Recently, Comcast has been at the center of a debate over whether or not it is shaping traffic in order to restrict use of the BitTorrent protocol. According to many, but not all, Comcast users, their ability to seed (upload) torrents has been crippled. Unsurprisingly, Comcast denies this accusation.
Whether or not Comcast is shaping BitTorrent traffic is really part of a larger problem - net neutrality. The big question behind this issue is whether or not ISPs should be allowed to arbitrarily limit or enhance a users experience on the internet based on some sort of pay scale or by charging content providers a premium in order to provide their content at a higher priority than non-paid traffic.
As a content provider, our stance is that all information on the internet should be freely and equally accessible to any user from any provider. However, for many ISPs, deciding to offer a higher tier for both providers and users is becoming more and more tempting.
Imagine, your ISP, Acme, decides that traffic from the iTunes Music Store is using too much of its bandwidth. Acme then goes to Apple and proposes that Apple will pay some large sum of money in order for Acme to continue serving iTunes traffic. Acme then turns to the users and starts charging a $5 per month surcharge for any account that accesses the iTunes Music Store. Keeping in mind that music downloads on iTunes are perfectly legal and legitimate - we’re not even discussing P2P networks here. Doesn’t that just make you feel bad all over?
While this is simply a hypothetical situation, if ISPs start continue to shape their traffic, this situation, or a situation like this, might not be so far off. We’re teetering on a slippery slope here, so hopefully ISPs will decide to make decisions with the user in mind.
