There's been a lot of focus - blogging and, increasingly, mainstream reporting - about the impending demise of net neutrality as carriers push to implement downstream tollgates on service and content providers. The carriers want compensation because they built the high-speed networks and no one should ride for free, blah, blah, blah. For a change of pace, let's look at the other side of this issue from the perspective of the content and service providers. These companies will suddenly have a huge line item on their financial statements: network access costs. For more popular services/content such as Google, eBay, Yahoo, AOL, etc., this fee could be enormous. Even for a service such as Boing Boing, which attracts millions of users, the cost could be prohibitive. As the idea of tollgates becomes more possible, I'm sure content/service providers will kick and scream about the unfairness of it to the media and politicians. Vinton Cerf will be a lead spokesman about how tollgates will hinder innovation and the U.S. economy. But what if the carriers go ahead anyway and demand downstream tollgate fees? Then what? What if Google says "Not a chance. Your broadband customers go online a lot because of us so we're not going to pay". Do carriers block access to Google? Or do they wait until a rival such as Yahoo or Microsoft agrees to pay a downstream fee, which gives their traffic priority over Google? Then what happens if broadband consumers, who pay for access, become pissed off because the world's most popular search engine is less user-friendly? Do they simply leave for cable broadband? There are so many questions because the concept of tollgates and packet prioritization fees are still being developed. It will be difficult to see how content/service providers will be affected until a carrier unveils a tollgate pricing package. Then, everyone will be able to calculate how much they'll have to cough up. Personally, the idea of tollgates is flawed in so many ways. Broadband carriers already have a variety of revenue-generation tools at their disposal. This includes the ability to offer tiered services based on speed and byte consumption (BT offers these options), the sale of value added services such as anti-spam and anti-virus. Carriers also have a billing relationship with the customer to easily offer all kinds of e-commerce opportunities - be it music, video, consumer electronics, clothing - through partnerships. The idea that carriers should blow up net neutrality because (1) they can and (2) they're hungry for more revenue is misguided. So what's it going to take to stop tollgates from happening? All of us - consumers, content/service providers, politicians - are going to have to scream and shout to put the spotlight on what's happening. If we make enough noise, maybe we can talk louder than AT&T/SBC's CEO Ed Whitacre and BellSouth's William Smith.

Update: Another component of the tollgate/packet prioritization battle is Verizon's plan to put aside 80% of its broadband network for its own services such as IP-TV. This would leave 20% for all other content/service providers - setting the stage for a scheme where Verizon could offer better downstream service for a fee. Om Malik has a post providing a variety of views from the blogosphere. Maybe a way for Google, et al to avoid or reduce their tollgates is establishing their own backbone networks to carry traffic. The Times of London has a story that rehashes the speculation/talk about Google buying dark fiber and setting up data centres. (Robert Cringely's column about Google creating data centres in shipping containers has apparently become accepted fact.)