Net neutrality has been a phrase thrust around the news recently, but what would its demise mean for online business? Well, net neutrality is the principle of user access to the internet being equal for every person surfing the net no matter where they are, what they are doing or who their service provider is. The fear is that internet service providers could throttle their bandwidth, giving some users faster connection than others. This would allow them to give preferential treatment to those who pay for say, an internet TV service, over those wanting to watch a video from a regular website.
BT is the latest to hint at giving just such a preferential treatment for its BT Vision service. The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones quoted Jon Hurry, the commercial director at BT Retail as saying:
“[A]t the moment with our TV service, BT Vision, we deliver entertainment content, video, at peak time to consumers via our network and we prioritise the traffic in order to be able to do this.”
While Rory went on to explain that in a call to BT’s press office, BT claimed that Mr Hurry may have not quite explained their position accurately, the fact remains that BT have in place a service which one way or the other, allows one set of users a different experience to others.
Web icon Google, who is usually a massive advocate of the net neutrality principals, while working on a proposal on net neutrality to the US Congress with Verizon, also hinted at some level of preferential service. They recommended that users have the option of a better service as long as it doesn’t detract from regular user experiences, as well as suggesting that no rules on net neutrality should be placed on mobile services as this is such a rapidly growing sector. While Google is still supporting net neutrality, it is saying that there should be some leeway.
So what would this mean for online business?
It means that, on one hand your business may be able to provide your customers an exclusively improved service, paying for faster access to your web features and content like video; while on the other hand it might mean that you find access to your businesses website is throttled back to allow greater bandwidth for others who can pay for the privilege. Businesses online often depend on high speed connection to their payment service provider and slow internet could hamper this for them. Having a hierarchical structure applied to the internet may undermine its free and open principles, leaving those without the means to compete, left languishing pitching at a lower level.
On what side of the fence do you stand?
Online advertising is big business: Fact. Google would certainly agree with that, as it’s always been a staple of their business model. In fact advertising is for Google a multi-billion dollar industry. So why is online advertising so successful? Well, unlike traditional advertising like billboards, TV adverts, etc, advertising online is far more direct and infinitely more focused. However with modern changes in how people get online the game is certainly going to change.