Challenging Net Neutrality: FCC on Path to Most Dangerous Expansion of Federal Power Since Civil War

Video Hat Tip: Political Pistachio, from whom I've swiped the video. Also, be sure to check out his radio show on Blog Talk Radio.


More from Ryan Radia:

Reclassifying the transmission component of broadband Internet access as a Title II telecommunications service would undermine the Commission’s statutory mission and harm consumers in several ways. First, it would discourage private investment in both broadband Internet networks and in networks yet to be imagined. Second, it would thwart the natural evolution of the dynamic telecommunications marketplace. Third, it would pave the way for a future Commission to regulate virtually every aspect of the Internet and digital communications in destructive and unforeseen ways.


It is no coincidence that America's most vibrant communications platform, the Internet, has evolved largely free from regulatory intervention. As this proceeding illustrates, the greatest threat to the evolution of communications wealth in the United States comes not from broadband providers or content companies, but from the Commission itself.

Download the full PDF of the statement.


More here:

To be sure, the virtues that neutrality proponents espouse– open access, transparency, democracy, and the like — are all legitimate, even important values. Arguably, the open nature of the Internet has been instrumental in fostering many of the innovations that consumers enjoy today. But it is wrong to assume, as neutrality proponents do, that today’s “capital-I” Internet is the end all, be all network, and that the future of global communications ought not include some proprietary elements.


Technological innovation is an unpredictable beast. Networks for transmitting data that have yet to emerge — so-called “splinternets” — may well reshape the nature of global communications in years ahead. One need only look to the FCC’s widely criticized telephone and cable regulations to witness how rigid federal mandates can thwart high-tech evolution and steer the market in unnatural directions.


Fortunately, not all hope is lost for consumers. A group of Republican Senators, led by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), have announced that they will lead a charge in Congress to thwart the FCC’s push for neutrality. And if the FCC bites off more than it can chew and enacts overly broad rules, network providers may well challenge the agency in court. Only two weeks ago, the FCC was sharply repudiated by a federal circuit court for ignoring the facts in its regulation of the cable industry.


If net neutrality ultimately goes through, the threat to infrastructure wealth creation is serious. When regulators gain new powers, they rarely cede them in response to marketplace changes without a fight. Under a neutrality regime, the telecom industry would likely retreat, take fewer risks, and divert investment toward more fruitful pursuits. It’s no coincidence that the Internet, a sanctuary of governmental restraint, has spawned such unparalleled innovation. In the relentlessly fast-moving digital age, regulatory intervention is a recipe for entrenching the status-quo.

Read the complete article at The Technology Liberation Front


For more information, click on the links below:


FCC on Path to Most Dangerous Expansion of Federal Power Since Civil War (PDF Download)

Net Neutrality, Banned Business Models & Price Controls

Commentary

I think this goes hand-in-hand with the desire of the Obama crowd to seek a kill switch for the danger that the vast Free Market of the Internet represents to the Progressive designs to re-shape America in their own image.