[IP] Richard Bennett Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Karl Auerbach [karl@cavebear.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 3:18 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: Re: [IP] Richard Bennett Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle

David Farber wrote:
> ________________________________________
> From: Tony Lauck [tlauck@madriver.com]

> articulate the possibility that Richard Bennett's own comments have been
> organized by Comcast...

We could, but doing so doesn't advance our conversation very far.

Richard has reasonable insights; they might be right or wrong, but they
are reasonable.

There is one rather silent group of people who do have a strong interest
in network neutrality: Those people who are going to invent the next
Google.  We don't know who they are, they don't know who themselves.
They don't speak loudly for an internet onto which they can layer their
new ideas without asking for permission of paying provider tithes for
the privilege.

So while "big content" may benefit from a flat-toll network now, we will
all benefit in the future from an internet that continues to encourage
innovation and choice at the edges rather than the center.

(My own definition of net neutrality isn't one of a fixed flat toll for
all traffic; I believe in different prices for different levels of
traffic engineering services.  To me net neutrality is an absence of
self-dealing and predatory practices on the part of providers.)

                --karl--



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