Not Net Neutral

It's a while since I've blogged on the issue of Net Neutrality - the arrangement between ISPs whereby they do not charge each other for the traffic they pass between their networks (the argument being that this should even out overall) - but it seems that my assumption that the Democrat controlled Houses would not move to change this status quo was misplaced.

The recent problem has become that ISPs, such as Tiscali and Verizon, are subsidising service companies such as Google and Yahoo. P2P exacerbates this issue as the costs are pushed even further onto the local provider.

Narrowstep (NRWS)'s recent announcement of an alliance with wholesale bandwidth provider KPN and the building of 'networks within networks' with partners such as Virgin Media and Terra foresaw this eventuality and places the company very well for a non-Net Neutral world, whereas other video service providers such as Limelight (LLNW) and Akamai (AKAM) may see the charge of delivery for their services, and clients such as Roo (RGRP) and Brightcove that use their CDNs, rise sharply.

But the company which is most threatened is Google (GOOG) and its YouTube subsidiary, who have built the largest serving environment in the world, but, apart from where they control the free WiFi networks they provide free in San Francisco, have little influence of the last mile. It's not surprising that they're entered the bidding war for spectrum in the US.

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