From Prof Martin Cave.

Sir, Ed Vaizey, the UK government minister for communication, culture and the creative industries, was right to discard the concept of net neutrality in his speech to the FT's world telecoms conference ("Internet blow for Google and BBC", November 17).

He has correctly assessed that if consumers are to experience the fastest, most efficient internet speeds, internet service providers must be able to manage the traffic across their networks in a sensible way.

Our view is that the ISPs are still experiencing significant traffic imbalances and congestion on their networks because of a growth in capacity requirements from users. The management of the information flow over the network is a necessity for it to function efficiently at all.

Any net neutrality rules would clog up the existing networks and act as a disincentive to the large-scale investment required by the operators for a faster, more globally competitive internet infrastructure.

Martin Cave,

Academic Director,

Centre on Regulation in Europe,

Brussels, Belgium