Virgin Media chief slams net neutrality, reveals producer-pay plans

Neil Berkett said that Virgin Media, the second biggest broadband provider in the UK, is talking to producers about creating a fast-track access system which would enable their content to be prioritised on its network.

Such a system would relegate companies which did not pay its fees to slower connections, meaning that users' experience of those sites and services would be degraded.

Berkett's comments, in an interview with the Royal Television Society's magazine Television, will ignite a debate in the UK over net neutrality, a subject that has been the source of controversy in the US in recent years. Net neutrality is the name given to the current state of internet access which treats all packets of information equally.

In the US, telecoms companies have objected to the fact that online video and audio companies are making money from internet users over networks the telcos provide. They want to be able to offer faster access to their consumers to content firms, for a fee.

Opponents say that consumers pay telecoms firms for equal access to the entire internet, not for preferential access to those firms who have also paid their telecoms provider.

Berkett told Television that he believed the UK Government was open to the idea of fast and slow lane internet access.

"This net-neutrality thing is a load of bollocks," he said.

Television magazine said that Berkett told it that the company is already negotiating with content producers and video games publishers about 'more effective' access to Virgin Media subscribers. He conceded that the plan would slow down the connections subscribers would have to material produced by firms which did not pay it.

Virgin Media released a statement today which neither confirmed nor denied the specifics of what Berkett is reported by Television magazine to have said.

"We strongly support the principle that the internet should remain a space that is open to all and we have not called for content providers to pay for distribution," it said, though Berkett had not talked about refusing to carry content from non-payers, merely giving it a lower priority.

"We recognise that as more customers turn to the web for content, different providers will have different needs and priorities and in the long term, it's legitimate to question how this demand will be managed," it said.

OUT-LAW.COM asked both the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and telecoms regulator Ofcom whether they would be happy to see traffic differentiated according to which producers pay ISPs a fee. Each said that it was a commercial matter for the ISPs and not for Government or the regulator to deal with. An Ofcom spokeswoman said it was "keeping an eye" on the issue.