A revised take on net neutrality

In February 2006, we began a series of articles on net neutrality. In our archived introduction, we noted that there was a difference of opinion about how Internet access providers should offer users access to Internet content. On the one hand, some broadband access providers suggested that they should be allowed to charge a premium to content providers that want users to get faster or guaranteed access to the providers' information or applications. On the other hand, proponents of net neutrality would prohibit such charges, maintaining that broadband providers and ISPs are obliged to give equal opportunity access to Internet content and applications.

One of our the biggest concerns centered around making sure that a future start-up such as Facebook or Twitter could evolve without financial impediment, and we were also concerned that ISPs would begin to charge for VoIP traffic differently than for a generic Internet session. But a few things have changes since we originally stood in favor of  net neutrality back in 2006.

First, we didn't anticipate how quickly video would come to dominate Internet traffic. Three years ago, network service providers had shifted from engineer networks to a data first, voice second in terms of traffic volumes. (In the previous millennium, voice traffic volumes exceeded data traffic volumes.) Today, we are seeing a similar paradigm shift as Internet traffic engineers begin to redesign their networks to accommodate the dominance of streaming and real-time video content compared to data content.

Another shift is also evolving with wireless Internet access. In 2006, second-generation wireless networks made mobile Web-surfing a painful experience. Most users therefore preferred to use a wireline Internet connection for any serious Web surfing, as hockey-stick adoption curve for DSL and cable modem services over the last three years will attest.

But today 3G and 4G wireless technologies, more affordable mobile data plan prices, and the increasing adoption of smartphones all make for increased wireless Internet traffic demands. Some even suggest that mobile Internet access is more important today than wired access, although we think that wireline is better suited for heavy bandwidth requirements given the finite radio spectrum resources available.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.