EFF-Austin General Meeting February 15, 2007

Speaker: Futurist Derek Woodgate
Net Neutrality vs Marketplace power

With the increasing use of traffic shaping by many or most broadband providers to control P2P and other services, together with the increasing market power and control of such providers through mega-mergers, we are witnessing a growing debate on how to protect consumer rights to net neutrality.

Born out of the concept of the "dumb network," namely one that is engineered to simply deliver the bits, passing packets according to the needs of applications, "net neutrality" is about equal access to the internet, free from any interference or discriminatory restrictions on what kinds of equipment can be attached, how the equipment can communicate and it ensures that one set of communications is not degraded for the sake of another - an entirely neutral network.

I will discuss the marketplace, the legislative implications and how social change, new technologies and media/entertainment and communications services are fueling the debate in a way that could negatively redefine the future of the internet.

Free!

Official Website: http://effaustin.org