LONDON — Although U.S. legislators and regulators continue to struggle with the concept of “Net neutrality,” the British government has rejected the idea and will allow internet service providers to charge content providers for traffic prioritization.According to the Digital Britain report released at the end of January, British regulators believe that allowing ISPs to charge for guaranteed service levels while throttling “low-value/high-bandwidth” traffic like that found on peer-to-peer networks will foster innovation and investment.
“Net neutrality is sometimes cited by various parties in defense of internet freedom, innovation and consumer choice,” the report noted. “The debate over possible legislation in pursuit of this goal has been stronger in the US than in the UK. Ofcom [the British equivalent of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission] has in the past acknowledged the claims in the debate but has also acknowledged that ISPs might in future wish to offer guaranteed service levels to content providers in exchange for increased fees.
“In turn this could lead to differentiation of offers and promote investment in higher-speed access networks. Net neutrality legislation might prevent this sort of innovation.”
In contrast, U.S. lawmakers, especially under the new Obama administration, seem intent on preserving content neutrality on the Web. During his campaign, President Barack Obama said he thought charging for guaranteed service levels “destroys one of the best things about the internet, which is that there is this incredible equality there.”
For its part, the FCC, even under former Republican Chairman Kevin J. Martin, has stood firm in an expressed commitment to net neutrality, even under pressure from special interests in the ISP industry. The FCC famously took cable ISP Comcast to task over its practice of managing network traffic by throttling the bandwidth allocated to BitTorrent users.
Sentiments do not run in the same channels across the Atlantic. Lord Carter, the head of Ofcom, has been a vocal supporter of “pay-to-play” internet traffic management since the beginning.
“The government has yet to see a case for legislation in favor of net neutrality,” he noted in the Digital Britain report. “In consequence, unless Ofcom finds network operators or ISPs to have Significant Market Power and justifies intervention on competition grounds, traffic management will not be prevented.”
