The impasse over solving the net neutrality problem comes down to the issue of paid prioritization.  Almost all parties in and outside of the industry agree that blocking or throttling of Internet traffic should be forbidden.  Even the classification of broadband Internet access service is not a real problem since Internet regulation can be defined any way Congress chooses to define it, regardless of classification.  The one problem keeping us from a net neutrality compromise is whether ISPs should be permitted to prioritize their Internet traffic for money.  Unfortunately, there is simply no agreement between Democrats and Republicans and little room to compromise.

These partisan differences were put on display at an April 17, 2018 meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, where the political parties tried to reconcile their net neutrality positions.  Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn ably presented the Republican position on paid prioritization in her opening statement:

In the net neutrality conversation there is a common misconception that the Internet is one big highway, where all the cars travel at the same speed and we cannot allow for any fast lanes or toll lanes to exist without causing a big traffic jam for everybody else...Our witnesses today know that this could not be further from the truth...Different connections, different agreements, and different prioritization, depending on needs...I would also point out that in real life, all sorts of interactions are prioritized every day. Many of you sitting in this room right now paid a line-sitter to get priority access to this hearing.  In fact, it is commonplace for the government itself to offer priority access to services.  If you have ever used Priority Mail, you know this to be the case.  And what about TSA pre-check?  It just might have saved you time as you traveled here today.  If you define paid prioritization as simply the act of paying to get your own content in front of the consumer faster, prioritized ads or sponsored content are the basis of many business models online, as many of our members pointed out at the Facebook hearing last week.

 
The opposing view was summed up by Philip Berenbroick in an April 12, 2018 online story for the consumer group Public Knowledge.

At its core, paid prioritization is about an ISP using its market position as gatekeeper to consumers to extract tolls from websites and applications that users want to access. On the internet, all traffic travels as fast as the network permits. Paid prioritization imposes artificial and arbitrary limits on the speed of some traffic in order to prioritize traffic that has paid a toll. It is inefficient and unnecessary from a traffic management standpoint, and the only rationale for imposing paid prioritization is to shake down websites and applications (that consumers are already paying ISPs to access).

But is there a compromise between these two widely diverging positions?  At a recent meeting of the conservative Free State Foundation, Comcast senior EVP David Cohen offered one:

Cohen said he has had conversations with his industry, with tech companies and the Ciscos of the world about the possibility of agreeing to a prohibition on paid prioritization with a limited exception for specialized services that do not travel on the public internet, though he said that was not an official Comcast proposal.
He pointed out that such specialized services were allowed in the FCC's 2010 Network Neutrality Order, and at least a form of which made into FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's 2015 order, which the Ajit Pai FCC voted last December to, in effect, repeal.  He said there has been a recognition that "something might come along that is not anticompetitive, that is pro-consumer, and that is a specialized service not available to every user of the internet that would be in the public interest. (March 28, 2018 online article at www.multichannel.com).

Until now, however, the FCC has never conclusively defined the services that could be called "specialized." It did note that they are non-broadband Internet access data services that can be isolated from the larger broadband network.  Such services would include facilities-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Internet Protocol video offerings and services bundled with telematics, heart monitors and e-readers.   But what about potential new services?

Since almost any service could be labeled as "specialized" by an ISP, this proposal was seen by paid prioritization opponents as a giant loophole that would enable any traffic to be prioritized by calling it specialized.  Moreover, opponents argue that already permissible network management policies allow certain traffic such as real-time surgery to have priority over other types of traffic.  Thus, they argue that no additional prioritization freedom is needed.

So today, a solution for the issue of paid prioritization remains elusive with no solution evident.  Moreover, we do not know how ISPs will utilize this freedom.  Despite what recently appeared in the press, paid prioritization is not yet permitted since most of the key sections of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order await approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  That approval should come in a few months, and it will be interesting to see if Congress can reach a compromise first.  Keep in mind, the new rules require complete ISP transparency, so we will know exactly what each ISP is offering and to which customers.