Net neutrality, needed or not?

Moderator

John Dix, Network World Editor in Chief, sets up the debates and recruits the experts.

Network neutrality regulation is necessary, proponents say, to ensure that ISPs treat all traffic in a neutral fashion and don't try to enrich themselves by meddling with the bits. Poppycock, naysayers respond. Service providers have always behaved and there is no reason to introduce regulations that could slow down this critical engine of commerce.

No need for net neutrality regulation

By Scott Cleland, Chairman of NetCompetition.org,

Net neutrality regulation is unnecessary, unjustified, unwarranted, unproductive, unwise, unpopular and unlawful.

In sum, it is unbelievable that the political debate over net neutrality regulation must continue when net neutrality proponents’ arguments are so devoid of merit, justification, evidence, productivity, wisdom, popularity, or lawfulness.

For the rest of this story...
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/71955?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_pm_2011-03-08

Innovation begins with an open Internet

By M. Chris Riley, policy counsel for Free Press,

Net neutrality, a founding principle of the Internet, guarantees that no ISP can dictate where you go and what you do online. Without net neutrality, AT&T, Comcast and Verizon would be free to favor Hulu, but block Netflix. Or prioritize YouTube over Vimeo.

Through [their] challenges, the industry makes clearer every day that it does not intend to preserve the open Internet, but to destroy it. Left to their own devices, the broadband gatekeepers will chisel away at our right to engage in open Internet communications.

For the rest of this story...
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/71955?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_pm_2011-03-08