Net neutrality: level access and equality

One benefit of net neutrality to organisations is level access and equality. It means every company's website and online service is treated the same way by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), no matter how big that company is or how much it spends.

No preferential treatment

Under net neutrality, an ISP cannot make one organisation's website load faster simply because that organisation has paid more or is a bigger customer. A national chain with a huge advertising budget gets the same treatment as a two-person business working from a spare room. The ISP is there to carry traffic, not to choose whose traffic deserves to arrive first.

This is about equal treatment, not identical service: an ISP can still manage its network to keep it running smoothly, but it must not favour or disadvantage particular services or customers.

Why this matters for smaller companies

Because of this equality, smaller companies are not pushed aside in favour of larger, wealthier competitors. A small business can reach customers on the same terms as a large rival, which supports fair competition and gives new or smaller organisations a real chance to compete online.

For example, imagine you print custom T-shirts in a converted garage and take orders through your own website, while a large clothing retailer sells similar designs. If the retailer could pay an ISP for a faster route to customers, your pages might crawl while its pages appeared instantly, and buyers would give up and go elsewhere. Under net neutrality, neither site can be slowed to make the other look better, so you win customers through better designs and quicker replies to questions rather than through the size of your bank balance.

Net neutrality therefore lets organisations of every size rely on the internet as a level playing field.