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Following Alex’s lead, I’ve decided that perhaps I too owe the readers of the PK blog an introduction. My name is Mehan Jayasuriya and I recently joined Public Knowledge full-time as a policy analyst, though I’ve been working as a contributing blogger for PK for a few months now. Like Alex, I originally hail from the Midwest, specifically, southeastern Wisconsin. After graduating from the University of Chicago and living in Japan for a year, I landed in the world of Washington D.C. tech journalism, which eventually brought me to Public Knowledge. With regard to policy issues, my primary areas of interest are network neutrality, open wireless networks and devices and copyright reform. If you’ve got any questions or comments for me, feel free to let me know in the comments.
Aloha
Aloha Mehan,
Congratulations on your new appointment as full time policy analyst for PK.
What is “network neutrality, and open wireless networks” mean to your new job. What type of policies are your advocating for and who is involved with you in this process?
I just stumbled into this site and I’m very happy that PK exists for some of us who are heavily involved with policies.
Thank you TVR
Aloha to you too,
Aloha to you too, TVR,
Here's what I generally mean when I use the terms "net neutrality" and "open wireless networks"--while both of these terms are open to some level of interpretation, I feel like the definitions below are pretty standard:
Net neutrality: The idea that an Internet service provider should not privilege, degrade or prioritize web traffic based on the content, applications or services that it is associated with.
Open wireless networks: The idea that a user should be allowed to attach any device to and use any application on a wireless network, as long as the device/application in question is not harmful to the network. Currently, you are able to do this on your wired phone network (think of answering machines, caller ID services, cordless phones, etc.) but not on your wireless phone network (example: you can only use the iPhone on AT&T in the U.S.).
Public Knowledge would like to see the U.S. marketplace take steps toward ensuring that networks--both wired and wireless--are open and neutral. We work with a number of other non-profit organizations as well as representatives from both the public and private sector in our attempt to achieve this goal. If you'd like to know more about what Public Knowledge is currently working on, I'd recommend checking our our "Issues" page, which lists all of our current initiatives. Thanks for your interest!
- mehan