IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/rneart/v17y2018i3p151-173n1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Net Neutrality Policies and Regulation in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Jamison Mark A.

    (Public Utility Research Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA)

Abstract

The US debate about net neutrality has been unusually contentious for a telecommunications regulatory issue, most recently culminating in a 2017 reversal of a 2015 decision to apply traditional telephone regulations, written for a monopoly era, to internet service providers. This article reviews this history, beginning 1956 when the government first imposed an industry boundary between transmission of information on the one hand, and the creation and processing of information on the other. This regulatory legacy remains embedded in US law and has led to some of the muddle. This article also examines the academic literature relating to net neutrality. On this, the answers found in the literature vary depending on assumptions made about technology, industry structure, and industry practices. When the answer to the question of whether regulations are beneficial is “it depends,” and the scenarios that give different answers are realistic, it would seem that the policy approach should favor applying competition and consumer protection laws that address problems when they occur rather than ex ante regulations, which would be certain to harm at least in some situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Jamison Mark A., 2018. "Net Neutrality Policies and Regulation in the United States," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 151-173, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rneart:v:17:y:2018:i:3:p:151-173:n:1
    DOI: 10.1515/rne-2018-0041
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/rne-2018-0041
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/rne-2018-0041?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reggiani, Carlo & Valletti, Tommaso, 2016. "Net neutrality and innovation at the core and at the edge," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 16-27.
    2. Joshua S. Gans & Michael L. Katz, 2016. "Weak versus strong net neutrality: correction and clarification," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 99-110, August.
    3. Nicholas Economides & Benjamin E. Hermalin, 2012. "The economics of network neutrality," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(4), pages 602-629, December.
    4. Shane Greenstein & Martin Peitz & Tommaso Valletti, 2016. "Net Neutrality: A Fast Lane to Understanding the Trade-Offs," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 127-150, Spring.
    5. Economides, Nicholas & Tåg, Joacim, 2012. "Network neutrality on the Internet: A two-sided market analysis," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 91-104.
    6. Jan Krämer & Lukas Wiewiorra, 2012. "Network Neutrality and Congestion Sensitive Content Providers: Implications for Content Variety, Broadband Investment, and Regulation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 1303-1321, December.
    7. Broos, Sébastien & Gautier, Axel, 2017. "The exclusion of competing one-way essential complements: Implications for net neutrality," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 358-392.
    8. Musacchio John & Schwartz Galina & Walrand Jean, 2009. "A Two-Sided Market Analysis of Provider Investment Incentives with an Application to the Net-Neutrality Issue," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-18, March.
    9. Jay Pil Choi & Doh-Shin Jeon & Byung-Cheol Kim, 2015. "Net Neutrality, Business Models, and Internet Interconnection," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 104-141, August.
    10. Joshua Gans, 2015. "Weak versus strong net neutrality," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 183-200, April.
    11. Broos, Sébastien & Gautier, Axel, 2014. "Competing one-way essential complements: the forgotten side of net neutrality," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014064, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    12. Hermalin, Benjamin E. & Katz, Michael L., 2007. "The economics of product-line restrictions with an application to the network neutrality debate," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 215-248, June.
    13. Caves, Kevin W., 2012. "Modeling the welfare effects of net neutrality regulation: A Comment on Economides and Tåg," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 288-292.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vogelsang Ingo, 2018. "Net Neutrality Regulation: Much Ado about Nothing?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 225-243, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gautier, Axel & Somogyi, Robert, 2020. "Prioritization vs zero-rating: Discrimination on the internet," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Marc Bourreau & Romain Lestage, 2019. "Net neutrality and asymmetric platform competition," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 140-171, April.
    3. Briglauer, Wolfgang & Stocker, Volker & Stockhammer, Paul, 2019. "Ist Netzneutralität tatsächlich gut? Eine Neubewertung vor dem Hintergrund der Regulierung in den USA und in der EU sowie aktueller Forschungsergebnisse," Policy Notes 38, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Armando J. Garcia Pires, 2021. "Net neutrality and content provision," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 89(6), pages 569-593, December.
    5. Edmond Baranes & Cuong Hung Vuong, 2020. "Investment in Quality Upgrade and Regulation of the Internet," CESifo Working Paper Series 8074, CESifo.
    6. Edmond Baranes & Cuong Hung Vuong, 2022. "Investment in quality upgrade and regulation of the internet," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 1-31, February.
    7. Barrie R. Nault & Steffen Zimmermann, 2019. "Balancing Openness and Prioritization in a Two-Tier Internet," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 745-763, September.
    8. Calzada, Joan & Tselekounis, Markos, 2018. "Net Neutrality in a hyperlinked Internet economy," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 190-221.
    9. Robert F. Easley & Hong Guo & Jan Krämer, 2018. "Research Commentary—From Net Neutrality to Data Neutrality: A Techno-Economic Framework and Research Agenda," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(2), pages 253-272, June.
    10. Koning, Kendall J. & Yankelevich, Aleksandr, 2018. "From internet “Openness” to “Freedom”: How far has the net neutrality pendulum swung?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 37-45.
    11. Broos, Sébastien & Gautier, Axel, 2017. "The exclusion of competing one-way essential complements: Implications for net neutrality," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 358-392.
    12. Lorenzon, Emmanuel, 2022. "Zero-rating, content quality, and network capacity," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    13. Baake, Pio & Sudaric, Slobodan, 2019. "Net neutrality and CDN intermediation," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 55-67.
    14. Jullien, Bruno & Sand-Zantman, Wilfried, 2018. "Internet regulation, two-sided pricing, and sponsored data," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 31-62.
    15. Baake, Pio & Sudaric, Slobodan, 2018. "Net Neutrality, Prioritization and the Impact of Content Delivery Networks," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 102, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    16. Shane Greenstein & Martin Peitz & Tommaso Valletti, 2016. "Net Neutrality: A Fast Lane to Understanding the Trade-Offs," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 127-150, Spring.
    17. Emmanuel LORENZON, 2020. "Zero Rating, Content Quality and Network Capacity," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2020-21, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).
    18. Michelle Connolly & Clement Lee & Renhao Tan, 2017. "The Digital Divide and Other Economic Considerations for Network Neutrality," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(4), pages 537-554, June.
    19. D'Annunzio, Anna & Russo, Antonio, 2015. "Net Neutrality and internet fragmentation: The role of online advertising," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 30-47.
    20. Alexei A. Gaivoronski & Per Jonny Nesse & Olai Bendik Erdal, 2017. "Internet service provision and content services: paid peering and competition between internet providers," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 43-79, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:rneart:v:17:y:2018:i:3:p:151-173:n:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.