Experts Offer Dueling Takes On 'Network Neutrality'

EXPERTS OFFER DUELING TAKES ON 'NETWORK NEUTRALITY'
[SOURCE: Technology Daily, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
"Network neutrality" is either a fundamental necessity for free and open digital communications or a distraction from other, more realistic approaches to preserve Internet freedoms -- depending which expert one was listening to at Monday's Freedom to Connect conference. "Networks work best when they are networks of general purpose," said Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University. "The big question for the future of telecom law is this question of discrimination rules." He said the goal must be to stop network owners from hurting others, and from hurting society, by offering financial deals to carry the content of some at the expense of others. But Martin Geddes, director of the telecom consultancy Telepocalypse, called efforts to obtain network neutrality a mistake, for both substantive and tactical reasons. "There is no reason to fossilize or worship the Internet as it stands," he said. From a practical view, network operators will find neutrality rules "just too easy to get around," Geddes said, while arguing that imposition of such rules would require courts to patrol engineering decisions. "Do you really want the courts to design [the Internet]? Companies will spend more money on lawyers than on network engineers," declared Geddes, who formerly was a product strategy manager at the wireless carrier Sprint. "It doesn't stand up."
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