The debate about net neutrality came to the fore again recently after analyst firm Jupiter Research warned ISPs about the dangers of creating a two-tiered internet in order to drive revenue. But others have argued that businesses could benefit from guaranteed faster services for their externally facing web sites, intranets and other applications delivered over the net.

Jupiter’s Net Neutrality in Europe: Navigate Through Future Internet Access and Distribution Models report found that nearly a third of consumers actually prefer flat-rate broadband pricing models without any usage limits, and 16 percent said they do not want their web access restricted to certain sites by their ISPs.

Ian Fogg, research director at Jupiter, explained that the drivers for creating different levels of access to the internet come in part from the desire among ISPs to boost profits at a time of low-cost broadband.

“They aren’t getting much revenue so are putting in tools to help manage costs better – these could also be used to punish legitimate applications,” Fogg said. “They could approach certain companies to raise revenues at the other end.”

Another driver is the increase in so-called “Net Choicers” – heavy internet users who are more likely to demand better broadband speeds and consider buying digital content, according to Jupiter.

Fogg added that if ISPs step up their efforts to prioritise traffic, it could cause problems for enterprise IT or web site managers.

“If you’re running a web site, be it a commercial operation or an extranet operating for your employees, you want to know if they can access your site at full speed,” Fogg said. “If an individual contacts you with an issue, you want to be able to fix it. But by putting in traffic management and prioritisation [technology] you’re not being open and it could be hard for the IT manager to fix the problem.”

However, in the face of increasingly slow broadband speeds and a widening gap between advertised speeds and actual rates, a two-tiered internet could offer firms the best chance of providing their customers with the experience they want.

Firms that could benefit from paying for an improved service include any that carry video or streaming media, voice over IP, and even firms trying to run software-as-a-service, said Kieron O’Brien, chief executive of global internet exchange PacketExchange.

“ISPs are running 20:1 and 50:1 contention ratios, which is affecting the performance of applications,” said O’Brien. “For [social networking site] Piczo, users were more frustrated with the uploading than downloading so we balanced the two halves out.”

Chris Merrick of bandwidth control specialist Operax argued that although having two extremes of service is “wrong”, there would probably end up being a situation where ISPs offer a “portfolio of guaranteed services and best efforts, which also have certain guarantees”.