There is an awful lot being made of the whole Net Neutrality debate in the US at the moment. If you are not aware of what I am talking about Net Neutrality is the proposition that all users will have the same level of access to the internet no matter who their ISP is. There is a proposed deal between Google and Verizon (US Tel Co) to provide internet access at different speeds depending upon how connect to the internet.

However, there is another admittedly smaller battle going on here in the UK right on my doorstep. Plans to roll out “super fast” broadband in East Lancashire may not be fully implemented due to the cost implications. An article in the Lancashire Telegraph on Monday claims Blackburn with Darwen Council experts say that 16% of residents in East Lancashire will not have next generation broadband by 2015. This means that there will be a two tiered access to the internet with those who can access the net at higher rates and those that can’t. Although at first sight this may appear to be a local issue it has national implications. The private companies that would be upgrading their infrastructure will only do it in areas that are “cost effective”. So if this is happening in East Lancashire it will be happening all over the UK.

The problem with this is that website owners will need to think about how they construct their sites and more particularly the content that they wish to distribute. Consider a retailer who has an online presence and wishes to take advantage of this super fast broadband. They want to put HD quality video on the site to show potential customers the intricate stitching on a range of dresses that they sell. Those video clips will look great to those users with the higher broadband rate but will be painfully slow to the other 16% who struggle to access it and will probably not bother waiting for the download to take place. If you owned a business would you be happy if you knew you had the ability to reach 84% of possible customers instead of 100%?

The whole reason that e-tailing was able to take off was the rollout of broadband. When people where able to access the Internet at relatively high speeds (2 meg/s) then it meant that much richer content was able to be employed by companies and it also meant that online transactions could take place much more quickly. Prior to the broadband explosion in the early part of this century the internet was very much a sleeping giant waiting to be awakened.

I have already been a minor victim of this. I recently requested a second line be put into my house. I was told by BT that the line would be installed for free. After an engineer came out to conduct a survey I was then told that the installation would in fact cost £4500. Needless to say I declined. While I understand the commercial considerations that a company such as BT operate under it did seem a little unfair that I would in effect be paying to upgrade their network. It was not as though in the event that I move house that I could dig up the road and remove my length of fibre optic cable and take it with me to my new property.

For now we will have to see what happens, in an age of austerity it is unlikely that the next generation of broadband will be available for all and I am sure there will be those that say that other services such as the NHS are a greater priority. However “we’re all in this together” is one of the mantras that I hear constantly. Unfortunately this will not be case it looks as though I, and many thousands of businesses and households, are destined to inhabit an internet ghetto.

Below is a link to a Net Neutrality video from You Tube, it is only one side of the argument I’ll let you search for the other on your favourite search engine: