Network Neutrality Refers to the absence of restrictions placed on the type of content carried over the Internet by carriers and ISPs that run the major backbones. It implies that all packets are delivered on a first-come, first-served basis and no priority is given to traffic coming from any Internet venue above and beyond that of another. Also called "Net neutrality," network neutrality became an issue as major search engines such as Google and Yahoo! increasingly generated massive amounts of traffic compared with other sites. It also became an issue because some carriers that offered subscription-based VoIP services were also transporting their competitors' VoIP traffic.


This is a very contentious topic because major carriers are lobbying to eliminate network neutrality and be able to charge Web sites extra fees to carry higher traffic. Down the road, it implies that owners of all Web sites may have to pay additional fees in order to prevent their content from bogging down in a low priority queue. The Internet leveled the playing field due to network neutrality. Without it, startup sites and small Web sites would be at a disadvantage compared to large, established sites.

Columbia University law professor Tim Wu popularized the phrase network neutrality as a term designating a network that does not favor one application (for example the World Wide Web) over another (such as online gaming or Voice over IP).[1] Wu claims that the Internet is not neutral "as among all applications" as it favors file transfer over real-time communication.

Additionally, large Internet content and network providers maintain that network neutrality primarily concerns the question of whether or to what extent networks should be able to favor or disfavor certain subdivisions of applications, such as certain websites (e.g. Google[2][3]) in the case of the World Wide Web or certain brands of Voice Over IP or any other application.

Network neutrality also designates a contemporary controversy mostly local to the United States regarding the role that government should take relative to Internet access providers providing multiple levels of service for different fees. This controversy, which emerged following regulatory developments in the United States, is extremely complex, as it mixes technical, economic, ideological and legal arguments. In essence, network neutrality regulations proposed by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) [4] and Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) bar ISPs from offering Quality of Service enhancements for a fee.

Network neutrality is sometimes used as a technical term, although it has no history in the design documents (RFCs) describing the Internet protocols. In this usage, it is claimed to represent a property of protocol layering in which higher-layer protocols may not communicate service requirements to lower-layer protocols, a highly idiosyncratic interpretation of protocol engineering. (In conventional network engineering practice, each protocol in a layered system exposes Service Access Points to higher layers that can be used to request a level of service appropriate to the needs of higher-layer protocols.)

LINKS:

Save the Internet Fighting for Internet Freedom

DefendNetNeutrality.org 

Network Neutrality Information from Answers.com