a physical conference that is broadcast on streaming.Although it is not advisable to connect to any WiFi that we see open, the 500 attendees have done it and we are consuming the bandwidth that the streaming while we walk through our social networks.
As a result, the video is cut for the rest of the world.It seems logical to think that the output of the video signal must have preference, something that happens olympically from the net neutrality.And, of course, the debate, which you can continue in the comments, it's served.
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