Up until recently, there was no issue about net neutrality. Internet “pipes” did not distinguish between what type of traffic was passing through them and did not care to prioritize any type of traffic over other types.

This is changing fast. Comcast was caught blocking peer to peer sharing traffic on its network, if you recall this is the company claiming it gives you a bigger pipe compared to the phone companies, then why does it need to block traffic? Now that I have your attention, here is a list of ISP’s that block peer to peer type of traffic.

The bottom line is, if left to their own devices, traditional players may start to prioritize traffic to their content and give lower priority to competitors. For example, if an internet connectivity company started a search service, it might prioritize people using its own search service compared to Google. So now you know what side Google on.

“Given that the carriers are investing to provide the bandwidth to the home, I don’t see why they should not be compensated for third party services seeking higher quality of service. The critical issue is that the access fees need to be fair and reasonable. However, with competition from both cable and carriers and wireless, this access should be competitive.” stated Ken Cavanaugh, Director of Business Development at General Bandwidth.Someone needs to decide, when the public signs up for internet service, is it signing up for specific type of service or plain internet (all internet) access? If an ISP can block peer to peer traffic, can it block traffic to specific news channels, other ISPs, you see where this is going.The reason this should concern anyone using VoIP is that if the carrier starts to give your traffic low priority because you’re using a competitor’s lower cost voice service, then you are up a creek without a paddle, especially if your voice service provider is not in the business of providing internet access.

Since I’m based in the US, I tend to focus more on the US market place. The net neutrality issue is, however, bigger in some other countries. For example, I know for a fact, some (not sure if all) DSL providers in Pakistan block SIP traffic. This is imposed by the phone company providing internet connectivity so that users don’t start using lower cost VoIP services to make long distance calls, talk about pillaging the competition! Now if a provider started providing DSL service in Pakistan with no restrictions on SIP traffic, I know the public will be flocking to this provider, currently no one can do this as the “pipes” are controlled by one company and their terms are to block SIP traffic.