“Net neutrality” no simple matter

The idea of a tiered Internet, with “diamond lanes” for heavy commercial services like web TV and IP telephony, is a key contemporary issue – not only technically, but democratically. The issue is not, however, entirely without irony…

New Internet services like Joost and YouTube are about to exceed the capacity of the underlying Internet backbone of cables and switches. Only the other week, Google themselves warned us that the Internet as it stands today isn’t suited for TV. Therefore they want to cooperate with the cable operators, who have earlier been frightened that companies like Google would take over the lucrative market for Internet TV. The term “net neutrality” was one of last year’s buzzwords in the US, in the debate about whether network operators would be allowed to appropriate parts of the Internet infrastructure and create “diamond lanes” dedicated to heavier traffic like, particularly, web TV. Many, including Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, were strongly critical towards the idea, and instead advocate a form of net-neutrality where telcos and cable operators would not not be able to decide whose data should flow faster or slower. They want to legislate for all Internet traffic being equally treated; this is most of all in the interest of Internet companies like the abovementioned, since these otherwise would risk to pay extra for being allowed to utilize these “diamond lanes”.