If the rules are rolled back, more of these arrangements are likely to appear. ISPs will also start offering paid prioritization. Some of these ?fast lane? deals might not lead to higher prices for consumers. But entrepreneurs are rightly concerned that large companies will spend heavily to dominate fast-lane access, making it harder for some startups, such as bandwidth-hungry mobile video companies, to challenge them. ?Milliseconds of difference can leave you at a disadvantage when potential customers are evaluating your product,? explains Tom Lee, the head of policy at Mapbox, a location data platform for mobile and Web applications.
Even the very biggest startups could suffer. In an IPO filing published earlier this year, Snap warned that weakening or ending net neutrality would hurt its business if ISPs limited access to it or favored its rivals (see ?Why Snap Is Worried About Net Neutrality?). Young companies that pay up for higher speeds would have to pass those costs on to consumers, making it harder to compete with bigger players.
Big ISPs say they?re committed to keeping a level playing field, but history and economic realism suggest they won?t. AT&T, for instance, blocked Skype and other Internet calling services on iPhones on its network until 2009. In many markets in America, there are still only one or two high-speed broadband providers. The lack of competition means there?s little to deter them from discriminating against services that pose a threat to their own offerings.
