Net Neutrality Toll-Road Plan Floated

NET NEUTRALITY TOLL-ROAD PLAN FLOATED
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) released a plan this week that would allow broadband providers to offer exclusive, high-speed services to customers of their choosing, but it would also guarantee a level of broadband service that all Web companies and customers could access without paying new fees. The ITIF proposal attempts to bring a "nonpartisan, objective and pragmatic" view to the so-called net neutrality debate, said plan co-author Rob Atkinson, president of ITIF. "There's been a lot of name-calling and really an unproductive kind of debate," he said. But a spokesman for Public Knowledge, an online rights advocacy group pushing for a net neutrality law, said the ITIF plan mirrors what broadband providers are currently proposing. Public Knowledge and other net neutrality advocates have opposed a two-tier Internet, and the ITIF plan allows broadband carriers to put customers and competitors in a slow lane, said Art Brodsky. The ITIF proposal doesn't address a problem of too few broadband providers available to most U.S. residents and a temptation of broadband providers to discriminate against competitors, he added. "The whole point of this thing is we only have two providers," Brodsky said. "On the whole, I don't really think this is a third way."
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/01/78867_HNtollroadneutrality_1.h...