Larry Dignan from Baseline Magazine recently wrote an article guaranteed to get attention: “Why I’m Against Net Neutrality.” It was a good one, though we can’t say we agreed with every single bit. His primary argument — “Congress should stay out of this fracas between telecom giants and Internet companies” – is certainly a solid one. Here’s one great section that echoes much of what we’ve been saying for awhile:

“All traffic isn’t created equal. An e-mail doesn’t have the same service requirements as a VoIP call. An X-ray of a heart patient should have priority over a Britney Spears video. Corporate networks manage traffic that way, and at some point there has to be some intelligence added to public Internet infrastructure between the end-points. Intelligent networks could offer better security, route traffic more efficiently and generally make the Internet easier to operate. Net neutrality requirements mean all traffic is created equal. You can debate over who makes the call over what traffic gets priority, but to pretend all traffic is equal doesn’t hold up.”

For much of this debate, we’ve seen too many people try to equate the switching of electronic packets along a global network with human civil rights, and it’s a bad analogy. Networks simply have different imperatives than human societies, and to pretend otherwise only confuses the situation.