Interesting story today on ars technica that spotlights net neutrality reality in the U.K. This is a perfect example of what will happen in the states. On one hand the ISPs are boosting faster downloads and larger bandwidth, taking consumers money, on the other they want to block or slow access to any service they feel competes with them or uses the bandwidth YOU paid for!

In this story, the UK ISPs tells the BBC that they will start to throttle (or slow down making the service useless) the Corporation’s new iPlayer service because it could overwhelm their networks. Unless BT pays up, of course. A bit like a tax added by Tony Soprano? Sure is.

iPlayer is a standalone application that will let UK residents download TV shows up to seven days after they air on television, and it will cover all shows from across all BBC channels that utilizes Microsoft DRM.

You can see the writing on the wall in the U.S. where any audio or video service that competes with the cable or telcos will be slowed or blocked. Screw the customer! What good is an Internet connection where the content and services are CONTROLLED by the ISP that wants to sell you their services and cripple the competition? Once this precedent becomes the usual, forget competing VoIP, streaming, IPTV, etc.

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