Municipal WiFi networks could help beat US carriers and politicians in the battle over so-called “net neutrality,” according to one leading campaigner
Stanford University law professor Larry Lessig has argued the WiFi clouds popping up across cites from Philadelphia to San Francisco could provide broadband access over the “last mile” between the internet cloud and users’ doorsteps.
Lessig, author and co-leader of the Creative Commons, told LinuxWorld attendees in San Francisco, that unification of the WiFI patchwork would provide an infrastructure that frees the last mile from the “proprietary control” of carriers like AT&T and Verizon. This would restrict carriers’ ability to charge content providers different fees in order to prioritize delivery of their data packets across the internet.
“When one owns the wires as these network operators do, there is a desire to leverage control. To exploit and capture the value up the stack,” Lessig said.
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