Net neutrality is one of those buzz words that seems have popped up almost over night. This, however, is far from true. Net neutrality has been around since the beginning of what we call "The Internet". Very few people know what it actually is and even less make any attempt to find out. You might have heard it recently, probably in the news, or perhaps in passing of one of your geeky friends. It will be explained in plain English in the few pages, including why it is important to you.

Net neutrality is, by definition, networks that don't favor some destinations over others. This doesn't mean much to the common man, though, as it assumes understanding of how computer networks work in the first place. Net neutrality, to the common man, is having all of his or her data treated equally, no matter where he or she is coming or going from, from the standpoint of his or her Internet service provider. This, however is still not clear, here it is broke into an example: John wants to go to his favorite search engine, search.com, but his ISP (Internet service provider) is in league with ispsearch.com, and without net neutrality John can either has any traffic coming from or going to search.com slowed down to make ispsearch.com better or he could even be denied access to search.com. Thanks to net neutrality things like that are illegal. Net neutrality ensures that all traffic is dealt with equally, regardless of it's destination and who's network it must cross over to get there.

Originally, net neutrality was created when the Internet was went public and was privatized. Although the Internet, then known as Arpanet, was created in 1969, it was made public for both business and personal uses until 1990. Up until that point, the Internet was largely run by the government. The only companies that had access to the Internet where the companies hired by the government to maintain it. Back then it was protected by the "Acceptable Use Policy"(AUP) which forbid any commercial use of the Internet, but in 1990 that all changed. When it was privatized, the AUP was dropped, but there was an instant concern as to the free flowing nature of the Internet. Information, on the Internet, does not go straight from point A to point B. The information must go from point A, to point D, then point H, and then to point B. This may seem like a silly system to the average human, but this system is designed, much like the name suggests, like a net or a web. It normally finds the quickest point, but it must hit many paths to get there, going through many intersections. Now imagine these intersections as computers. Each time your information goes through a an intersection a computer must forward it along, but each computer has the ability to slow you down, redirect you, or block you all together. This is where net neutrality came in. It made sure that these "intersection machines" didn't care, they only answered your request.

So now that you understand what net neutrality is, why is it important today? There is currently a debate in Congress as to how to balance net neutrality. The telecommunication companies want net neutrality to be gone, or severally reduced. As to big companies like Google and Microsoft want them to stay in place. The telecommunication companies like AT&T not only share the burden of most of the backbone servers to the web, but also run many ISPs, including most 56k and DSL services. They are losing a lot of money from the switch from landline phones to Internet phone services like Vontage and have to deal with much of the traffic on the Internet. Big companies like Google and Microsoft require the Internet to make their money. Having IPSs and telecommunication companies require them to pay for unthrottled user data is very bad for business. This, however, does not only affect big business, this is a large issue for small businesses who are mainly online. Even the end customer is strongly affect, imagine not being able to use your favorite site because they refused to pay your ISP. So the debates are roaring, but not just in Congress, but in almost every form of media today. Many Telco/Cable companies have been running advertisements on TV and radio about the 'evils' of net neutrality. The Internet has been buzzing with companies like Google making public statements standing for net neutrality.

Many believe that net neutrality is merely a theoretical threat. Assuming that it could possibly be a problem; this is wrong. Many Telco/Cable companies. Verizon's Ivan Seidenberg told the Wall Street Journal: "We have to make sure they don't sit on our network and chew up our capacity. We need to pay for the pipe." Ed Whitacre of AT&T told Business Week last fall: "Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?" And according to The Washington Post: "William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc." As you can see, this threat is very real. There have already been a few cases where Telco/Cable companies have slipped up and breached these laws.

In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.

In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.

Shaw, a major Canadian cable, Internet, and telephone service company, intentionally downgrades the "quality and reliability" of competing Internet-phone services that their customers might choose -- driving customers to their own phone services not through better services, but by rigging the marketplace.

In April of 2006, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.

These are all great examples of what the Telco/Cable companies will do, if they have their way.

Net neutrality may not be new, but it is one of the most important buzz words of the century. It is a phrase that everyone who uses the Internet should know. It has been called "Net Democracy" and many other things. It's technical term is actually "Network Neutrality". Although net neutrality is young, it is here to stay, at least if the public has anything to say about it.