Barely days into the New Year and the flames surrounding the net neutrality debate have once again flared. There are few who will have missed the media furore this week over BT’s launch of its Content Connect service. A number of the UK’s national press and open access groups are calling this a breach of the basic principles of net neutrality and the first step towards a two-tier Internet.
To many within the industry, what BT is proposing is nothing new. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) have existed for some time and are widely used by many media providers today. One need only look at Akami to see such an example. In this respect, a two-tier Internet already exists. However, what’s different about BT’s offering is that they could potentially own the CDN and the last-mile infrastructure over which the data is carried.
Some within the UK are now calling for the government to intervene but this is unlikely to happen. The UK’s culture minister has already publicly stated that he is not against a two-tier Internet and believes that this may even be necessary to support the growth of the country’s broadband infrastructure.
This announcement comes at a time when many within the industry are still assessing the implications of the FCC’s recent net-neutrality ruling. A ruling that many believe has some way to go before offering a definite framework that the industry can follow. As I noted in a recent blog post, the EU is also yet to develop a firm vision here. The vice president for the European Commission’s digital agenda, Neelie Kroes, has stated that she believes the Internet should remain a best-effort service with notable exceptions for special services.
There can be no question that net neutrality will take centre stage in 2011. For our global broadband infrastructure to develop there needs to be a concerted effort to develop clearly defined rules that do not stymie competition and that also encourage innovation, especially for new services such as telemedicine, remote learning, etc.
Where do you stand on the debate? Does a two-tier Internet already exist? Do we need traffic management to encourage the development of special services? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this.