WWW.TECHLEARNING.COM | FEBRUARY 2018 | 13
BIG IDEAS
TK
TIPS FOR SCHOOL
LEADERS IN A POST-NET
NEUTRALITY WORLD
Marie Bjerede, principal for CoSN’s Leadership
for Mobile Learning (LML) and Smart Education
Networks, shares her thoughts on how districts
should prepare. Go to ( bit.ly/2DnN8iW ) for the
original post.O
n December 14, 2017, the FCC
voted to rescind the fairly young
Net Neutrality protections put into
place two years ago. The purpose
of these rules was to prevent
Internet Service Providers from
giving preferential treatment to some parts of the
Internet over others with regard to blocking or
slowing the delivery of content.
Although ISPs have indicated that they
are not planning to degrade service to schools
and districts, some educators are viewing
these assurances with some skepticism, noting
that things can change quickly. As Douglas
Casey, executive director of the Connecticut
Commission for Educational Technology points
out, there are two probable cases. “We should
consider the likely charges (Scenario A) to
end users (e.g., a district paying a premium forG Suite access from its ISP) as well as (Scenario
B) to content providers (that same ISP charging
Google for fast delivery to districts). Both types
of charges can and likely will take place.”
There is more that districts can do to
address Scenario A. Ron Reyer, director of
technology services at Bethel Park School
District in Pennsylvania shares this language that
his district has used in RFPs with ISPs in order to
get Net Neutrality provisions in their contract:SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT - RWAN
TRANSPORT SERVICE, DEDICATED INTERNET
ACCESS SERVICE AND INTERNET2 TRANSPORT
Does the vendor have Service Level
Agreement terms and conditions? If so, what
are they? What are the proposed metrics and
measurement intervals? What mechanisms are
used to monitor service ( both historical and real-
time) to evaluate whether the SLA provisions
have been met or not been met? For commodity
Internet access service, does the SLA cover the
entire complement of Internet traffic, including
all protocols, regardless of whether traversing
IPv4 or IPv6? QUALITY OF SERVICE - DEDICATED
INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE AND INTERNET
TRANSPORT
Is the vendor willing to provide
written assurance that there will be no
preferential treatment for or against any
specific type of traffic based on port, protocol,
site origination, site destination, or time of
day?
For the districts that are fortunate enough
to have access to a statewide Research
and Education Network (REN), they can
gain the advantages of their bargaining
power. RENs, with their large size, are in a
much better position to negotiate with their
ISPs for net-neutral treatment.
The Quilt, a national coalition of Research
and Education Networks, made the following
statement: “RENs are committed to making
all of the Internet available to all users, and
use a number of techniques to ensure the
Internet performs well for users and does
not limit access to services and content they
desire.“ With RENs and ISPs that sign up to
service level agreements, there are still issues
of what happens to traffic once it leaves that
ISP’s network - at that point, they are no
longer capable of making guarantees.
Douglas Casey’s Scenario B also remains
problematic. Small or new or innovative
education technology companies that depend
on the Internet may not be able to afford to
compete with the incumbents if ISPs charge
them a premium to avoid having traffic
throttled. This could limit access for districts
to new offerings and have a chilling effect on
innovation. For now, district leaders see the
loss of Net Neutrality as potentially troubling,
but only time will tell how the impact will
evolve for our education system.ALTHOUGH ISPS HAVE
INDICATED THAT THEY
ARE NOT PLANNING TO
DEGRADE SERVICE TO
SCHOOLS AND DISTRICTS,
SOME EDUCATORS ARE
VIEWING THESE ASSURANCES
WITH SOME SKEPTICISM,
NOTING THAT THINGS
CAN CHANGE QUICKLY.ISTOCK/THINKSTOCK