Fergie's Tech Blog

Net Neutrality Sleight of Hand: Wireless Carriers Still Push 'Tiered' Arguments

Susan Kuchinskas writes on internetnews.com:

If wireless telecommunications providers don't clean up their act, State legislators may have no choice but to bow to pressure from their constituents to regulate. A panel on wireless regulation here today focused on the tension between consumers' demands and the industry's business models.

The panel, part of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) Wireless IT and Entertainment show, held this week in San Francisco, discussed hot topics for the industry. And regulation was the hottest.

The group touched on net neutrality only briefly. Michael Small, CEO of Centennial Communications, acknowledged that the industry had brought scrutiny on itself. "Carriers were trying to arrange data to make it easy to find on the phone. We were trying to simplify it and got into a lot of trouble."

But AT&T insisted network operators needed to be able to prioritize IP traffic on their networks. "All bits are not equal," he said. "One bit is porn, another bit is heart surgery. We have to be able to manage traffic to keep everything flowing."

posted by Fergie @ 10/23/2007 10:22:00 PM