The last few weeks have been pretty hectic as a number of reporters have been asking me about VoIP and net neutrality in order to get my opinions on the matters. I have lost track of all the different reporters and am trying to get a better handle on who writes what and when in fact.

I was very excited to see that my comments were used in an excellent article by Ken Belson from the New York Times titled The High-Speed Money Line. The premise of the article is that it is unclear what consumers and content providers would have to pay ISPs if net neutrality is not enforced.

"There’s no limit to what they could charge for this high-speed lane and they could make the slow-speed lane as slow as they want," said Rich Tehrani, president of Technology Marketing Corporation, a media company that promotes Internet phone service. "There’s no way to know today what the prices might be, but it could be anything, and that’s the fear."

Mr. Tehrani and others fear that companies that compete with the network providers – for instance, the Internet phone provider Vonage – may not get the chance to sign up for faster access, even if they want it.

I am happy that Mr. Belson chose to write about this topic because mainstream America probably doesn’t understand the issues at hand. They don’t understand that the Internet itself is at risk. Perhaps that is a bit dramatic but the open and free nature of the Net — the ability for any company to start a business and become the next Google or Skype is certainly something we can’t take for granted.

Hats off as well to the New York Times for deciding to report on this important issue.