In the news recently, the CEO of Virgin Media has stated publicly that his company is going to start delivering content to their consumers faster or slower based upon whether the content owner has paid them money for better speed. This is important, as they are the first internet service provider to actually implement non-neutral delivery of internet content. It’s almost certainly the case that they aren’t the only ISP working on the technology to do this, but they are the only one publicly talking about a real implementation.

If you don’t know too much about net neutrality, here’s the 10,000 foot view. Internet service providers are necessary to have access to the internet – you need a pipe to the internet in order to either serve or retrieve content, which the ISP provides to you. The internet was designed as a dumb system in that your content will be delivered at speed of the physical limitations of the network regardless of where it’s coming from, where it’s going, and what it is. In other words, it’s non-discriminatory. However, someone on the ISP side determined that if they act less dumb, they can speed up or slow down content delivery based upon any arbitrary rules, since they own the pipe that it travels through. So, nowadays most ISPs want to start shaping traffic to you based upon whether the content provider (web site) has paid them to deliver their content faster.

The typical ISP response to net neutrality is that content providers are using their bandwidth without paying for it. This is a ridiculous statement – without content providers, there would be no reason to have internet access in the first place, which would put ISPs out of business. So, what are the long-term ramifications if net neutrality loses? It’s pretty obvious that most sites won’t be able to pay even a single ISP for speedy delivery, let alone all of them. Slower sites will be marginalized to an unknown extent, which will mean a less diverse internet. Sites willing to pay the ransom will be faced with how to pay every internet service provider on the planet for the speed they want, which will be both incredibly expensive and difficult to manage. The end user will experience no benefit, either – a few sites will be faster, but most will be slower. The only party that serves to gain from an end to net neutrality is the ISP, and it’s through a tactic that’s tantamount to extortion. What if business X paid buses to deliver people to only them and bypass all it’s competitors along the way? It’s not like you’re getting a free ride to begin with, so why in the world would that be in your interest?

One of the reasons that attacks on net neutrality are possible today is the lack of competition in the broadband space. Most consumers of broadband have either just one or at most two choices in providers. When there’s real competition in an industry, no competitor can afford to devalue their service, because the customer has the ability to shop around to find what fits them best. So, what as a consumer can you do to help fight for net neutrality, given the poor choices you have available? The first thing to do is don’t pay non-neutral internet access. For now, this group is a limited pool of people, but it’s bound to increase. Make sure to tell your ISP that you’re in favor of a neutral internet, and that they risk losing you over this issue. Petition your representatives, too – they can enact positive legislation on your behalf.