Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, has asked Internet Service Providers (ISPs) across UK to be more transparent regarding their traffic management tactics, as well as broadband speeds that customers can expect.

BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk are known to limit the amount of bandwidth that is allocated to specific types of traffic such as peer-to-peer file sharing, to protect the overall performance of their networks and avoid bandwidth saturation.

But the regulator stopped short of making any pronouncement concerning the deals many ISPs with big content providers to host their data closer to the edge networks that will prioritise the content providers' traffic, making it harder for other content providers to compete, reports The Register.

The Net Neutrality trumpet has been blowing for quite a while now and UK telecom watchdog Ofcom's inclination [PDF] seems to be more towards finding the best way to deal with above situations rather than pondering whether the current practices are fair or not?

Ofcom believes that ISPs should be free to do whatever they want but that they should be transparent, informing their subscribers about any traffic management practices, reports Reuters.

"How ISPs control access to the internet affects us all and it is important that we are able to understand how our access might be restricted," Ofcom Chief Executive Ed Richards said, adding: "Ofcom is now looking to the ISPs to ensure that transparent information is available, and will consider intervening if it does not see improvements.".

Tags: ofcom isp uk traffic management net neutrality throttling