Network neutrality - Just who owes who in the Internet content economy?

The debate over network neutrality is reflective of a longstanding tension in the communications and transportation industries between carriage and content. The shift in the underlying business models of the Internet through the use of the Internet's open architectures has allowed content providers to have direct access to the end user without the more traditional, and often extremely lucrative, intervention of the carriage provider. And now the carriage providers are crying foul, taking the stance that content providers are having a free ride over the carriage providers' infrastructure investments, and are threatening to block such freeloaders from their networks. This debate, often termed a debate about network neutrality is really a debate about money of course, and the critical question of who should pay and who should receive in the new content economy that has been created by the Internet. Copyright 2009 Geoff Huston. No part of this article may be reproduced by any means without the written consent of the publisher.