Neutrality unfettered

“Cogent [Communications] practices [Inter]Net neutrality,” the company now proudly proclaims on its Web site. But its CEO, Dave Schaeffer, made a more interesting statement on the subject during a panel discussion at this month's Globalcomm 2006 trade show, when he suggested that the issue of Net neutrality could be viewed largely as a semantic one.

“Net neutrality is a euphemism for saying all IP networks are not the Internet,” Schaeffer said. “If carriers want to use their access pipes (and even divert the majority of the bandwidth available there) to offer their own content (or their own selection of others' content in a sort of walled garden), that's “perfectly legitimate,” he said, just as long as they don't call that Internet access.

Such regulation would benefit Cogent, of course — a connectivity vendor (and Bell competitor) with no plans to offer its own content. But the drafting of an Internet “truth-in-advertising” law wouldn't end the Net neutrality debate. Instead, it would spark a debate over what constitutes “full, unfettered access,” as Schaeffer calls it. If AT&T's Project Lightspeed users experience a little jitter while watching Google video clips but not while watching AT&T's own cable TV offerings, would it mean that those users had been denied “full unfettered access” to the Internet?

There are ways to finesse false advertising laws. I don't think “Froot Loops” is spelled that way just to be distinctive. If access providers were forced to certify their product, I wouldn't be surprised to see them advertise “InterNeat Access: Now with fewer fetters!”