Advanced Television

Berners-Lee: Net Neutrality vital

March 17, 2011

Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee stressed the importance of net neutrality to the UK government. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport held talks with ISPs, content providers, broadcasters, mobile operators and trade bodies to discuss issues surrounding the management of web traffic.

Ed Vaizey, communications and creative industries minister, chaired discussions and is sceptic about the necessity of neutrality. But Berners-Lee said net neutrality was key for best practice. “While transparency about traffic management policy is a good thing, best practice should also include the neutrality of the net. The web has grown so fast precisely because we’ve had two independent markets, one for connectivity and the other for content and applications.”

Vaizey welcomed announcement this week by ISPs on transparency around traffic management policies including the three fundamentals: “The first is that users should be able to access all legal content,” he said. “Second, there should be no discrimination against content providers on the basis of commercial rivalry. And finally, traffic management policies should be clear and transparent.”

The meeting was attended by companies including Amazon, the BBC, Channel 4, Facebook, Google, ISPA, Ofcom, TalkTalk, Vodafone, We7, Which and Yahoo.

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