NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] NEWS RELEASE: FCC's Destructive Inquiry Demands Congressional Action
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Following text was sent by: Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1899
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[1]FCC's Destructive Inquiry Demands Congressional Action
Statements of Ryan Radia and Wayne Crews
Washington, D.C., June 17, 2010 – Reactions by Competitive
Enterprise Institute telecom policy analysts Ryan Radia and Wayne
Crews on the Federal Communications Commission's Notice of Inquiry on
broadband regulatory classification:
[2]Ryan Radia
Associate Director of Technology Studies
Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Notice of Inquiry launched today by the FCC will take America's
broadband market down a dangerous path that threatens competition,
innovation, and consumer protection.
Congress has never permitted the FCC to mandate 'open' broadband
Internet networks, as the Comcast court reaffirmed. In fact, many
members of Congress have explicitly called on the FCC not to apply
telecommunications service regulation to the broadband sector. Yet
instead of heeding the call of Congress, the sole source of the FCC's
authority, the Commission is attempting to grasp unnecessary and
destructive regulatory powers by offering legally dubious proposals to
reclassify Internet service providers.
America’s telecommunications landscape wilted for much of the 20th
century under the FCC's public utility-style regulation – precisely
the type of regulation the Commission now wishes to perpetuate in the
broadband sector. To the extent that there is insufficient broadband
competition in the United States, price controls and other federal
mandates are to blame. Broadband users need less government, not more.
Broadband networks and, more importantly, networks that have yet to be
created all hold enormous promise for America's economic future. It's
not a coincidence that America's most vibrant communications platform,
the Internet, has evolved largely free from regulatory intervention.
As today's proceeding reminds us, the greatest obstacle to the
evolution of communications wealth is the FCC itself.
[3]Wayne Crews
Vice President for Policy
Competitive Enterprise Institute
U.S. communications is at an important inflection point. As today's
proceeding indicated, our national communications laws are woefully
outdated. These laws hinder broadband competition and are responsible
for legal distinctions at odds with market developments.
Net neutrality is the perverse policy that infrastructure companies
should not control content, but that content companies, in conjunction
with the FCC, should control infrastructure. So at the outset,
today’s proposal to arbitrarily classify frontier communications
technologies into self-serving government silos is backward,
destructive and offensive – and, worse, it sets the stage for
future political predation against today’s temporary victors. It is
the duty of Congress now to rein in the FCC’s inability to
acknowledge when it needs to step aside and recognize it is not an
elected lawmaker. Communications policy must acknowledge that
competition between technologies is a key ingredient not just for
competition, but for promoting a national broadband policy. The best
way to achieve these objectives is through a series of deregulatory
legislative initiatives. Communications regulation deserves more than
a mere “update” – largely, it must be phased out.
The removal of government regulation – deregulation – does not
mean that the industry is unregulated. Competition, or even the threat
of competition, regulates the behaviors of companies in efficient and
consumer-enhancing ways. In communications, competition exists among
an increasing number of platforms.
Congress must consider these broad market developments and act in
tailored ways that change communications law and reform the agency
that administers it. A next generation communications policy must
distinguish economic regulation from social welfare initiatives.
Congress should eliminate rules that regulate market performance and
focus on ways to implement social policy – such as universal
service – in ways that do not require FCC oversight. Finally,
Congress should restructure the FCC and provide a legislative mandate
to increase the market’s role in managing spectrum rights.
>>For more on broadband regulation and network neutrality, see
[4]comments to the FCC by Wayne Crews in the Matter of Preserving the
Open Internet Broadband Industry Practices
###
CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest group that studies
the intersection of regulation, risk, and markets. For more about CEI,
visit [5]www.cei.org.
References
1. http://cei.org/news-release/2010/06/17/fccs-destructive-inquiry-demands-congressional-action
2. http://cei.org/people/ryan-radia
3. http://cei.org/people/clyde-wayne-crews
4. http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7020373533
5. http://www.cei.org/
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