What is Net Neutrality?
What is Net Neutrality and why is it being talked about so much?  The term refers to the basic concept of neutrality, which obliges Internet suppliers to guarantee the same opportunities to all. This ensures that no particular company gets the chance to ‘run faster than the others’ and, vice versa, that no business is slowed down to the advantage of a competitor.
In simple terms, Net Neutrality offers everyone the same opportunities:  from a well-established online newspaper to a recently opened blog, there can be no favouritism. For example, this enabled Google to assert itself as a valid competitor of well-known service providers such as Yahoo and Alta Vista right from the start.
However, as with everything in the world, the current situation is probably destined to come to an end, because the Federal Communications Commission of the USA recently announced its desire to abolish the principle of neutrality. If we consider that that organisation has the power to regulate web traffic in the United States, the decisions it takes always have a great impact.
Criticism has come above all from those who believe that services with a high level of traffic such as streaming, as well as overloading the network, force service providers to sustain enormous costs in order to make their networks more powerful. These same costs however, are often difficult to manage, because those incurring them do not get any income from subscriptions to cover them.
The idea then is to make companies like Netflix, who require a high level of traffic, pay up. In 2014, Netflix had to deal with a slowdown of traffic due to Comcast demanding more money to guarantee the proper functioning of the service.
Other similar cases have arisen with mobile phone service suppliers: in the USA and Portugal, there is no regulation of neutrality and some important businesses such as Hulu can exploit exemptions which other companies cannot. Of course, the Internet Association does not support abolishing Net Neutrality and Europe does not have the same regulations as America, but that is not to say that everything will remain un-changed.
This is the current situation regarding the principle of neutrality: the latest important developments which could affect the future of the entire web.
Translated by Joanne Beckwith
