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Could some consumers in Europe end up paying more for their broadband?

November 23, 2008 by admin  
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A paper will shortly be published by the Centre for European Policy Studies that may damn the current approach by European Leaders to broadband internet access and their increasing “net neutrality” friendliness. The principle of looking to stop excessive restrictions to the access of broadband is currently what is known as Net Neutrality. In essence, no restrictions of access to any services (traffic management) or content and equal access for everyone would make a truly neutral network.


A different stance, however, is expected from the report to be issued by CEPS saying that this neutrality will give providers of content a “free ride” meaning that an average user of the internet would effectively subsidise those heavily using their services. They also warned that incentives for future network investment by ISPs would be severely limited by this neutrality as there would be little or no incentive.

 There are currently arguments for and against its issue with neutrality even though the paper has yet to be published. One argument is that content on the internet is what it is about and without this content there would be no point going online so content providers won’t get a free ride.

On the other hand, a truly neutral network with no restrictions is something that isn’t feasible, when considering music, video and games downloading have become standard in the modern climate this is especially true. And to that end there are already restrictions placed by ISPs on both the speed of accessing services and how much per month can be downloaded.

Something that may add a little perspective to the current arguments is that if everyone in the UK over a month downloaded 10 Gigabyte’s (GB) of data the bandwidth required to accommodate this would be from £80 to £100 per month. At the moment, because ISPs naturally balance their pricing to allow for both heavy and light users the costs of the service are usually around the £15 to £20 mark., which is both far more sensible and the basic economic the many services employ.

In the UK consumers have been enjoying some very good deals on broadband for some years, with stiff competition amongst providers making it easier to get deals that are both affordable, offer a range of services, and offer good customer service. Consumers in the UK have a choice of packages from a range of providers, and can choose from basic packages to higher end packages for heavier users. However, the cost of broadband along with the incentives offered can vary from one provider to another, and therefore it has become increasingly important for consumers to compare different deals in order to find the one that best suits their needs and their pocket.

Tags: Leaders, music video, traffic, internet connection, broadband, GBP, basic packages, hand

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