On Tuesday 30 September the future of the Internet is to debate when EU Commissioner Viviane Reding and Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin J. Martin, are among the speakers at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation's Conference on Network Neutrality.

The debate about the principles to be applied to traffic on the Internet has been raging in USA. for many years. Recently, it has even become part of the presidential election campaign.

So far the issue has rarely been debated in Europe. The purpose of the Conference is to initiate the debate, which is essentially a question of whether the Internet should be regulated or not. It is a debate in which major interests are at stake – not least for telecommunications companies, providers of content and consumers.

- It is essential for Denmark's development as a knowledge-based economy that we have a world-class digital infrastructure, which citizens and businesses can access and not least benefit from. This concern has to be balanced with the ability to generate innovation and new business opportunities, says Danish Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Helge Sander, who will open the conference.

- My starting point is that regulation should only be envisaged if there turns out to be real problems, which the market and the industry itself do not manage to solve. But what really matters to me is that consumers have fair and transparent conditions – the same way as on the roaming market for mobile telephony. This will be my input to the debate, the Minister said.

At the Conference there will be presentations from a number of international renowned experts in the field from both the U.S. and Europe, including from the political level, public authorities, business, the consumer side and academia.

The Conference is held at “Industriens Hus” in Copenhagen on Tuesday 30 September 2008 under the heading "Network Neutrality – Implications for Innovation and Business Online". The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation organizes the Conference in collaboration the Danish ICT and Electronics Federation (ITEK), the Danish IT Industry Association (ITB) and the Telecommunications Industries Association in Denmark (TI).

More information about the conference can be found at www.netneutrality.dk.

Jørgen Abild Andersen, Director-General of the National IT and Telecom Agency, can be contacted via Press Officer Adam Hvidt, telephone +45 3545 0357, e-mail .