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Dijital Media, Inc. provides comprehensive E-Marketing solutions for St. Louis and St. Charles, Missouri (MO) small businesses.  Our e-marketing solutions are an integrated suite of services designed to help your small business capitalize on new media marketing opportunities.

Wed

23

Apr

2008

What Does Net Neutrality Mean to Your Business?
Written by J. Gohil   

While the topic of Net Neutrality is a very complicated and nuanced issue, as an average business internet-user, it's likely that you won't be affected regardless of the outcome.  While some people try to vilify the big Telecom companies - which they partially deserve - there are actually valid points on both sides of the debate.

There are literally hundreds of articles that address all of the considerations, but I'll make a modest attempt at summarizing the situation.

Currently when you pay for your internet connection, whether it's cable or DSL, you're entitled to connect to whichever site you want, or stream whichever video you want.  Essentially, you can use the internet for whatever you choose while only paying a standard monthly rate.  Since this has been the paradigm from day 1, this is what we're used to.  The Internet landscape has changed however.  Now more people are using the internet to replace other services - such as using Skype or Vonnage rather than your home phone lines.  Another growing trend is to watch TV online, whether On-demand or via downloads.  All of these services and transfer of data take their toll on the overall infrastructure of the internet.

The telecom companies that originally invested in the data lines that we all use are feeling a bit cheated.  They purport that people should be charged different rates depending on the type of traffic they use.  This is essentially at the heart of the Net Neutrality movement.  Proponents of Net Neutrality suggest that the Internet should remain free and not be 'throttled' based on the type of data moving across its lines.  They argue that this is what has enabled so many people to adopt new ways of not only interacting with one another (e.g. video conferencing) but also the way they do business - with many applications being permanently hosted online (e.g. Google Apps).

This discussion, however, isn't aimed at the average user or even the small to mid-size business.  Rather, the telecoms are looking at companies like Goolge (who now owns YouTube) to pay an additional charge to deliver all of their bandwidth-hungry videos.

There are powerful lobbyists on both sides of the issue and it's likely that congress will eventually make the decision, but I suspect that it won't be anytime soon.  In the meantime, if your business has been fully utilizing the web and the current bandwidth available to you, you may want to start watching CSPAN to see if any of this legislation will affect you.