Freeness: why the Caribbean ought to be vigilant about zero rating net neutrality

For those who have been with us from the beginning, you may recall that one of our earliest articles here on ICT Pulse was on Internet (net) neutrality, and we have been keeping tabs of the debate over the years. Since our launch in 2011, net neutrality has escalated in importance, and recently, there was a landmark ruling by the United States (US) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in support of net neutrality.

Essentially, the US ruling, which to varying degrees is consistent with that adopted by a number of developed countries worldwide, bans practices that could harm an Open Internet, such as blocking, throttling and paid prioritisation (Source: FCC). All of those actions can be construed as “negative discrimination” – where a telecoms carrier penalises specific customers or service providers, and not others. However, many of the regulatory rulings to date have been silent on what should obtain when positive discrimination – in the net neutrality context – has occurred. More