NewTeeVee is reporting that the network neutrality debate has come to Europe. It all started when the BBC started broadcasting their shows for the iPlayer.
It may seem like a bit of nostalgia for some. In 2006 in the US, there was a bill that could have changed the internet to have so-called ‘fast-lanes’ and ’slow-lanes’. The questions lawmakers were tackling was whether telecommunication companies had the right to prioritize traffic. Google, at the time, was called a “freeloader” and some Internet Service Provider companies wanted to charge websites a fee to have their traffic prioritized. The claim was that as traffic on the internet increased, so would the stress on the general network.
File-sharing wasn’t spared from the debate either. Networks, namely BitTorrent, were blamed for a large amount of stress on ISP networks. BitTorrent tried to implement the Cache Discovery Protocol which would allow popular kinds of traffic to be cached, thus reducing network stress.
More predominantly, many ISPs chose to simply block or shape the traffic instead. This sparked outrage by content creators, among many others and intensified the network neutrality debate.
Apparently, the BBC liked the idea of caching traffic and proposed a caching system to reduce the network load for ISPs for their iPlayer. Some have suggested that the BBC pay for the additional traffic load.
There was a further suggestion that fiber optics be laid in through existing infrastructure like sewers. Some say it’s an interesting possible solution.
Via NewTeeVee.
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