The Internet marches on.

This week, Akamai announced a new IP acceleration service to optimize applications not accessed via a web browser. (Think Oracle.) The service works at the TCP/IP level using an end-to-end system involving Akamai routers installed outside a customer’s firewall. Granted, this is probably more important to enterprise users than ordinary net users, but as with most Internet developments, what starts as a business benefit quickly spreads once the technology becomes more affordable.

Proving that good things come in pairs, just prior to Akamai’s announcement, Level 3 announced that it was lowering prices for content delivery to approximately the market price for high-speed IP transport. That price drop all but eliminated Level 3’s premium for caching and downloading online content. The company also reaffirmed that a new streaming service will be ready by mid-November to compete against Akamai.

Three comments:

First, these announcements are timely reminders that that networks already have QoS standards that ease congestion and improve users’ experience. That may shock the sensibilities of the “all data is equal” crowd but the proof is in the results.

Second, prices are dropping and competing services are emerging – with government regulators are nowhere to be seen.

Third, given the spiraling complexity in the Net’s technology, we wonder if net neutrality partisans can still keep a straight face when they call federal oversight “a tailored, minimally-intrusive net neutrality requirement.”