Back in the 1980s, I spent much of my time thinking about an obscure topic – how to manage the flow of packets around the Internet, particularly if anyone were ever crazy enough to try telephone-like or TV-like services over what was obviously just a computer network.  Like most grad students, I thought my dissertation topic was important to everyone.  Sometimes after parties, my girlfriend at that time would remind me that a handful of engineers might care about such things, but normal humans, including lawyers like her, never would.  But two decades later, it was mostly lawyers who were grappling with critical decisions on this topic, while most engineers paid little attention.

I’m talking about the network neutrality debate of recent years.  Of course, lawyers and policymakers don’t want to design the next routing algorithm, but they will consider rules that affect how algorithms are designed.  When the Internet community consisted of researchers who had largely overlapping goals and interests, we could rely on the rough consensus of leading engineers to set direction.  Today, interests collide.  Policymakers may be able to help construct a few general rules of the road to make sure subscribers of a service know what they are paying for, and the interests of leading companies are aligned with the interests of society more generally.  But in these rules, it is the details that matter most, and these details are highly technical.  How can you distinguish a network that is trying to prevent a few users from dominating limited capacity, thereby starving their neighbors, from a network that is trying to secretly degrade a competitor’s performance?  How can you distinguish a network that is keeping the many routine complexities of its operations to itself from a network that is deliberately concealing things that its paying customers need to know?  The FCC now faces such questions, and it is time for the rest of the technical community to join the conversation.

For those engineers who want to make comments, I have a few suggestions.  First, think specifically.  Various parties will likely be proposing rules in the coming months.  Precisely how would these rules affect the design of networks and applications in the foreseeable future?  Are there specific techniques or algorithms that could be allowed or prohibited under these rules that you think are especially important?  Do the rules achieve their intended purpose?  Are there side effects that policymakers should know about, and if so, how might the rules be re-worded?  These are fundamentally technical issues.  Second, think broadly.  The Internet is a complex system, and as systems engineers know, we have to consider how components of a complex system interact.  Only in this system, in addition to links and routers and servers, the system includes people – network service providers and application designers and consumers.  If a rule affects one small piece of the network, what ripple effects might logically follow?  Finally, speak up.  Don’t just argue with your friends.  You can start by sharing your thoughts with other interested observers here at OpenInternet.gov.   When the time comes for a formal FCC proceedings, you can also submit your thoughts through the FCC’s comment filing system at ECFS.  If this turns out to be the most important concept since exponential back-off, you’ll be glad you participated.