Virgin Media and Net Neutrality

I am disappointed with the news that Virgin Media may be planning to charge customers to access certain content faster and leave everyone else in the "Internet bus lane."

Neil Berkett, the recently appointed CEO of Virgin Media has said that he thinks Net Neutrality is "a load of bollocks". He said he plans to charge sites a premium to get fast access to their customers and if they don't pay they'll have the internet speed restricted. He said they are already in talks with some content providers about introducing the charges.

I have been a Virgin Media, previously Blueyonder, customer for a while now and I must say I have been happy with the service but if they start introducing extra charges or reducing my net speed then I'll just switch to a different provider. I'm not the only one who is a little p****d off about this, my friend who's also with Virgin has said he'll also switch. I hope they come to their senses and realise how unpopular this idea is, otherwise they are going to lose customers faster than their broadband speeds. Then we'll see if content providers are willing to pay a premium for a diminishing customer base.



Update: I sent an email to Virgin Media, from the response it seems as though they have backed off a little bit. Regardless of their stance on it now, I feel that Virgin have a monopoly on the cable sector and OFCOM needs to get or their arse and do something about it, otherwise I'm sure this won't be the last time Virgin tries something like this. Anyway here's the reply:

"With Virgin Media rolling out a 50Mb service later this year, we are
uniquely equipped to cope with the demand for new bandwidth-hungry
services. We strongly support the principle that the internet should
remain a space that is open to all and we have not called for content
providers to pay for distribution. However we recognise that as more
customers turn to the web for content, different providers will have
different needs and priorities and in the long term, it's legitimate to
question how this demand will be managed. We are not suggesting that
any content provider should be denied the ability to deliver web-based
content to our customers free of charge we welcome the growth in
exciting new on-line services and believe they have the potential to
transform the way we interact and entertain ourselves"

Please help spread this and similar stories:
stopvirgin.movielol.org
trustedreviews.com
voidstar.com
peteashton.com
theinquirer.net
torrentfreak.com