The panel on “Smart-Pipes” at the SDP Global Summit last week (Thu 15th Sep 2010) sparked a debate on net neutrality. Steve Patton, Product Manager at Telesoft Technologies put the problems of net neutrality for mobile phone operators in perspective.

His point, in a nutshell, was that while data on mobile networks expanded by 2,200% in the period 2007-2009, revenues derived from the network went up by only 95%. Together this meant that while data rates on mobile networks (due to utube, iplayer and similar applications) have exploded, revenue per bit have dropped in the region of 90% over the period.

When it comes to net neutrality mobile operators are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they don’t shape network traffic then networks become overloaded and unusable at peak times and in high-volume areas, while if they do limit data download in some way then they are open to accusations of non-net neutrality.

At a recent conference on the web in Edinburgh,  Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the wolrd-wide web, warned of the dangers of a two tier network and pushed for the open model of net neutrality. This has been backed by large Companies such as Google and Microsoft who provide many apps based services.

Telecom operators however are fearful that if net neutrality is guaranteed as of right, that they would not be able to shape and filter traffic in order to keep their networks working. They would prefer a model where you pay for the bandwidth being used, giving them a business model that would at least start making their mobile networks pay and allow them to expand by installing more localized base stations and more network back haul capacity in order to cope with the the rapidly expanding data network requirements.

Certainly at a show of hands at the end of the SDP Global Summit Panel debate, a conference dominated by mobile operators and OEM providers, everyone in the room agreed that solutions advocating total net neutrality were their non-preferred solutions.

Perhaps though the solution lies somewhere between these two poles.  A recent UK Ofcom report on net neutrality discussed a middle way of allowing some traffic shaping so long as the user was clearly told what they were signing up to in their terms and conditions of use. Perhaps allowing data but also limiting it in peaks times when necessary to preserve the network provides a way forward in the net neutrality debate?