IoT depends on net neutrality for ubiquitous service provision
The internet of things (IoT) could be affected if net neutrality is not maintained, potentially allowing broadband and mobile providers to favour select brands or models of device with faster speeds. Though IoT devices are largely connected to private networks, rather than the typical data transmitted on the internet, latency in communication between devices could be slowed. If pay-dependent prioritisation of services is made possible through the erasure of net neutrality, a hierarchy of service quality that affects the real-time functionality of IoT devices may evolve.
Net neutrality isn't the simplest concept to grasp. Explaining it works best via example: Net neutrality means, say, that internet providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, which also have their own television and streaming video services, can't create "slow lanes" for competing services. They can't gum up traffic from sites such as Netflix and Dish's SlingTV in favor of their own.

But net neutrality doesn't just cover streaming video. It also ensures that you can use the devices that you want. Under the current net neutrality rules, your internet provider can't stop you from connecting any laptop, tablet, smartphone, or WiFi router you want to your home network. Without net neutrality, the days when broadband companies and cell carriers could let traffic flow faster to one brand of phone or computer over another could be coming. And that's just the start.

With people connecting more and more devices, from voice-controlled personal assistants like Apple's forthcoming Home Pod to thermostats to cars, net neutrality becomes that much more important, even as the federal government moves to drop its own protections. Last month the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission started the process of overturning the agency's authority to actually enforce its net neutrality regulations. That means that unless either Congress or the courts intervene, net neutrality could soon be history.

Dismissing the rules could be a big problem for the future of the Internet of Things, since companies like Comcast–which is already working on its own smart home platform–certainly have the motivation to create fast and slow lanes for particular gadgets and services. If your internet provider can decide which personal assistant or smart home gadgets you can or can't use, the broadband can dictate the winners and losers in the Internet of Things race. That wouldn't bode well for competition, innovation, or you.

A Latent Question

At first glance, net neutrality might not seem likely to have much impact on the IoT. Much communication between IoT devices won't actually happen on the internet but on private networks. Compared to Netflix, the sensors, thermostats, and Echo cylinders that will make up much of the IoT transmit a paltry amount of data.

But former FCC chair Tom Wheeler, who ushered in the agency's net neutrality rules and now sits on the board of IoT software company Actility, points out that even if the majority of the data moves across a private network, there's opportunity for interference from a service provider if that data ever needs to touch the public internet.

For example, say you want to get an alert on your phone when the security alarm at your factory goes off. Data will need to travel across the internet to get you that info. "The reality is that I need to know that information with low latency," Wheeler says. In other words, you need to hear that alert in seconds—preferably milliseconds—not minutes or hours. "Latency, as computers are talking to computers, becomes a very important thing. The question becomes whether there will be different levels of service, will there be paid prioritization?"