Cox, the third-largest cable company, said that it intends to test a plan to manage congestion by occasionally prioritizing “time sensitive” traffic while slowing down other, less urgent material. The time-sensitive traffic includes Web streaming, email, instant messaging, games and remote connectivity. The material categorized as susceptible to delay includes bulk transfers of data for storage or file access, peer-to-peer protocols, software updates and Usenet newsgroups.

Internet advocates criticize Cox’s classifications as well as its methodology. Net neutrality supporters say that broadband companies should transmit traffic without discriminating between types of content or applications.

Although at this time, since the technology used is not known, it cannot be determined how this will be rolled into effect. Also, no set time has been given as to when they may plan to role this out.

Since their declaration, Cox has since taken a step back and has paused on rolling out this new plan. Although Cox has not claimed to be in the works of changing the initiative, they have paused on setting a release schedule. We’ll be following this story for more details as it becomes available.