Network neutrality or 'net neutrality' or 'internet neutrality'.

I was accessing a forum a few days back when I came across an article on Network neutrality or ‘net neutrality’ or ‘internet neutrality’, the term was coined term around 2003 in political opposition to the possibility that internet service providers, in the course of implementing proposed new service and content models, might impose selective (hence discriminatory) controls on the Internet's traffic and content. This has become a focus for attention today.

What exactly this means to today’s net usage is, to be brief, the information highway or the World Wide Web has come to a roadblock and in few days from today the House of Representatives in the US is going to vote on a bill that would, in effect, categorically change the Internet. This bill which is due to come up within the next few weeks for ‘vote of approval’ will , if approved, allow the internet providers alter or change or block or restrict part of the content available to all of us today. These ISP’s want the power to choose who and when they can allow people to access web content. If this is bill is passed then these ISP’s will definitely create discrimination on whose content will be seen first and fastest.

Is the future of the Internet at stake? It depends on what you think the Internet is. If the Internet is a way to move bits and packets, then no, the Internet will still do that. If the Internet to you is a set of ideals like openness, self-governance, and non-discrimination of content, then yes, maybe the end is near. Today, traffic on the Internet follows the ‘best effort’ model: when a packet comes to a router, the router tries to identify the fastest way for that packet to reach its destination. It doesn’t distinguish between an email, a message that doesn’t need real time delivery, and a video, something that presumably does. On the surface it makes a lot of sense to treat them differently. Maybe video gets best effort treatment and email gets decent effort. Your email is still there next time you log in, and you can watch your webcast and videos without interruption. On the other hand, if we allow that to happen how far away are we from a CNN webcast getting best effort treatment and a ‘YouTube’ video only getting decent effort?

What can we do?? Well, for starters we can sign a petition to ‘save the internet’; you can click on any one of the links below and join the millions who share similar sentiments.

http://action.freepress.net/campaign/savethenet

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

http://www.netfreedomnow.org/

http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

http://www.petitiononline.com/abhinavk/petition.html

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