Sans net neutrality, a great medium could lose the very plank of "freedom for all", which made it so successful. Such assurances, coming from big operators like AT&T and Verizon, have done little to soothe Web freaks nerves who fear that soon if these carriers have their way, surfers would be forced to pay for such services as music and video downloads, data transfer and so on, but worst of all, they would take upon themselves the role of deciding which service should get a priority over others on the Net.

Net neutrality, which though is difficult to define, refers to "unprioritized, unfiltered, equal-access to all Internet content." "Net neutrality is the principle that network operators should give equal treatment to all the traffic on their networks," describes the Economist. The concept of "Network Neutrality" was initially used by Columbia University professor, Tim Wu, who defends the theory of network regulation, while refusing to accept the traditional open-access theory. According to him, the Internet is not a neutral network. He says, "In a universe of applications, that includes both latency-sensitive and insensitive applications, it is difficult to regard the IP suite as truly neutral as among all applications."

The entire debate is centered on the fact that carriers cannot and should not discriminate against any user. Those supporting net neutrality demand new legislations which could bar broadband providers from giving preferential treatment to some websites over others and also from blocking or slowing down traffic from competing networks. They fear that this could severely impact those firms which use competing network provider's broadband services.

Interestingly, the concept of Net neutrality is not new as it is already in vogue in industries such as power grids, roads, and postal carriers. However, the very issue has been seeing people taking sides: Telecom carriers on one side while Internet champions like Google and eBay on the other debating, as Wu says, whether it is more "neutral" to let Internet users browse all Internet content equally or to let the service providers discriminate by thinking that they might make extra money that way.

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