Cisco: Broadband providers should not treat all bits the same

All bits running over the Internet are not equal and should not be treated that way by broadband providers, despite network neutrality advocates' calls for traffic neutral regulations, Cisco Systems said.

A huge number of Internet-connected devices with a wide variety of traffic requirements, including billions of machine-to-machine connections, will come online over the next four years, Cisco predicted in its Visual Networking Index Global Forecast and Service Adoption.

Some Web-based applications, including rapidly growing video services, home health monitoring and public safety apps, will demand priority access to the network, while others, like most Web browsing and email, may live with slight delays, said Jeff Campbell, Cisco's vice president for government and community relations.

“We really have a multiplicity of applications and services that are now running across the network, some of which require dramatically different treatment than others," he said.

Some network neutrality advocates have objected to US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed rules that would allow broadband providers to engage in "commercially reasonable" traffic management. It's important that the FCC ensure an open Internet, but it's also important that "we have a robust network," Campbell said. The FCC should allow broadband providers to maintain quality of service "to ensure that some applications will run properly and effectively on the Internet," Campbell said. "That means using the intelligence of the network to ensure that those bits receive the quality of service they need."