The concept of network neutrality is that all internet content should be treated equally. This means that the content is treated and transmitted in the same way regardless of who uploaded it, who is downloading it, or what type of data it is. Advocates see network neutrality as the fundamental right of all users to have equal access to the internet, having control of what content they view and the tools that they use to view that content.

photo credit: gualtiero

By guest author John West

It is already happening

Internet service providers (ISPs) act as a gateway, giving users access to the internet for everything they use it for (emailing, VoIP phone calls, web browsing, file sharing). However, there are fears that ISPs are acting as gatekeepers and are filtering internet content, breaching the fundamental principle of network neutrality.

The primary concerns of network neutrality advocates is the possibility that ISPs are able to enforce data discrimination and that they could favour certain traffic, such that the sites and services of a favoured organisation would reach the user very fast, with data from other sites travelling at much slower speeds. The fear is, of course, that large, established, powerful companies would be able to pay to have their services delivered quickly, whilst small organisations and start-ups would be left languishing, severely restricting competition and the potential for innovation.

For their part, most of the largest companies associated with the internet (for example Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!) are currently all strong advocates of maintaining the principles of network neutrality.

ISPs and peer to peer networks

So far the main targets of data discrimination have been people illegally sharing copyrighted in the quest against piracy. Thus, ISPs have throttled the traffic through some P2P (peer-to-peer) networks, particularly BitTorrent.

Whilst the issue of illegal file-sharing is something of a separate issue, it is the steps taken by ISPs to curb it that are the concern for network neutrality advocates. Clearly, the ISPs are already targeting and filtering certain types of data from certain sources, which is a demonstration that they have the power to do so. Furthermore, they are developing technology to enable them to do this more effectively, giving them the tools to implement data discrimination on a wider scale (should they ever have the will).

The driving force against network neutrality

Indeed, many ISPs are already showing the will as they are restricting traffic flow from certain sites (again P2P networks are the main target) in the name of giving all users a better online experience, arguing that their networks are becoming clogged with P2P traffic. It may therefore be the case that bandwidth becomes the driving force against network neutrality and in favour of some sort of regulation of the internet.

Whether your home or mobile broadband provider is already filtering your access to the internet is hard for you to discover for sure. But if you find that your connection speed to some sites (particularly P2P networks) is slower than your connection speed to other sites, it is likely that your ISP is throttling those services.

John West researches and writes regularly on broadband, ISP, 3G and other mobile industry related news, together with a wider range of technology themes.