UK Minister Backs 'Two-Speed' Internet

Darkon writes "UK Culture minister Ed Vaizey has backed a 'two-speed internet', letting service providers charge content makers and customers for 'fast lane' access. It paves the way for an end to 'net neutrality' — with heavy bandwidth users like Google and the BBC likely to face a bill for the pipes they use."

Comments

Open Rights Group Have Responded

[MHDK]

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/open-internet-enhances-our-freedom-of-speech/

dangburn newfangled hippies

[arkane1234]

I can hear it now, almost a throwback to the 60's...
"dangburn newfangled hippies with their free love, free net, free information! Every redblooded {American|Brit} knows you get what you pay for! Can't have vagrants just lolligagging around on the net! The pricetag filters out the hoodlums!"

Confused.

[Usefull Idiot]

Google and the BBC already pay for the "pipes" they use, and end users pay for the "pipes" they use, where is someone not getting paid in this?

Re:Consensus?

[characterZer0]

I think most here generally support neutrality. Some argue that ISPs should be able to prioritize traffic based on type but not destination - they could give priority to latency critical, but low bandwidth, packets like VOIP at the expense of FTP; but not give priority to their own VOIP traffic above other VOIP traffic.

Re:Aren't the pipes already being paid for?

[ArhcAngel]

That would in fact be fairer than what they are trying to do. Take comcast as a good example. They just purchased NBC. Now let's say you are a comcast customer and you want to stream an episode of Chuck and then an episode of NCIS. Chuck streams great no lag or stuttering but NCIS coughs and sputters and buffers all the way through and you just think CBS.com sucks compared to NBC.com but in fact comcast saw you were streaming a show from a competitors web site and flagged your packets with a low priority so all other traffic gets to go first. Then CBS cries foul and comcast tells them if they want their content to get delivered without interruption they'll have to pay a "protection" fee to ensure on-time delivery. Now imagine they are doing this to ABC.com, Google, Yahoo, etc., etc. If they can get this practice federally labeled legal they stand to add billions to their bottom line for relatively no extra work.