Cameron Lawrence, Net Neutrality Primer (How Stuff Works, 2006)
The source can be accessed from the How Stuff Works website.
View MoreTim Wu, Why You Should Care about Network Neutrality: The Future of the Internet Depends on it (Slate Magazine, 2006)
The debate centers on whether it is more “neutral” to let consumers reach all Internet content equally or to let providers discriminate if they think they’ll make more money that way.
View MoreTim Wu, The Coming War over Net Neutrality, (The New Yorker, 2013)
The article can be accessed from The New Yorker webpage.
View MoreChristopher S. Yoo, Would Mandating Broadband Network Neutrality Help or Hurt Competition? A Comment on the End-to-End Debate, 3 Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law 71 (2004).
A chorus of commentators has drawn inspiration from the end-to-end argument first advanced by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark and called upon policy makers to mandate that last mile broadband providers adhere to certain principles of network neutrality. In this symposium contribution, Professor Christopher Yoo offers an economic critique of these proposals, concluding first that they are based on a fundamental misreading of Saltzer, Reed, and Clark, who actually reject attempts to turn the end-to-end argument into a categorical mandate. In addition, prohibiting the use of proprietary protocols can harm consumers by skewing the Internet towards certain types of applications. Finally, network neutrality raises the even more significant danger of forestalling the emergence of new broadband technologies by reinforcing the existing supply-side and demand-side economies of scale and by stifling incentives to invest in alternative network platforms. Although such considerations would be problematic under any circumstances, they carry particular weight with respect to industries such as broadband, which are undergoing rapid technological change.
View MoreTim Wu & Christopher Yoo, Keeping the Internet Neutral?: Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo Debate, 59(3) Federal Communications Law Journal 575 (2007).
Network neutrality has emerged as one of the highest profile issues in telecommunications and Internet policy last year. Not only did it play a pivotal role in both houses of Congress during debates over proposed communications reform legislation; it also emerged as a key consideration during the Federal Communications Commission consideration of the recent SBC-AT&T, Verizon-MCI, and AT&T-BellSouth mergers. In the following exchange, Professors Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo engage in a debate over the merits of network neutrality that reviews the leading arguments on both sides of the issue.
View MoreMark A. Lemly & Lawrence Lessig, The End of End-to-End: Preserving the Architecture of the Internet in the Broadband Era, 48 UCLA Law Review 925 (2001).
In this paper, the authors address the question of "open access" and its relationship to the architecture of the Internet.
View MoreEuropean Parliament, Network Neutrality: Challenges and Responses in the EU and in the US (Study by the Directorate-General for Internal Policies, 47-60 (2011)
This analytical study provides background on the debate over network neutrality, including (1) its technological and economic underpinnings, (2) the implications for business models going forward, and (3) the legal, regulatory, policy and business responses that have been attempted and that are currently in play. It includes a comparison between the US, where these issues have been debated intensely, and the EU.
View MoreFederal Communications Commission, Appropriate Framework for Broadband Access to the Internet over Wireline Facilities (2005)
Popularly referred to as the “FCC Internet Policy Statement’.
View MoreEdward W. Felten, Nuts and Bolts of Network Neutrality, (Center for Information Technology Policy, 2006)
The author aims to fill in some of the technical background in a way that illuminates the core issues, in the hope of providing a little clarity to the discussion.
View MoreJohn Healey, AT&T drops Pearl Jam’s Call (Los Angeles Times, 2007)
The article can be accessed from the LA Times webpage
View MoreAdam Liptak, Verizon Rejects Text Messages from an Abortion Rights Group (New York Times, 2007)
Verizon disallowed the transmission of text messages from an abortion rights group to its subscribers across the Verizon mobile network.
View MoreErnesto Van der Sar, Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible (Torrent Freak, 2007)
The article can be accessed from the Torrent Freak official website.
View MoreFederal Communications Commission, Free Press and Public Knowledge Against Comcast Corporation, Memorandum Opinion and Order (2008)
The FCC considers whether Comcast, a provider of broadband Internet access over cable lines, may selectively target and interfere with connections of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications under the facts of this case. Although Comcast asserts that its conduct is necessary to ease network congestion, the FCC concludes that the company’s discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet and does not constitute reasonable network management. Moreover, Comcast’s failure to disclose the company’s practice to its customers has compounded the harm. Accordingly, the FCC institutes a plan that will bring Comcast’s unreasonable conduct to an end. In particular, it requires Comcast within 30 days to disclose the details of their unreasonable network management practices, submit a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop these unreasonable management practices by the end of the year, and disclose to both the Commission and the public the details of the network management practices that it intends to deploy following termination of its current practices
View MoreMadison River Communications, Consent Decree, 20 F.C.C.R. 4295, 4297 (2005)
Madison River Communications, a US network provider, was charged by the FCC for deliberately blocking ports on its network used by Vonage Corporation to deliver voice over Internet Protocol (VolP) service to its users. Ultimately, Madison River had to sign a consent decree with the FCC promising not to block these ports in the future and to pay a small fine of $15,000.
View MoreComcast v. FCC, No. 08-1291 (United States Court of Appeals, 2010)
The full text of this judgement can be downloaded from the Wall Street Journal Public Resources website.
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