The recent flurry of activity in the USA on legistlation to determine whether network operators can prioritise certain types of Internet traffic over others in order to use this ability to leverage funding for the service providers who use the Internet to deliver Internet-based services has raised amany interesting issues. The debate has revolved around the new term Network Neutrality. This article by By Robert X. Cringely
PBS | I, Cringely . June 29, 2006 - If we build it they will come (subtitled "It's time to own our own last mile") is a thoughtful contribution to the debate. The argument is at a high level over whether the system of networking infrastructure ownership itself is wrong for the next generation of Internet-based services. This links to one of my hoby horses, the concept of the StockholmOpen community owned network infrastructure model (for wireless and broadband). It will be interesting to see how these models develop over the next twenty years.