Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering: The fee for speed-cutting on the internet should be treated differently

At the symposium, Hou Weigui, chairman of ZTE Corporation, said that the current "exponential growth" of Internet traffic in China poses constant challenges to the communications infrastructure, and that it needs to further increase its efforts.


At the report of the Zhuoya Network Law Center held on April 19, Liu Yunjie, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believed that "for ordinary people, the decline in traffic charges is welcome. Through technological changes, it is possible to lower the cost of network traffic. ".

But "for the big Internet companies, I personally think that reducing network fees is unreasonable," said Liu Yunjie. "Why these large Internet companies have such a high profit? This is mainly because they can use the backbone network for free if the traffic charges." If we drop it, the value chain will not be balanced."

OTT challenges traffic charges

This is mainly reflected in WeChat and other OTT products. Compared to network operators' services such as telephone and text messaging, which are charged by traffic, WeChat voice, text, and file transmissions are provided to consumers free of charge.

"But if you charge by traffic, it's impossible for the Internet to grow so well today. All Internet users don't advocate charging by traffic," he said.

In fact, there is the potential for differentiated fee-based use for better backbone services. Liu Yunjie introduced a Huawei company survey that 85% of users believe that if the operator's quality is better, they are willing to pay a premium of 25%.

"Now electricity is used for two prices. The price of consumer electricity is cheap, and the price of electricity for production is expensive." Wu Jichuan, former Minister of Information Industry, said at the report meeting, but now the domestic network traffic, "the production price and the civilian price are A price."

Wu Jichuan, former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, former president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Lu Yongxiang, and former Minister of Science and Technology Zhu Lilan, were employed as advisors to the Zhuo Ya Network Law Center.

Liu Yunjie introduced that Google Inc. and a well-known video site in the United States have paid extra fees to network operators in order to provide better Internet services.

However, Liu Yunjie introduced that the explosive development of the OTT business is exerting a great impact on the backbone network of operators. According to a data from the US Cisco company, it is estimated that by 2016, OTT traffic will account for 71% of mobile data traffic. As a result, in November 2014, U.S. telecommunications operator ATT announced the suspension of a high-speed optical fiber and networking investment in 100 cities.

Arguing "net neutrality"

This directly led to a huge debate on the legal level in the United States "net neutrality."

"Net neutrality" requires equal treatment of all Internet content and access, preventing operators from controlling the priority of data transmission in the interest of commercial interests, and ensuring the "neutrality" of network data transmission.

This concept can be traced back to the United States telecommunications law in the 1930s. At the time, the law stipulated that any telephone company must not obstruct the connection of a telephone to a non-user company. After the rise of the Internet, the concept of "net neutrality" extended to the fact that operators could not impose restrictions on data from users other than the company, such as mail and video.

In September 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the Open Internet Directive embodying the principle of "net neutrality". However, only a week after the directive came into effect, U.S. telecom operator Verizon sued the directive and the FCC. Requires that the decision instruction be invalid.

Since this order entered the litigation state, it was suspended. On January 15, 2014, the Federal Court of Appeal of the District of Columbia Circuit Court rejected the FCC's Open Internet Directive.

Publicly reported that the court ruled that although the FCC has the right to supervise the broadband business, the Internet service provider is not a "public operator" stipulated by the telecommunications law, and the FCC does not have enough evidence to show that it has the power to mandate the network service provider. Accept the principle of network neutrality. At the same time, the court also overturned the FCC rules prohibiting Internet service providers from blocking Internet traffic.

However, Liu Yunjie introduced that in May 2014, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and other companies jointly wrote to the chairman of the FCC to support network neutrality. In October 2014, Obama personally stated that he should support the Internet as a public utility and expressed support for "net neutrality."

In February 2015, five experts from the PCC approved a new network neutrality rule with a 3:2 vote. However, it is reported that the FCC "will not disclose the specific terms of the new regulations for some time in the future."

Liu Yunjie introduced that it was after Obama’s speech that ATT announced that it would stop investing in high-speed optical fiber and networking in 100 cities. At present, operators have filed suit against the new regulations. The debate on “network neutrality” has also extended to Europe. .

"This law will be transmitted to China sooner or later. I am very worried that if we take the wrong road, it will seriously restrict the development of the Internet in China," said Liu Yunjie.