Berners-Lee also said that this problem only concerns the US

May 24, 2006 12:56 GMT  ·  By

Speaking at a press conference which took place in Edinburgh, the inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has expressed his support for Internet neutrality.

Giants like Verizon Communications and AT&T want to create a separate channel for special services which require wide bandwidths, such as downloading movies, a need sprung from the increase in volume of audio and video data.

Companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are opposing this initiative and are backing the Internet's neutrality.

The web's father told journalists present at the Edinburgh conference that the US companies are trying to change the concept, which will lead to strange situations.

"There is an effort by some companies in the US to change this. There's an attempt to get to a situation where if I want to watch a TV station across the internet, that TV station must have paid to transmit to me," Silicon.com quoted him as saying.

Berners-Lee also said that this problem only concerns the US, in Europe this being a rule.

At the end of April, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee rejected the Markey amendment, which would have made Internet neutrality mandatory.