Posted on 05/24/2006 8:23:44 AM PDT by BackInBlack
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, has called for clear separation between Internet access and Internet content.
Speaking at the World Wide Web conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday morning, Berners-Lee gave his views on the growing battle over Net neutrality.
"It's better and more efficient for us all if we have a separate market where we get our connectivity, and a separate market where we get our content. Information is what I use to make all my decisions. Not just what to buy, but how to vote," Berners-Lee told journalists.
"There is an effort by some companies in the U.S. to change this. There's an attempt to get to a situation where if I want to watch a TV station across the Internet, that TV station must have paid to transmit to me."
Net neutrality is the concept that all Internet content should be treated equally by broadband providers without any kind of discrimination. It has become a hot political topic this year, especially in the U.S., amid fears that telephone companies may start blocking some Web sites or charge users extra to access them.
Companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have been lobbying U.S. politicians to introduce laws that would make Net neutrality mandatory. These moves have been opposed by broadband providers and some hardware manufacturers.
Berners-Lee characterized the issue as a U.S.-only problem at present. "In Europe, Net neutrality is the rule," he said.
Although Berners-Lee offered his support for Net neutrality, he does not support a completely unregulated telecoms and Internet market.
"The fact is that the openness of the Internet, which is such a wonderful thing, does depend on a certain amount of regulation. We've had in Britain the fact that if you put a stamp on a letter it gets there," Berners-Lee said.
The World Wide Web conference will run until Thursday. It was opened by Scotland First Minister Jack McConnell, who hailed the great progress made in the 15 years since Berners-Lee created the Web's underlying protocols.
"The Web has brought so many possibilities that it's hard to believe it's such a short time since Sir Tim and those pioneers created it," said McConnell.
Jonathan Bennett of Builder UK reported from London.
Every now and then, the interests of the left and the right converge. The fact that Google and MoveOn.org are for network neutrality should raise a red flag, but shouldn't be the end of the discussion, at least not in this case. We should be giving this issue due attention and being thankful that sites like this don't have to pay tribute to Internet providers not to be treated like chumps.
are you implying that google is on the right? I disagree. My goodness, does nobody get it?
WHA?? I thought Al Gore invented the internet!
Maybe we need 12-round, no-holds-barred cage match on Pay
Per View to settle it.
What exactly is "internet nuetrality" and how does regulatio promote openess.
Example.
MyContent is a content provider and they pay Verizon for appropriate bandwidth. They may have a DSL, Frame, T1, T2, T3, ...etc, and their servers send content through Verizon.
JoeSixPack at home pays AT&T for appropriate bandwidth. He may have dialup, DSL, cable, ..etc. When JoeSixPack pulls content from MyContent provider, the content travels from MyContent to Verizon, and then to the AT&T network, where eventually it is deliver to JoeSixPack.
What AT&T doesn't like is that MyContent provider is paying Verizon the big bucks for the larger bandwidth, but, that content travels through AT&T infrastructure and AT&T is getting significantly less money to deliver the content to JoeSixPack.
As the number of JoeSixPacks increases (more AT&T customers) so does the demand for content. When you increase the number of high content providers (i.e., offering downloads of movies, large files, intensive graphics, ...etc), it places a higher bandwidth utilization on the AT&T network, and AT&T is not getting the revenue to support it.
So, AT&T wants to charge MyContent extra money to let their packets travel through the AT&T network, to ultimately reach JoeSixPack.
Alternatively, AT&T could simply raise its subscription rates across the board to all of its customers to subsidize the demands placed on their portion of the physical network. Alternatively, AT&T could charge customers based on the packet flow to that customer. Alternatively, AT&T could simply block access to MyContent provider when a certain maximum has been reached.
These alternatives are not that attractive. It is easier for AT&T to say, hey, these are my customers... not MyContent's customers. If MyContent wants to deliver high bandwidth content to my customers, then they should pay us for access to our customers.
All of the alternatives seem to be "free market" alternatives.
That's okay with me.
After a lot of thought, I support net neutrality. If they don't keep it that way, small sites are going to get swept aside like public access stations. Eventually, you won't just be able to get a website and push it effectively unless you are wealthy. No thanks. Keep it like it is.
AT&T again, huh? Cool. Looks like somebody needs broken up again.
Great book Berners-Lee wrote---Weaving The Web---recommended reading.
The PACs must have worked overtime to gain momentum on this. IMO, the real issue is that AT&T sold customers access based on a flawed utilization plan and now want to recoup money from high bandwidth content providers that the AT&T customers use. Either that, or, AT&T really believes the "its our customers, and you can pay us to deliver content to them" philosophy.
" are you implying that google is on the right? I disagree. My goodness, does nobody get it?"
When did I say that? Google and MoveOn are on the left.
Agreed. Thanks. I misread your post.
Precisely. If you're paying AT&T for a 1.5 Mbps connection, they don't get to retroactively change the deal to give you only 128 kbps because you choose to visit sites that haven't paid AT&T.
Do you have a link to a site that presents these arguments in a format suitable for literate adults?
No it isn't, because the process is repeated for every single site out there. It's much easier to charge their customers directly for their traffic, or renegotiate their peering agreements. Unless of course AT&T's goal is not to "recover bandwidth costs" but to extort money from content providers by threatening to cut them off. (And this works both ways; Google can quite plausibly argue that their existence adds value to AT&T's customers, and therefore AT&T should be paying them).
Shhhhh. Somebody might be listening. Of course that is their goal. They look at it from the corporate viewpoint of these customers are our assets, not yours, and if you want to pummel data to them, then you will need to pay us for access to these customers. It really is not hard to understand what their thinking is; it is just hard to agree with it.
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