ISPs are set to publish traffic management policies

INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS (ISPs) will give consumers more information about what traffic management policies they deploy.

BT, Virgin Media, O2, Talk Talk and Sky are among the ISPs that have agreed to publish their traffic management policies. These policies are usually cited in vague terms in ISP's terms and conditions, however the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG), a group representing most of the UK's large ISPs, has drawn up a code of practice that will let users view a breakdown of their ISP's traffic management policies.

Anthony Walker, the chief executive of BSG, explained that the move is meant to make more people aware of the Internet traffic management that they might be subject to. Talking to the BBC, Walker said, "There is a core of consumers who understand this stuff quite well, but it's not something that most people are aware of at this stage."

What has been outlined is that those ISPs that sign up to the BSG's code of conduct will outline bandwidth throttling, the duration of the bandwidth throttling and whether specific services are blocked, throttled or prioritised. It's not known just how much detail the BSG has instructed ISPs to provide, however the move to provide some transparency on the matter is welcome. Ofcom, which launched a consultation into traffic management issues last year, said that it welcomed the BSG's code of conduct.

Traffic management includes throttling the bandwidth of some protocols that are deemed by the ISP as less time-critical, such as peer-to-peer traffic. The deployment of traffic management schemes has been controversial, as some say it can unfairly limit access to certain services, while the ISPs claim it is required in order to provide a good level of service to all customers.

The BSG's code of conduct is expected to be implemented by ISPs this year. µ