Tim Wu, of Columbia Law School, speaks at the IPLB symposium.

Jan. 31, 2008 -- Lawyers, technologists, professors, economists, and students gathered at the University of San Francisco Jan. 26 for a day-long symposium examining the legal and political debate over net neutrality.

Net neutrality refers to ensuring Internet users are not discriminated against based on how often they use the Internet or how much broadband capacity they utilize. The issue has ignited fierce debate over how to balance users' service needs with network operators' efforts to put in place tiered pricing structures based on how much bandwidth or the type of applications a user employs. Opponents also suggest that net neutrality rules would reduce incentives to upgrade networks and launch next generation network services.

Leading net neutrality advocate and Columbia University law professor Timothy Wu faced off with AT&T Assistant Vice President Richard Clarke in the first panel. Wu likened the debate surrounding use of the Internet to historical struggles over transportation and telephone service. "This issue addresses discrimination in speech and public facilities, and asks how public functions should be provided," he said.

Clarke said the problem with complete, or "extreme net neutrality" is that "different applications have different needs for net quality. Some require greater bandwidth than others."

Wu balked at Clark's suggestion that net neutrality is an extreme position.

"The extreme position is government should run the Internet as it ran radio and the postal system," Wu said. "We could demand, as we did with television, that it be free."

Instead, Wu said he is opposed to service providers discriminating between content or application providers based on how much bandwidth they use. He also characterized tiered pricing for Internet service as "a dangerous road to go down."

The event also included a keynote address by California Public Utilities Commission Commissioner Rachelle Chong.

The symposium was sponsored by the Intellectual Property Law Bulletin, a student-run legal journal focusing on current trends in intellectual property law. It includes articles from students, professors, and practitioners on diverse areas of intellectual property ranging from patents to cyberlaw.

For more information on the symposium, go to www.netneutrality2008.org.