Net Neutrality Battle Spills into Wireless World

[Brian Warkoczeski]

Net Neutrality Battle Spills into Wireless World

By Jared Newman, PC World

Oct 20, 2009

www.yahoo.com

A battle is brewing between wireless carriers and the feds--and caught 
in the crossfire are the smartphones, netbooks, and bandwidth-hungry 
mobile applications that users are increasingly enjoying. Both camps 
claim to be doing what's right for consumers: One side says that it is 
heading off a mobile meltdown by enforcing rules on the types of devices 
and services that can access networks, while the other says that giving 
users unfettered access to the wireless Web should be the priority.

Depending on which side wins, if you're an AT&T Mobility customer, in 
the future you might be prohibited from visiting certain Web sites or 
using competing voice and television services on your iPhone or on a 
3G-enabled netbook. Or, in an alternate scenario, the Federal 
Communications Commission might be able to force Verizon Wireless to 
allow its customers to stress its cellular network through downloads of 
mammoth files via BitTorrent.

The fight, in a nutshell, is about who controls the wireless pipes of 
tomorrow, and whether emerging wireless services will bloom or wither as 
a result. In other words, the conflict concerns network neutrality--the 
idea that carriers must give equal treatment to all uses of the 
Internet--as it might be applied to the wireless industry. And just as 
network neutrality has caused a ruckus this week in Washington with a 
bevy of tech firms calling for stronger neutrality measures, in the 
wireless industry the debate is heating up.

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