UK's Two Biggest ISPs Rip Up Net Neutrality

Barence writes "The UK's two biggest ISPs have openly admitted they'd give priority to certain internet apps or services if companies paid them to do so. Speaking at a Westminster eForum on net neutrality, senior executives from BT and TalkTalk said they would be happy to put selected apps into the fast lane, at the expense of their rivals. Asked specifically if TalkTalk would afford more bandwidth to YouTube than the BBC's iPlayer if Google was prepared to pay, the company's executive director of strategy and regulation, Andrew Heaney, argued it would be 'perfectly normal business practice to discriminate between them.' Meanwhile, BT's Simon Milner said: 'We absolutely could see a situation when content or app providers may want to pay BT for quality of service above best efforts,' although he added BT had never received such an approach."

Comments

My website has 9000 partners!

[Dalzhim]

If I want my service to be fast just about anywhere on the web, I guess I'll need to make this kind of deal with >9000 ISPs?
I guess I should do that as an individual as well, I'll pay so that all the traffic with my IP goes on the fast lane to the detriment of other customers in my area.

I can see the company's point. Why improve on the infrastructure of the network when you can get customers to pay an extra to get a better share of the limited connectivity?

Re:What's with this app horsedookie?

[IndustrialComplex]

There's no written rule saying it can't be used to describe all software, but it pisses me off in the same way it pisses me off when someone says "put it on the floor" when they're standing in the middle of a forest, or call a truck a "car"

You must be angry a significant portion of the time if trivial things like that set you off. You are using the English language, it's a very flexibile language that allows for a wide variety of 'errors' while still conveying the intended message.

Restated:

You must be fuming a bunch if you make mountains out of molehills. English puts up with a lot of meddling. It can be bungled up and still convey the same meaning.