The following article is a positive and well-deserved profile of Tim Wu -- quoting Chris Sacca of Google -- that plays off the impact of his New America paper on wireless net neutrality. Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on New America's Leadership Council.

"Tim Wu, Freedom Fighter: His wireless-phone manifesto was the inspiration for Google's new mobile-software strategy, which includes the Open Handset Alliance." 

On Nov. 5, Google (GOOG) unveiled what many in the phone business had long awaited. CEO Eric Schmidt explained how the search giant was ready to create new software for mobile phones that would shake up the telecom status quo. A Google-led "Open Handset Alliance" would provide consumers an alternative to the big cellular carriers and give them new choices among mobile phones and the types of nifty services that run on them, from e-mail to Google Maps.

Google's brain trust was again trying to change the rules of the game. Behind the scenes, they owe a sizable debt to a man nearly unknown outside the geeky confines of cyberlaw. He is Tim Wu, a Columbia Law School professor who provided the intellectual framework that inspired Google's mobile phone strategy. One of the school's edgier profs, Wu attends the artfest Burning Man, and admits to having hacked his iPhone to make it work on the T-Mobile (DT) network.

Now, Wu's offbeat ideas are entering the mainstream. In February, he published a paper in the International Journal of Communication proposing a radical new vision of freedom for the U.S. wireless industry. He argued that the Federal Communications Commission should mandate that providers allow consumers to use any cell phone with any wireless operator, and install any programs they want on their phones as long as they were not illegal or harmful. "It would make a huge difference in the wireless industry," says Wu. "It will blow open the wireless market." ...

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