ISPs To Offer Details Of Internet Throttling

Britain’s major Internet service providers will today sign up to a voluntary code of practice, whereby they will be compelled to give clearer information to consumers about their traffic management policies.

Under the new code, companies including BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, BSkyB, O2, 3UK and Vodafone will have to provide easily comparable information about how they slow down users’ connections during peak times, and what impact this will have for each broadband service they offer. Those companies taking part account for 90 percent of all fixed-line broadband customers and 60 percent of all mobile customers in the UK.

“Consumers need to be able to make informed choices about the services they buy and policy makers need to be able to make informed decisions about the policy and regulatory framework they set,” said Antony Walker, Chief Executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, which represents the UK’s larger ISPs. “This new commitment provides an essential building block for getting both of these things right.”

Web throttling and traffic management

Many ISPs already offer information about their traffic management policies, but the new code of practice means that these details will have to be provided in a universal format, so that consumers can make easy comparisons. The companies involved hope the code will help customers understand why they need to vary connection speeds.

The news comes amid ongoing discussions between regulators and policy makers in the EU over the need for online traffic management. Network operators and ISPs currently use this technology to throttle the flow of different kinds of traffic over the web, to handle traffic more efficiently, prioritise traffic by type, guarantee bandwidth and block or degrade the quality of certain content.

However, critics warn that varying the speed of access could lead to the creation of a two-tier Internet, where some content providers will be able to pay the ISP for faster access to their sites.

In November 2010, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey appeared to shun the principle of net neutrality when he said that Internet service providers should be allowed to prioritise traffic from certain content providers. He suggested that ISPs could charge heavy bandwidth users such as Google and Skype for “fast lane” access, bringing in additional revenue streams and helping pay for the expansion of online services.

However, the proposals were met with fierce criticism from political opponents and certain members of the industry. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said the plans would “reduce innovation and reduce people’s ability to exercise their freedom of speech,” while the BBC’s Erik Huggers said the scheme would give ISPs an unprecedented amount of control over the accessibility of information and services on the web.

Managed services

Vaizey later backtracked on his comments, claiming that an open Internet was his “first and overriding priority”. However, he stood by his suggestion that ISPs should be allowed to “innovate and experiment with different business models.”

The Broadband Stakeholder Group’s new code of practice includes provision for ISPs to explore managed services: “offering a guaranteed quality of service for specified content, services or applications.”

However, it does not pass any judgement on whether traffic management is a good thing or a bad thing.

“If those services do start to emerge, it is really important that both consumers and policy makers are aware of it so that any policy or regulatory framework is based on clear evidence about what is happening in reality rather than just speculation or conjecture about what might happen,” Walker told BBC News.