Internet should remain free, inventor says

Attempts by telecom companies in the US to charge for different levels of online web access are not "part of the internet model," according to web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Speaking Tuesday at a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, Berners-Lee said the web should resist attempts to fragment it into different services. The British scientist said he advocates net neutrality, where everyone has the same level of access to the web and that all data is treated equally.

If US companies persist with trying to establish a two-tier Internet, the network would enter "a dark period," he cautioned. "What's very important from my point of view is that there is one web," he said. Read the full BBC report here.

Comments

[Mark McLellan]

Tara

Article from Jakob Nielsen in 1999!
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990725.html

"quote"
Metcalfe's Law in Reverse
Current attempts to split the Web into many isolated mini-networks undermine the long-term potential of the Internet which depends on universal interconnection.
[...]
Attempts to build walls around isolated sites will fail in the long term because of Metcalfe's Law which states that the value of a network grows by the square of the size of the network. So a network that is twice as large will be four times as valuable because there are four times as many things that can be done due to the larger number of interconnections.
"unquote"

That says it all.

MarkMcL

[ally bean]

let's hope that his desires are respected and the net does stay unified as one web.

why complicate things with two tiers?

[susan]

I saw this article too :-)
It's just appalling and squelches the very spirit of why the WWW was created.

[Annie]

Jeeze. It's not like we use the internet for free anyway. When is enough money ENOUGH? I guess the answer to that one is NEVER. Disgruntled Annie

[irussell]

appalled! - the crass and ugly face of capitalism once again. :(

[amber]

I agree with him!

:)