Technologist proposes Net neutrality solution

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://telephonyonline.com/regulatory/news/Net_Neutrality_Farber_032906/

Technologist proposes Net neutrality solution
By Carol Wilson

Mar 29, 2006 9:16 AM

A former chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission is
calling for a fact-based solution to the Net neutrality issue, to be
determined by a neutral group of experts, meeting out of the glare of  
the
current hype.


David Farber’s credentials are considerable--as an academic, he did
pioneering work in distributed computing and helped conceive and  
organize
early versions of the Internet including Computer Science Net (CSNet),
NSFNet and NASA’s Research and Education Network (NREN). During 11  
years at
Bell Labs, he helped design the first electronic switching system
(ESS)--technology which became the heart of the modern phone network. In
addition to a long academic career ending at the University of  
Pennsylvania
and the Wharton School of Business, he maintained a commercial business
developing software, and served on many boards of directors for  
commercial
companies, in addition to his post at the FCC. While in Washington,  
he led
the review of Time Warner’s acquisition of AOL, another in a series of
issues where politics, business and technology collided.

Farber said in an interview today that the current emotionally charged
arguments about Net neutrality are counter-productive and are not  
likely to
produce the solutions required to insure the Internet’s future.

“We need to get a small set--15 people tops--to drill down and decide  
what
it is people agree to and what they don’t agree to,” he said. The group
would be university-sponsored and include expert economists, regulatory
officials and technologists. “It needs to be a fact-finding operation –
that’s a first step.”

Similar groups have been assembled to address issues such as spectrum
management, Farber said. They enable work to be done quickly and  
quietly.


“We can get together under the auspices of CMU [Carnegie Mellon  
University,
where he is currently affiliated] and Penn and people can talk and say
things they mean without attribution,” he said. “They can talk off the
record but to each other and not have to worry about being quoted  
endlessly
and out of context. It has to be fast and it has to inform the Congress
with a set of facts. If in the process, one comes up with a
resolution--happy day. If you don’t, you have the facts out.”


Farber said it may be possible to “engineer the way out” of the current
dilemma, which has pitted cable and telephone companies against Internet
firms, ranging from Google and Yahoo! to the VoIP community and consumer
groups, in a debate over whether providing “tiered” or premium-based
services amounts to degrading all other Internet traffic. In a group of
experts, potential solutions could be quickly vetted.

“It’s one thing to mumble in public about that, it’s another thing to
mumble among experts,” he said.

Normally, such an issue could go before the National Research  
Council, he
said, but its approach would take more than a year to solve the problem,
whereas his proposed approach would be much quicker.

“We’re talking a month, not months,” Farber said.

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