Net neutrality debate revived

Net neutrality, as recently as the summer of 2007, appeared to be on the wane as a topic of concern for the telecom industry. Service providers weren't taking it seriously, Net neutrality advocates couldn't provide enough evidence for their concern, and Congress had moved on to different battles.

That all changed with Comcast's traffic-delaying controversy. The cable TV company faced many accusations that it was blocking the traffic of some broadband users--namely prolific peer-to-peer content traffickers. Comcast admitted only that it had delayed some traffic to better manage its network, but Net neutrality proponents took it as a call to arms. Now, there seems to be a real promise of Net neutrality legislation being a key issue of debate next year. Meanwhile, other broadband service providers have moved toward tiered offerings, and Verizon, in particular announced increased upstream bandwidth to appease the P2P monster.

For more:
- One report suggested late last month that Net neutrality legislation may return