BT has been accused of undermining one of the founding principles of the internet – that of “net neutrality” – by creating a two-tier system which would allow content providers on its network to charge for a faster video delivery service. Under BT’s new Content Connect feature, ISPs can charge content owners for a premium service of enhanced delivery. Neil Hawkins, contributing editor at Chooseisp.co.uk, takes a closer look.
“Could this be the end of the internet as we know it?” asked Which? Magazine last month in response to musings from culture minister Ed Vaizey about the emergence of a ‘two speed’ internet.
Well, yes, it could be.
The emergence of mobile broadband on mobile devices means massive amounts of data are being consumed every day and sooner or later net neutrality, content providers or cheap mobile broadband will have to bite the dust.
The restriction of different types of traffic – P2P or streaming video, for example – is already de rigeur among fixed line broadband providers. This blow is softened for consumers by calling the practice ‘traffic management’ or ‘load balancing’ and insisting on its need for technical purposes.
Fixed line providers have enormous capacity, however, and recent investments in superfast broadband have only caused the potential for capacity to increase.
Mobile broadband operators on the other hand have recently realised that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew after luring in thousands upon thousands of new smartphone customers with unsustainable data habits, who expect that their mobile broadband package can be used in the same manner as the one they have at home.
Which is all well and good and what consumers should expect if a mobile broadband package is being advertised as such.
However, mobile broadband operators have been left desperately trying to improve capacity on 3G networks or raise extra revenue to deal with the influx of demand.
The one thing they don’t want to do is raise prices. All the UK’s mobile operators recently made clear they would like to make content providers pay for access, in turn this would lead new mobile broadband packages which charged different amounts for access to different services, an issue which has caused huge consternation at Which?.
Which?’s Rob Reid said that “The right of all users to access all legal sites and services on the web is central to the internet as we know it, as such I oppose the possibility of tariffs being introduced which remove this right under the veneer of offering consumers choice.”
Reid is right when he asserts that net neutrality should be maintained and mobile operators shouldn’t be charging content providers, and subsequently consumers, across a range of different tariffs.
They would be better off trying to wean customers off cheap mobile broadband packages which do not suit their data habits (i.e. charging more). This is a possibility when you consider the close-knit nature of the UK mobile market, in stark contrast to the fixed line broadband market.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee perhaps best sums this debate with a comment made in 2006: “..net neutrality is not asking for the internet for free, or saying that one shouldn’t pay more money for high quality of service…
“Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the internet, and, now, the society based on it.”
This is a guest post from Choose. The site covers rights issues, research and debate into home broadband and more broadly home media and mobile markets.
