The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee yesterday narrowly rejected ‘Net Neutrality’, a proposal that would prohibit Internet Service providers from controlling the flow of online content or charging more to carry unaffiliated content. This was an attempt to use protections to stop content discrimination based on origin, destination or ownership.

Similar to a bill that passed the House of Representatives, the bill provides protection to consumers enabling them to use any Internet service or Internet-related application and to surf anywhere they wish on the public Internet.

The vote will surely not be welcomed by companies such as Google Inc, Skype Technologies S.A. and Yahoo Inc amongst others as these companies have been pushing for Net Neutrality to become effective.

Net Neutrality is part of a much larger telecommunications bill which The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed 15 to 7 but the party policy of 11 to 11 on ‘Net Neutrality’ means that the telecommunications bill as a whole may not be finally passed.

Supporters of Net Neutrality suggest that without the bill being passed the larger telecommunications companies will be open to charge web site operators fees in exchange for faster connections to consumers. This may lead to an imbalance of content on the Internet.

On the flip side of the coin, challengers of the bill disagree and state that the telecommunications companies, who have invested money in the Internet infrastructure should be able to charge for services how they wish and they should be allowed to compete without extra regulations.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) said that there is little evidence of biased pricing from ISP’s. "We're attempting to legislate on a problem that doesn't exist and potentially make other problems in the process," Ensign said. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) also went on to say that "I'd be the first to stand up and do something about it," If telecom companies begin to charge higher fees.

It seems that the vote yesterday has given both sides of the fence something to be positive about, with each claiming a triumph. Telecommunications firms feel that they have been successful in quashing the amendment that would have lead to the entire bill being destroyed. However, the Net-Neutrality supporters feel that they have been successful in engaging enough support that they would continue to push for strengthening of the language in the bill if it moves forward.

An amendment to support cable providers in offering “a la carte” channels, with consumers having the ability to pay only for the channels that the wish, was rejected, and a ban on Taxing Internet access was approved by the panel.