Could the internet superhighway benefit from fast and slow lanes?

The name “net neutrality” seems to connote an open and uncensored internet. Who wouldn’t be in favor of that? President Barack Obama wants net neutrality, but the Federal Communications Commission isn’t sure. And the term itself is confusing because, in this case, “neutrality” will likely mean an increase in government regulation, rather than a hands-off approach.

To understand net neutrality, think of the internet as a series of pipes through which information flows between computers. Large companies called internet service providers (ISPs) provide access to those tubes.

“But that is only half the equation,” said Mike Rugnetta, host of the Idea Channel on PBS Digital Studios and a net neutrality proponent. “Website makers also pay for internet access. And recently, ISPs have been lobbying to implement a tiered system of access for the makers, charging them to get their internet stuff to consumer eyeballs faster.”

Picture the internet as a cloud sitting on top of a triangle. The left side of the triangle is the consumer side, where users download content from the cloud. The right side is the content-provider side, where material is uploaded. ISPs receive the content and then send it out when users ask for it. Some of the top companies in this business are Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T.

ISPs want to charge providers whose content uses up a lot of bandwidth, or space in the pipeline, (think Netflix with its high-definition streaming video) more than other providers who may only be hosting a website. The providers that pay more would, in effect, be buying access to a “fast lane” to the internet, while other web traffic would take a slower lane.

“This tiered system of internet access is a transgression of net neutrality. No matter who you are, the bits sent out by your website or service should get to their destination without discrimination,” Rugnetta said. “No quantum of internet is fundamentally more important than any other. This arguably made the internet what it is. … As far as the internet has democratized anything, net neutrality has been central to that democratization.”

Net neutrality wouldn’t likely be an issue except for a problem: the capacity of those internet pipes the ISPs provide. Over the past decade or so, Americans have increased their consumption of internet, particularly with the gradual transition from cable and broadcast television to streaming video services such as Netflix and Hulu. ISPs want to expand capacity by building more infrastructure, for example, by laying more fiber-optic cable. To pay for this, as well as to more efficiently allocate the existing capacity, they’ve proposed charging bandwidth-heavy service providers such as Netflix a premium. In return, Netflix and other heavy users would be able to move over to a “fast lane.”

Advocates of net neutrality assert that, to be fair to everyone who uses the internet, no such gradations of service should exist. But people on the other side of the argument say having faster and slower lanes could actually benefit everyone.

“If they all have to share the same data path, everything will probably be slower,” said Stefan Molyneux, a software entrepreneur and host of the internet program Freedomain Radio. “If you can divert … the more data-intensive traffic away from the slower lanes, the slower lanes may actually end up faster.”

The highway analogy is a good one when it comes to internet access. Imposing tolls on certain stretches of roadway during peak usage times—an approach now being used in many major cities—results in a more economically efficient allocation of the traffic and reduces congestion for everybody.

One could argue that such highway pricing structures also are inherently unfair, creating “Lexus lanes,” where drivers who can afford the tolls get preferential treatment. Molyneux says such thinking is a twisted sort of egalitarianism.

“It’s like saying all houses must cost the same. All cars must cost the same. We like having gradations of service,” he said.

Listen to Michael Cochrane explain net neutrality on The World and Everything in It: