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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Berners-Lee on net neutrality

There’s a lot of debate on the issue of Net neutrality, with the telecoms and their advocates muddying the waters with a lot of doublespeak. (Not that it matters. The telecom lobby in Washington is a whole lot stronger than the unaffiliated collection of neutrality supporters, as the House of Representatives recent vote against neutrality proves.) On the other side, neutrality supporters like Craig Newmark (founder of Craig’s List) have penned some simple and easy-to-understand arguments explaining the severe downside of a tiered Internet.

If there’s anybody to whom we should be listening, though, it’s Tim Berners-Lee. This is the guy who invented the web, which gives him a unique perspective. On Wednesday, he blogged about Net neutrality, making the issue as simple and clear as anybody has managed to do so far:

Net neutrality is this: If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.

The rest of the post is short, to the point, and well thought out. Read it.

06/23/06 | 2 Comments | Berners-Lee on net neutrality

Comments

  • 1.Cmon Shel be for real here. A unaffiliated collection of neutrality supporters? Hardly, with powerhouses like Google, Yahoo and AOL spending big money to get this legislation pushed through. Plus they've got the backing of MoveOn.org which is the most powerful liberal lobbying organization in America and was started by a billionaire.

    I personally am against the proposed net neutrality legislation and you can read why on my blog.

    What I find much more disturbing about this debate is the urban legend that's constantly being propogated about this being evil corporate America against helpless individuals doomed by the people who own the internet pipe. At last check, Google has a market valuation quite a bit higher than AT&T and plenty of do-re-mi to spread around K street.

    Rob Safuto | June 2006 | New York, USA

  • 2.Well, unaffiliated insofar as there isn't a net neutrality lobby, while there most certainly IS a telecom lobby.

    I'm not opposed to corporate America, Rob; I've spent the last 30 years working FOR corporate America, and still do! But as I read the arguments on both sides, it becomes clear (to me, anyway) that the telecom side is based on greed and the arguments against neutrality don't hold water.

    Did you read Berners-Lee's post? Doc Searles' Linux Journal article? Craig Newmark's piece?

    Shel Holtz | June 2006 | Concord, CA

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