No One Neutral About Net Free-for-All
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Mike Farrell, Ted Hearn, Karen Brown & Matt Stump]
There was an accusation of a network operator blocking a rival phone service, deals that could put some preferred email on a fast lane on the Internet and, along the way, U.S. Senate hearings examining just who should control what consumers access on the Web. Those blows last week only added to the growing fight between companies who have communications networks and those who don't, as to how 'neutral’ those nets should be, in what they carry. Neutrality boils down — at present — to three flash-point issues involving network operators such as cable companies: whether they should be allowed to block certain rival services, such as Internet voice calls, from traveling over their networks; whether they will cut off their subscribers’ access to content that in some way competes with their own in-house programs; and whether they will cut deals to give some content and services priority delivery ahead of other offerings. At the center of the battle: costs.
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