Yesterday the New York Times has a special section on networking (free subscription required). One of the articles is an interview with Sir Tim (Berners-Lee). As is often the case with this topic, I was very frustrated by the article. Here are my main frustrations:

• they do not define Net Neutrality
• the article clealry has an anti-phone company agenda
• fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) is used to stir up the readers
• Sir Tim guesses at the phone company position and then goes on to be negative about his guessed position

I think we need to define Net Neutrality. Here's what I think it should be:

Everyone with access to the Internet should be able to access all public applications on the Internet.

Implied in this definition is the ISPs should not mess with any traffic that is they should not slow down anything from specific applications and/or websites. However, I do believe, as apparently Sir Tim does, the ISPs can offer different service levels along with differential pricing. It is up to the market, service providers and end users, to decide what they are willing to pay for. Today application service providers make decisions about the size and number of servers they have, the size and number of links they have to the Internet. More servers, bigger faster pipes impact the experience of their users. The telephone and cable companies are looking to offer another option to provide differentiated transit options. By offering QoS on transit the applications service providers can develop new applications that benefit from the guarantees, thereby, opening up the Internet to offer new experiences to the users, not closing it as the scare mongerers would have you believe.

I am for Net Neutrality (defined above) and against unnecessary regulation of the Internet.