I define “True Neutrality” here as an intelligent network rather than something that people assume to be neutral in a dumb network that isn’t actually neutral.
http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/11/what-is-true-neutrality-in-the-network/

With the wide range of content flowing through the pipelines, and increasing at a rapid pace, the network cannot become a (dumb pipeline). Network management seems to be an essential characteristic needed to handle the flexibility of constantly differing requirements from users. This is not a linear format with constant speeds and demands.

So, the network has to constantly adjust to those varying needs which may require one user to demand more capacity than others at unique times. This management, which I think you are saying, will not degrade the network for users. It is a matter of chossing one higher demand over a lower demand without degrading the demand for both. It manages the requirements of each user.

The Industry has learned and adjusted accordingly since the incident about throttling (bit torrents), which seemed to isolated.

I agree with you on the (bread & butter) metaphor.

It’s pretty certain that the FCC NPRM *WILL ALLOW* ISPs to *CONTINUE* favoring their own services under “Managed Services” which includes IPTV, VoIP, or business class Internet solutions. I can’t overemphasis enough that ISPs have and will continue to favor their own services, and why wouldn’t they when they are the ones that have to pay the bills and sign the paychecks to over a quarter of a million people? These services are the ISP’s bread and butter and there’s no way they can continue investing billions of dollars in the network and keep employing hundreds of thousands of employees if regulators knee cap the ISP’s revenue streams.

But what is shocking is that the current NPRM says it should probably be illegal for the ISP to also favor all other VoIP providers to improve general customer experience with or without a fee. So the NPRM would allow ISPs to protect their own applications, but not allow them to use common sense to protect other applications. http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/11/fcc-nprm-prohibits-good-network-management/

As I said, the blanket prohibitions against ISP offering services inside the NPRM are very problematic regardless of how narrow or wide the interpretation is. The fact that it is a blanket prohibition is the problem.

From reading the information provided it seems that the NPRM language is at the crux of the debate for those seeing paid-peering-agreements as essential to increased participation by innovative content providers, whether they are start-ups or seasoned providers. It seems to be open ended for interpretation, and that is scary to the ISP’s.

As private networks, the ISP’s should know their responsibilities regarding consumer and commercial traffic, and the ramifications of prioritizing, if any. Obviously, paid peering is needed for those whose products depend on it for business survival. The consumer wants the same whether they are streaming movies, or downloading PDF’s or just sending e-mail attachments.

So to me, it comes down to network infrastructure capabilities across a wide variety of circumstances and geographical locations which require different needs. In essence, what will it take for both large and small ISP’s to handle the varying traffic over their networks; upgrading to a standard that reasonably doesn’t degrade the user experience?

I think what is most in everyone’s thoughts are; will ISP’s that are vertically integrated favor their products over others, or their competition? The debate should not end as a deterrent to innovation and investment from the private sector.

However, it seems the FCC is leaving its options open at this point.

Tax payers didn’t exactly build the infrastructure. It’s an extremely complex topic. What happened is that the majority of phone subscribers subsidized the infrastructure in high-cost regions in the form of inter-carrier compensation. That basically means the larger urban and sub-urban carriers and their subscribers subsidized the smaller carriers in the rural areas.

It means the majority of phone subscribers subsidized a minority of subscribers. It does not mean tax payers paid for the whole network.