Should net neutrality come to UK?

Professor Nigel Shadbolt said, "We might feel that we're happy with the degree of market force and flexibility in the U.K., but...what is clear is that some of the major content providers originate out of the U.S., and if things actually became tiered in any sense we would feel the impact in the U.K. and the EU," said Shadbolt. "When there are proposals floating around before Congress or whatever, whatever your view, it is required to examine the issues. It is a complex field."

While the US Justice Dept. came out against net neutrality, companies and users worry that they will have to line telecoms' pockets in order to get the best throughput.

"In broad terms, the presumption that content should be equally accessible to all those at the point of being a node on the Internet is seen as vital," said Shadbolt. "The other aspect of that is that people are perfectly free to go out and buy superior bandwidth. That's never been argued--nobody's arguing that there should be equivalence there--(but) if you don't keep an eye on this and in some sense monitor it (it becomes) a precedent for partitioning, which becomes more explicitly built into the fabric of the infrastructure."