Jonathan Zittrain is the leading Internet professor in the world. A founder of the Harvard Law School Berkman Center for Internet & Society, he currently is Oxford University’s Internet guru. He has a new, widely-heralded book: “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It.” No doubt, net neutrality advocates were banking on Professor Zittrain to make their cause the centerpiece of his 338 page book with a title like that. But, alas, net neutrality is mentioned only briefly, in passing, deep into the book. And Zittrain hardly is an advocate for the regulation sought by net neutrality fans.

The main focus of the book is that viruses, spyware and privacy invasions by search engines will result in consumers using more secure internet appliances like the iPhone, BlackBerry and Xbox, rather than programmable PCs. Zittrain is concerned that such appliances will limit Internet innovation and the Internet experience.

As for net neutrality, Zittrain concludes: “One answer, then, to the question of net neutrality is that wide-open competition is good and can help address the primary worries of network neutrality proponents. In the absence of broad competition, some intervention could be helpful, but in a world of open PCs some users can more or less help themselves, routing around some blockages that seek to prevent them from doing what they want to do online.”

So, Zittrain hardy picks up the cudgel of net neutrality, and in fact makes the arguments against legislation and regulation by citing competition and technology as the solution should there actually be a problem (which there isn’t).

Today, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee held a full committee hearing on “The Future of the Internet.” In response, the Hands Off the Internet coalition issued the following statement:

“Chairman Martin’s testimony restored a healthy dose of reality to the debate over network management on the Internet. Today’s new ‘smart network’ technology is one of the best ways to improve Net users’ online experience, including faster and more affordable access while reducing online dangers.

“No question, consumers deserve safeguards to access legal websites and other information. But it’s often overlooked that they already have this protection and as the Chairman’s testimony shows, markets, public opinion, and FCC oversight are working to protect the consumer without the unintended consequences of a massive new regulatory scheme.”

The Hands Off the Internet coalition is a Washington, DC-based coalition of companies and nonprofit organizations that believes the Internet has flourished because government has not tried to regulate it. Members include Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Qwest, 3M, the National Association of Manufacturers, FiberControl, and Cinergy Communications. Nonprofit members include Citizens Against Government Waste and the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

Chalk one up for common sense.

At last week’s Internet Video Policy Symposium in DC, Cowen & Co.’s Arnie Berman offered a sharp response to the claim that Net Neutrality would put a “toll booth” on the Internet. According to press reports, Berman noted that video data on the web is like a bus that’s three lanes wide. So to handle all this traffic – and remember that last December, 140+ million U.S. Internet users watched more than 10 billion online videos – you’d need highways that are 30 lanes wide.

Earth to Google: Care to explain how Net Neutrality helps us fund all that?

Following the FCC gathering in Cambridge on Monday to conduct a hearing on network management practices, we wanted to share a great piece that ran in the Boston Globe late last year. Elaine Kamarck of Harvard University made some very important points that are worth remembering.

If you did any of those things, you are part of the new world of the Internet, a world where video is rapidly becoming the most popular thing we do online. But video takes up a lot of space, a lot more than text, and the increased use of video means that the Internet is fast filling up. The result is that if we don’t invest soon, we could be seeing, in the near future, the Internet equivalent of an early evening traffic jam on Interstate 93. It could take forever for your photos or video to download or for your e-mail to arrive.

The backbone of the Internet will need to grow. For instance, more fiber optic cable will need to be laid, and that’s not cheap. In the past the big telephone companies have laid necessary cable, and they are the ones best situated to do it again…….

It will be difficult to get phone companies to charge the prices necessary to pay for new investments in Internet infrastructure. No one can make them do so, for the Internet is not regulated. But industry will need to take into account the public interest.

We need to start thinking about a variety of options. Perhaps we should look at different pricing structures for different online activities or require the use of “smart” networks that give lower priority to entertainment-related data than to packets of data in areas like telemedicine. Many Internet activities are in the broad public interest. We need to make sure those aren’t hampered because, somewhere in the world, teenagers are playing online games or grandmas are staring at their children’s babies.

Did you know that….

… current federal law already protects the open internet?

… federal rules against unfair competition guarantee net users’ access to the legal online content of their choice?

… states such as California have pro-consumer laws that protect net users’ access to content?

… today’s high-speed Internet routers can process 15 terabytes per second – enough to stream 15 million DVD-quality streams simultaneously?

If any of these are new to you, please read FCC comments filed by Hands Off the Internet [PDF] with the FCC. You’ll see why net neutrality is an expensive and unnecessary burden.

William Taylor, chair of the communications practice at NERA Consulting in Boston and former MIT professor, has just published this concise economic analysis of the Internet and the likely impact of net neutrality.

His report effectively debunks the idea that innovation would suffer if broadband carriers offer different choices in download speeds. Indeed, precisely the opposite would occur, he concludes, noting:

“[A]dvocating regulation to preserve Internet freedoms is inherently inconsistent.

“Indeed, if priority prices reflected the costs of priority as well as consumers’ valuations of the applications that depend on priority, one would expect more valuable innovation in a market-determined network architecture rather than less.”

Equally helpful, Dr. Taylor offers a timely reminder of how government regulation of service quality in another commercial venture – the airlines – devolved into comic absurdity. That included:

“…prescribing the maximum amount of leg-room, requiring that meals be limited to sandwiches, and establishing uniform additional prices for in-flight entertainment.”

This natural mission creep of regulation is exactly what has so many supporters of a vibrant Internet opposed to the calls for net neutrality.

This is a good study and a breath of fresh air for the net neutrality debate.

If there’s an award for the dumbest historical reference of the week, it would surely go to The Seattle Times for its editorial in favor of net neutrality, “Free the Internet.” It begins:

Democracy is meaningless without structure. It requires support and infrastructure to become a word capable of giving entire nations voice and freedom.

The architects of America’s democracy knew this. The Founding Fathers made sure newspapers and magazines were widely distributed by allowing periodicals to utilize low postage rates.

Come again? Saying that the Founding Fathers encouraged newspapers by allowing them to “utilize” low postage rates is like saying that the USC Trojans are undefeated because the players are encouraged to wear cleats.

The obvious irony, no doubt lost on The Seattle Times editorial board, is that the Founding Fathers truly protected newspapers by prohibiting Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Yet The Times’ editorial is actually a cri de coeur for a law giving federal regulators and judges the ultimate say over today’s Internet.

The editorial gets even better: “Constructive regulation is needed to allow the Internet to grow and mature.” Really? For more than a decade, the Net has grown rather nicely without a lot of “constructive regulation” so it seems odd that the editorial doesn’t even offer a reason. Here’s a wild guess why: The deafening silence is The Seattle Times’ admission that there is not a single problem facing net users today that could be resolved with net neutrality.

Finally, the comment that “there is nothing stopping” a carrier from “degrading content from competitors” is an eye-roller given all the antitrust and other laws protecting Net users from online discrimination. For more on this, click here [PDF].

On one point, we do agree with The Seattle Times: The Net requires “support and infrastructure.” Our view is that this should be a shared responsibility involving individual and large corporate users. The Times would exempt the corporations through net neutrality and put the costs entirely on Net users.

That’s their right of course, but it seems an odd way to claim that you’re on the side of the little guy.