The Senate Commerce Committee moves on with a proposal that would offer providers new opportunities without the assurance of net neutrality (eSchool News source).
The attempt to assure net neutrality was an attempt to address the following issue (quote from linked article):
Supporters of the amendment argued that service providers could give preferential treatment to business partners or use pricing and access limits to discriminate between web sites and other internet users. Phone companies have talked about creating a “two-tiered” system in which users of their networks–including schools and other web site operators–desiring faster service for the delivery of broadband or voice-over-IP applications would have to pay more. Those who couldn’t pay would be relegated to the internet “slow lane.”
The neutrality issue is not about setting a price point for connection, it is about providers ability to alter download speed of categories of data in support of provider self interest. For example, a telephone company may degrate VOIP speeds to encourage traditional phone use. A cable company might degrade video downloads to encourage pay per view or the purchase of additional channels. The provider would not be “neutral” with respect to the content one could effectively download from the Internet. The potential problem would seem to be most dangerous in locations where real competition does not exist (perhaps less populated areas without alternative providers) and users could not switch to a different provider offering more competitive services.
