On the side of neutrality

A conflict of interest over traffic charges threatens the web's long-term potential, warns Wendy M Grossman If you want the internet to do something new, you build an application and make it public; you don't need permission from any authority. This "network neutrality" is what has fuelled the remarkable growth of the net. By contrast, to add a new feature to the conventional telephone network, you needed BT's permission - a situation that continues with today's mobile-phone operators. The result: the telephone network changed very little for decades. The open model of the internet, on the other hand, has produced email, the web, instant messaging, VoIP (internet telephony), streaming audio and video, file-sharing and social networks. You don't have to like these technologies to appreciate the flexibility and innovation that... [read full story]