Sascha Meinrath is the Research Director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Program, and coordinates the Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative. He is a well-known expert on community wireless networks, municipal broadband, and telecommunications policy. He blogs regularly at www.saschameinrath.com.

CPU: The FCC has recently published its draft rules for an issue of great interest to the Web community, net neutrality. Two commissioners dissented in part, but it appears that the pro-neutrality faction has scored a point. Could you briefly sum up for us what net neutrality means?

Meinrath: Net neutrality fundamentally is the notion that the medium of transport—in this case, the Internet—should be a neutral medium. All data should be treated equitably as it moves across this system. This really boils down to, do the users of the network control the content, or do the providers of that network control the content? It’s much the same as an entity who owns a road not being allowed to tell you what color of car you can or cannot drive. What drew this to the fore was Comcast’s decision to block peer-to-peer communications, such as BitTorrent, which if you know the service, is used for everything from file sharing to MP3s to photos uploaded by NASA.  ... Original Article