The fight has begun again over how the Internet should be governed. The "Net neutrality" debate is loaded with geeky buzz words and may turn off people other than Washington policy wonks.

That's a problem. Anyone who has grown used to wireless devices that use the Net in some way — checking e-mail, downloading Web video or sound files — ought to be concerned about this.

In fact, it's in the interest of most people today that data be allowed to pass through Internet "pipelines," wired or wireless, with minimal interference from private interests. That was essentially the message issued this week by Julius Genachowski, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

The devil is in the details, of course, so the public and Internet service providers need to track the specific rules the FCC will release for comment next month (see http://www.OpenInternet.gov).

The idea is that, left unregulated, wireless companies could pick and choose which data could flow freely on their networks, potentially enabling them to slow to a crawl the services that compete with their own, and to favor others that they own or that pay them a premium.

This would cripple future Internet-based innovations — Skype online phone calls and Web radio just two of countless examples — that rely on predictable connections.

Companies certainly need reasonable means for managing their networks, but they should do so, as Genachowski suggests, with transparency.

Some critics are fuming that government should not interfere with wireless networks. But they've forgotten that these networks use the public airwaves, and the management of that limited resource was the reason the FCC was founded in the first place. Some rational regulation is clearly needed here.