It has been...
Without a "net neutrality" problem. Strangely however, with every passing “no-problem” day, the pro-regulation crowd becomes ever more shrill and ever more insistent that if government doesn’t regulate, it will be “the end of the Internet as we know it”!
Take Action and Stop the Takeover
The Federal Communications Commission is moving ahead with proposed "Open Internet" rules, which would give federal regulators vast new powers, and ultimately lead to government control of the Internet.
Join The Internet Freedom Coalition
The Internet has become a powerful communications and economic force because it has been free from government interference. To make sure the power and promise of the Internet continues, we need to keep it free of government interference.
Our View: Free Internet too tempting for FCC
Editorial
Appeal Democrat
The Federal Communications Commission, like most government agencies, is constantly seeking to expand its power and scope. Private businesses expand through innovation and offering better goods or services to consumers who can decide whether to purchase their offerings. But government agencies can expand simply by moving into areas of the economy they think they ought to be able to control.
The FCC, the federal government’s most active purveyor of censorship, recently decided that since it has jurisdiction over telephone service, it also has jurisdiction over Internet service providers. Since Congress never specifically gave it such power, the move has been challenged in court and a federal appeals court will soon decide whether the agency has overreached.
Lawyer questions FCC’s authority on Net neutrality rules
By Grant Gross
Computerworld Networking
March 3, 2010 (IDG News Service) The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks the statutory authority to make network neutrality rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing some Internet traffic, a former U.S. solicitor general said Wednesday.
If the FCC wants the authority to proceed with its Net neutrality, or open Internet, rulemaking proceeding, it should go to Congress to get permission, said Gregory Garre, who served as solicitor general, the U.S. government’s lawyer before the Supreme Court, under former President George W. Bush.
Think Tank: Net Neutrality Rules Harmful, Unnecessary
By Maisie Ramsay
Wireless Week
The American Consumer Institute says net neutrality regulations are not only unnecessary but could restrict growth and innovation in the broadband industry.
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank has issued a 59-page report on its findings around the FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules. The group argues there is no evidence that net neutrality regulation would promote innovation in the Internet ecosystem.
“We find that innovation is thriving at both the core and the edge of the network in the current policy environment, which has fundamentally allowed the Internet to evolve with little government involvement,” said Larry Darby and Joseph Fuhr in the institute’s report. “Further, we find no evidence that greater FCC involvement in markets for broadband services would protect or promote innovation in the Internet Ecosystem. Indeed, we believe that such intervention is more likely to discourage innovation than to stimulate it.”
Net neutrality: Get out of the way, bureaucrats
By Jeffrey Mazzella and Timothy Lee of the Center for Individual Freedom.
We’ve all heard the old adage, “Lead, follow or get out of the way.”
There is perhaps no other issue for which that adage better applies today than Internet innovation. There are the leaders—telecommunications and cable companies investing tens of billions of dollars annually in broadband network expansion and innovation.
There are the followers—countless American consumers and businesses that rely on evolving broadband connections for Internet access.
Save The Internet From Title II Regressives
By Seth Cooper, Free State Foundation
Amidst continuing doubts about whether the Federal Communications Commission’s Title I ancillary jurisdiction gives it power to impose net neutrality regulation of broadband access services, in recent FCC proceedings Public Knowledge, the Consumer Federation of America and others have urged the Commission to move broadband “information services” from Title I classification to Title II.
But such calls for net neutrality or other common carrier regulation of broadband services through Title II lack any grounding in existing, cognizable marketplace harm or failure. And imposing monopoly-style regulation on broadband fails to take seriously both the existing state of competition and the potential for new competition offered by wireless broadband in the dynamic modern communications services market.
“Net Neutrality” To Kill Jobs
by Tim Andrews – as posted on Americans for Tax Reform
As the Administration continues in its plans to takeover the internet, under what is laughingly called “net-neutrality”, the The American Consumer Institute released a detailed report earlier this week on the effects of this regulation on innovation and jobs.
Not surprisingly, the result was unequivocal: “The study found that new Internet regulations, including those now under consideration by the FCC, would restrict technology advances, innovation and job growth.
In the midst of an economic downturn and high unemployment, the Administration is pursuing a radical ideological agenda that will result in a slower internet, less innovation, and fewer jobs.
Great. Just great.
Study: Net Neutrality Bad for Innovation, Investment and Consumers
by Capitol Confidential - as posted on BigGovernment.com
A study released Tuesday by the American Consumer Institute contains some bad news for proponents of net neutrality. Whereas advocates of “open internet” rules often argue that the institution of the policy is necessary to preserve innovation and would benefit consumers, the study finds that “new Internet regulations, including those now under consideration by the FCC, would restrict technology advances, innovation and job growth.”
Net Neutrality Could Harm Competition, says report
George S. Ford and Michael Stern of the Phoenix Center released a report today entitled Sabotaging Content Competition: Do Proposed Net Neutrality Regulations Promote Exclusion?. The economic analysis concludes that network neutrality regulations would increase, not decrease incentives for broadband service providers to employ exclusionary tactics that could harm competition.
Don’t subject the Internet to politicians, bureaucrats
By Carl Gipson
Washington Policy Center
Also on Tech Liberation
I recently wrote an op-ed for the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Inside ALEC publication. It’s decidedly non-technical, as most correspondence with a majority in the legislative branch must be. In my dealings with those in state government positions, it seems that only in the last few months have many of them become aware of the FCC’s Net Neutrality proposals — or even the issue itself. I don’t blame them. State legislators are often more concerned with local issues such as solving their budget deficits or finding funding for critical government operations.
But it’s important that they also keep an eye on what’s happening in “the other Washington,” (as we Washington state-ers like to call it) as the policies from Congress, the Administration and federal agencies trickle down to affect each and every one of us.
The text of the op-ed is after the break.
FCC: We’ll Just Give Ourselves Authority to Regulate the Internet
Kelly William Cobb
Americans for Tax Reform
As we’ve mentioned before, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has begun an unprecedented foray into a hitherto untouched area: Internet regulation. The socialist organizations Free Press and Public Knowledge, along with new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, have long waged a campaign for “Net Neutrality,” which would lay the foundations for government regulation of the Net and how information travels through the lines to your home. Now realizing the FCC might not have the legal authority to do so, these groups have proposed completely redefining how the FCC treats the Internet to pursue this ambitious power grab.
For years, the FCC has determined that the Internet be regulated as an “information service” under Title I of the Communications Act (see here, here, here, and here). But since this classification only gives the FCC ancillary and tenuous jurisdiction to regulate the Net, there is now talk of simply reclassifying it as a Title II service – placing it under the same regulatory structure as traditional phone lines that dates back one hundred years.
Internet Freedom Coalition Comments to the FCC, Opposing Network Neutrality Regulations
Before the
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
Washington, DC 20554
In the Matter of
Preserving the Open Internet, GN Docket No. 09-191
Broadband Industry Practices WC Docket No. 07–52; FCC 09–93
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
Comments of the Internet Freedom Coalition
Introduction
The Internet Freedom Coalition is an ad hoc coalition of organizations and individuals committed to the continued growth and improvement of the Internet, who believe regulations and taxes are harmful to those ends. The Internet Freedom Coalition believes that a free and open Internet is beneficial, but argues that regulatory intervention in the well-functioning marketplace that has thus far produced a vast, free and open network would unnecessarily limit the current and future supply of bandwidth, and would harm both producers and consumers. These comments are attributable only to the individual signatories.
