By a 20-13 vote Thursday that partially followed party lines, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would require broadband providers to abide by strict Net neutrality principles, meaning that their networks must be operated in a "nondiscriminatory" manner. All 14 Democrats on the committee (joined by six Republicans) supported the measure, while 13 Republicans opposed it.
That vote is a surprise victory for Internet companies such as Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo that had lobbied fiercely in the last few months for stricter laws to ensure that Verizon, AT&T and other broadband providers could not create a "fast lane" reserved for video or other high-priority content of their choice.
In an unusual twist, many members of the committee said they were voting for the legislation not because of strong concerns over Net neutrality--but instead because of a turf battle. They said they were worried that a competing proposal already approved by a different committee last month would diminish their own influence in the future.
News source: CNET
As I understand it, because america is so big, many isps pass thieir traffic through fibre owned by different compaines. Much like in the UK many companies use fibre and telephone line owned by BT.
So, if net neutraltity ceased to exist, providers could start providing high bandwidth to the highest bidder (e.g a VOIP service) and screw everyone else (HTTP, FTP, NNTP, etc.)
Thanks for clearing up my understanding a bit more on this also.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.