Network neutrality can be roughly summarised as being the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. This principle comes from the initial assumption of the best-effort service in the Internet, i.e. all network equipment should do their best to forward packets towards their destination, but cannot provide strong commitments due to the lack of deployment of Quality of Service mechanisms in the global Internet. Network neutrality was not a concern when the Internet was a research network used only by universities and research lab. However in today's commercial Internet, commercial pressure lead some Internet service providers to provide different services to different users. For example :

• A wireless network provider could want to block skype inside its network to ensure that its users still use the expensive phone service
• A cable tv network provider could want to limit the amount of streaming video that its user can receive to encourage its users to
• A network provider may want to throttle bandwidth consuming peer-to-peer applications

There has been a lot of debate about network neutrality in the US during the last ten years and important decisions by the US government. In Europe, the debate has not been so strong, but a group of non-profit associations have issued an open letter to encourage the European parliament to work on this topic :
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/we-must-protect-net-neutrality-in-europe-...