Here’s a sampling from the formal filings of responses to the FCC’s NOI on broadband industry practices and network neutrality. For more excerpts, visit http://www.heartland.org.
“Unfortunately, the negative impact of regulation on technological innovation most likely would not be known until after the fact, resulting in the potential for an unintended consequence to overhaul the market and chill development of products that may actually be of use in stimulating and managing new broadband networks and Internet-based service applications.” — Ad Hoc Telecom Manufacturer Coalition
“Expanding and improving access to broadband will require massive private investment. Without control over their own property, investors would shy away from risking the billions of dollars necessary and new networks would simply not be built. The result of the net neutrality regulation would be one of two options; the complete stagnation of the Internet or extreme increases in cost to consumers for access.” — Americans for Tax Reform
“With inadequate competition and little public obligation, the cozy duopoly dribbles out capacity at high prices and restricts the uses of the network, chilling innovation in applications and services and causing a much lower rate of penetration of broadband in the U.S. than abroad. The only way to break out of this quagmire is to return to the success policies of open communications that made the Internet possible and allowed the U.S. to be the world leader in the first generation of the digital age.” — Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Free Press, Media Access Project, U.S. Public Interest Research Group
“Why should we discard two decades of successful regulatory restraint in exchange for broad regulatory intervention that will only harm the free and open nature of the online market? Government intervention in the wide-open consumer dominated Internet market will lead to serial rent-seeking, with one branch of the sector looking for government help against its rivals.” — Consumers for Cable Choice
“Net neutrality concerns are real and arise from high concentration for last-mile broadband access. The lack of competitive alternatives for last-mile broadband access allows the incumbents that control such access to engage in anticompetitive conduct that threatens to undermine the consumer benefits of broadband.” — EarthLink
“Calls for net neutrality regulation of the Internet are premature at best, and innovation and investment killers at worst. The FCC should categorically reject calls for regulating the Internet in the name of net neutrality, while remaining vigilant about legitimate competition policy concerns surrounding broadband markets.” — Internet Freedom Coalition
