Paid prioritization: Debunking the myth of fast and slow lanes

[Commentary] Cisco Systems Vice President Jeffrey Campbell highlighted that paid prioritization is “one of the most misunderstood issues” in the telecom policy space. There's a growing realization that prioritization can play a positive role in network traffic management. But to understand why, we need to get beyond the “fast lanes, slow lanes” metaphor that has too often dominated the net neutrality debate. All internet traffic on a network moves at the same speed — the speed at which the electrons propagate on the wire. The problem is congestion: what happens when users want to transmit more data than the wire can physically manage at a particular moment. When pressed, some net neutrality advocates will concede the value of intelligent traffic management. The problem isn’t prioritization, they claim, but paid prioritization: the protection against congestion in exchange for a fee. But once one acknowledges the need to prioritize traffic, one then needs a method of prioritization. 

[Daniel Lyons is also an associate professor at Boston College Law School]