EU communications policy has massively changed due to both global competition on the ICT market and technological developments that led to the emergence of Internet technology. This book analyzes the structural and procedural transformation processes inside the EU legislative processes and concludes that EU communications policy struggles to reflect today's internet-enabled communications reality. It provides insights in the institutional conditions that maintained specific patterns of EU communications policy since the beginning of telecommunications regulation and concludes with an outlook on the technological and regulatory challenges ahead. About the author Dr. Simon P. Rinas is a political science scholar with expertise in EU policy-making on digitalization and emerging technologies. He has gained experience in academia, think tanks and the private sector and has lately focused on digital sovereignty and tech geopolitics. .

Since its popularization in the mid 1990s, the Internet has impacted nearly every aspect of our cultural and personal lives. Over the course of two decades, the Internet remained an unregulated medium whose characteristic openness allowed numerous applications, services, and websites to flourish. By 2005, Internet Service Providers began to explore alternative methods of network management that would permit them to discriminate the quality and speed of access to online content as they saw fit. In response, the Federal Communications Commission sought to enshrine "net neutrality" in regulatory policy as a means of preserving the Internet's open, nondiscriminatory characteristics. Although the FCC established a net neutrality policy in 2010, debate continues as to who ultimately should have authority to shape and maintain the Internet's structure. Regulating the Web brings together a diverse collection of scholars who examine the net neutrality policy and surrounding debates from a variety of perspectives. In doing so, the book contributes to the ongoing discourse about net neutrality in the hopes that we may continue to work toward preserving a truly open Internet structure in the United States.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) open access license. Net neutrality is the most contested Internet access policy of our time. This book offers an in-depth explanation of the concept, addressing its history since 1999, its engineering, the policy challenges it represents and its legislation and regulation. Various case studies are presented, including Specialized Services and Content Delivery Networks for video over the Internet, and the book goes on to examine the future of net neutrality battles in Europe, the United States and developing countries, as well as offering co-regulatory solutions based on FRAND and non-exclusivity. It will be a must-read for researchers and advocates in the net neutrality debate, as well as those interested in the context of communications regulation, law and economic regulation, human rights discourse and policy, and the impact of science and engineering on policy and governance.

A provocative analysis of net neutrality and a call to democratize online communication This short book is both a primer that explains the history and politics of net neutrality and an argument for a more equitable framework for regulating access to the internet. Pickard and Berman argue that we should not see internet service as a commodity but as a public good necessary for sustaining democratic society in the twenty-first century. They aim to reframe the threat to net neutrality as more than a conflict between digital leviathans like Google and internet service providers like Comcast but as part of a much wider project to commercialize the public sphere and undermine the free speech essential for democracy. Readers will come away with a better understanding of the key concepts underpinning the net neutrality battle and rallying points for future action to democratize online communication.

EU communications policy has massively changed due to both global competition on the ICT market and technological developments that led to the emergence of Internet technology. This book analyzes the structural and procedural transformation processes inside the EU legislative processes and concludes that EU communications policy struggles to reflect today's internet-enabled communications reality. It provides insights in the institutional conditions that maintained specific patterns of EU communications policy since the beginning of telecommunications regulation and concludes with an outlook on the technological and regulatory challenges ahead.

Internet users can find it difficult to keep up on the ever-changing laws, issues, and challenges that affect their media experience. In clear, easy-to-grasp language, this guide explains the basic workings of internet connections, IP addresses, and bandwidth throttling. The status of information control by governments and internet providers is explored in both the United States and an international context. This insightful title makes clear the debate between those who support net neutrality and those who oppose it—a debate that affects every internet user today and in the years to come.

In the months after the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) 2017 decision to repeal network neutrality as US policy, it is easy to forget the decades of public, organizational, media and governmental struggle to control digital policy and open access to the internet. Using dialogic communication tactics, the public, governmental actors and organizations impacted the ruling through YouTube comments, the FCC online system and social network communities. Network neutrality, which requires that all digital sites can be accessed with equal speed and ability, is an important example of how dialogic communication facilitates public engagement in policy debates. However, the practice and ability of the public, organizations and media to engage in dialogic communication are also greatly impacted by the FCC’s decision. This book reflects on decades of global engagement in the network neutrality debate and the evolution of dialogic communication techniques used to shape one of the most relevant and critical digital policies in history.