BT creating 'two-tier internet'

[Damien]

Otherwise known as the death of Net Neutrality. For anyone unfamiliar with the term here is Wikipedia's description:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services.

Effectively it would allow ISP's to introduce packages other than speed. Such as a 'YouTube and iPlayer' package which could promise higher speeds for stream video at '£x per month'. Maybe a 'games package' for online gaming.

BT have promised something like this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12112389

Originally Posted by BBC News

BT has introduced a controversial service that some say could allow broadband providers to create a "two-tier internet".

Content Connect, as it is known, allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that use BT's network to charge content firms for high-speed delivery of video.

At the moment they seem to want to charge the content providers for priority on their network.

This is pretty bad IMO as it gives the like of YouTube competitive advantage over other services. Google can afford to pay to get their content delivered faster and people will go for to the faster services naturally. Especially unfair to people trying to set up companies that generate new, quality, video as they can also be pushed out by the warchests of existing TV companies such as Sky.

[Ignitionnet]

Content Connect is over 2 years old.

This is nothing more than caching content on the BT Wholesale network, in a similar manner to how the BBC, and others, use Akamai and other Content Delivery Networks either hosted on ISP networks or with direct links to them in order to expedite delivery of content.

This isn't a hell of a lot more than BT Wholesale running a CDN of their own and is nothing, at all, to do with the prioritisation or otherwise of traffic it merely cuts the Internet out of the loop just as hosting Akamai clusters on-net or privately peering with CDNs do.

The application management appliances that ISPs have had in place for years are far more conducive to violation of network neutrality, the whole point of those is to run intelligent, not neutral, networks.

Wonder why this is suddenly a story now? Must've been a slow news day at BBC HQ.

[Ignitionnet]

I posted elsewhere on this issue.

Originally Posted by Me

It's a Content Delivery Network, content owners have long had the option to pay more for better quality distribution, CDN providers sell their service on the quality they provide to end users, in the case of Akamai this service is ensured through making deals to host clusters on the networks of ISPs themselves.

It also requires PTA, which is only used by BT Broadband.

That's the real story here to be honest, this is a service produced by BT Wholesale with BT Retail in mind. It'll allow BT Retail to purchase CDN services from BT Wholesale, keeping it 'in the family' and if they save enough bandwidth on their MSILs allowing BT Retail to spend less on expensive wholesale bandwidth it may make PTA more attractive to other operators which in turn increases BT Wholesale's revenue further.

That's the story, nothing at all to do with network neutrality but the usual zealots that make the most noise piped up and diverted attention from the real story.

That's it really, it's BT Wholesale coming out with a 'Wholesale' product that is so blatantly for the BT Retail ISPs it's not even funny.