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List:       dmca-discuss
Subject:    [DMCA_Discuss] Berners-Lee: Neutrality of the Net
From:       Seth Johnson <seth.johnson () realmeasures ! dyndns ! org>
Date:       2006-05-07 16:57:12
Message-ID: 445E26E8.AFC38B04 () RealMeasures ! dyndns ! org
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> http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/132


Neutrality of the Net

Submitted by timbl on Tue, 2006-05-02 15:22.


This is an international issue. In some countries it is addressed
better than others. (In France, for example, I understand that
the layers are separated, and my colleague in Paris attributes
getting 24Mb/s net, a phone with free international dialing and
digital TV for 30euros/month to the resulting competition.) In
the US, there have been threats to the concept, and a wide
discussion about what to do. That is why, though I have written
and spoken on this many times, I blog about it now.

Twenty-seven years ago, the inventors of the Internet[1] designed
an architecture[2] which was simple and general. Any computer
could send a packet to any other computer. The network did not
look inside packets. It is the cleanness of that design, and the
strict independence of the layers, which allowed the Internet to
grow and be useful. It allowed the hardware and transmission
technology supporting the Internet to evolve through a
thousandfold increase in speed, yet still run the same
applications. It allowed new Internet applications to be
introduced and to evolve independently.

When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to
ask anyone's permission. [3]. The new application rolled out over
the existing Internet without modifying it. I tried then, and
many people still work very hard still, to make the Web
technology, in turn, a universal, neutral, platform. It must not
discriminate against particular hardware, software, underlying
network, language, culture, disability, or against particular
types of data.

Anyone can build a new application on the Web, without asking me,
or Vint Cerf, or their ISP, or their cable company, or their
operating system provider, or their government, or their hardware
vendor.

It is of the utmost importance that, if I connect to the
Internet, and you connect to the Internet, that we can then run
any Internet application we want, without discrimination as to
who we are or what we are doing. We pay for connection to the Net
as though it were a cloud which magically delivers our packets.
We may pay for a higher or a lower quality of service. We may pay
for a service which has the characteristics of being good for
video, or quality audio. But we each pay to connect to the Net,
but no one can pay for exclusive access to me.

When I was a child, I was impressed by the fact that the
installation fee for a telephone was everywhere the same in the
UK, whether you lived in a city or on a mountain, just as the
same stamp would get a letter to either place.

To actually design legislation which allows creative
interconnections between different service providers, but ensures
neutrality of the Net as a whole may be a difficult task. It is a
very important one. The US should do it now, and, if it turns out
to be the only way, be as draconian as to require financial
isolation between IP providers and businesses in other layers.

The Internet is increasingly becoming the dominant medium binding
us. The neutral communications medium is essential to our
society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It
is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide
what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should
decide what is true.

Let us protect the neutrality of the net.

   1. Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn and colleagues
   2. TCP and IP
   3. I did have to ask for port 80 for HTTP

_______________________________________________

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