The Right Way to Fix the Internet

Mung Chiang, a professor of electrical engineering at Princeton, believed he could give wireless customers more control. Chiang’s plan called for the wireless industry to offer its customers the same types of variable pricing that have brought new efficiencies to transportation and utilities.

Rates increase during peak periods, when congestion is at its worst; they decrease during slack periods. In the pre-smartphone era, it would have been impossible to advise users ahead of time about a zig or zag in their connectivity charges. Now, it would be straightforward to vary the price of online access depending on congestion and build an app that let bargain hunters shift their activities to cheaper periods, even on a minute-by-minute basis. When prices were high, consumers could put off non-urgent tasks like downloading Facebook posts to read later. Careful users could save a lot of money. But politics got in the way. A huge debate has erupted about the degree to which Internet carriers should be subject to a concept known as net neutrality.