Net Neutrality debate isn’t going to go away
Net Neutrality deals with the issue that all traffic travelling across a network should be given equal treatment. The network must be non discriminatory or ‘neutral’.
To this point, I was totally against the ISP’s who had proposed segregating certain “high priority” traffic according to a “tiered services” (TS) model, which they claim will allow them to provide advanced functionality and higher quality for customers. Tiered service proponents claim that there are valid uses for a “high priority traffic” model, and that these would not impose substantial bandwidth or quality of service restrictions on the general public. The tiered service would obviously make the consumer pay extra for services that used a high amount of bandwidth. And of course, everyone at this point, myself included has screamed and shouted and the thought of raised prices for the consumer. After all, shouldn’t increased usage of the internet the world around lead to lower prices?
Not necessarily unfortunately. Due to the increasing popularity of high bandwidth services such as Youtube and Google video, and the huge bandwidth needs of ipTV when it comes along a tiered service is likely to be the only option we have. Think of the internet as one big drainpipe in a sink. Internet traffic started out 15 years or so ago as a tiny drop of water flowing gently down the pipe. It gradually increased as the internet grew in popularity to the point that sometimes now, there is too much water in the sink, too much for the pipe to let out immediately. Sometimes those little drops of water have to wait a while before they can flow down that pipe. Youtube comes along with its bigger drops of water and congestion builds. I’m sure you get the picture by now.
These big drops are the high bandwidth traffic that has become so popular in modern usage of the net. This popularity is spreading, and doing so faster than the DIY man can expand that little drainpipe.
The problem the internet faces is that bandwidth is not increasing at the level consumer use of it is. Not only that, but the ISP doesn’t necessarily want to upgrade. Will they benefit from forking out millions of dollars to upgrade their network? A little yes, but who will the real winners be? Yes, the high bandwidth consumers such as Youtube, Google video and the likes. So why would any ISP be in a hurry to upgrade so that Youtube can have an easier ride.
Lets face it, something has to change or the bandwidth issue is only going to grow. Whether that be that ISP’s start charging the consumer more for viewing certain ‘premium’ sites or whether they reach some sort of agreement with these ‘premium’ sites to receive money based on traffic used. I know which way I would want it to go, but I also know the way its most likely to go.
I predict that in maybe 5 years time, Tiered ISP models will be the norm. The majority of us will be paying extra for ‘premium’ content. Look on the bright side though, if it means I don’t have to buffer every 5 seconds while watching streaming content I’d be a willing to help out footing the bill.