You are here June 2006
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2006-06-28 18:15
The Snowe-Dorgan net neutrality amendment failed 11-11.
I just released the following statement to reporters.
Industry Expert Applauds Senate Commerce Committee Vote
Scott Cleland, host of NetCompetition.org, calls for full Senate to vote against net neutrality
The chairman of NetCompetition.org commends the Senate Commerce Committee’s responsible handling of the net neutrality issue and urges Senate leaders Frist and Reid to bring the telecom reform legislation to the Senate floor soonest to enable the full Senate to vote on these important issues.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2006-06-29 15:20
The nuetrality-ites are hiding behind the premise that NN regulation is warranted because its a telco-cable duopoly with 98% share; they believe this means there is market failure warranting government price regulation.
This is very lame and misleading analysis.
First, the expert agencies: the FCC the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and the Federal Trade Commission all disagree with the NN assertion that the broadband market is not competitive and hence warrants regulation.
Second, the duopoly assertion ignores the context which is highly relevant. While dial-up was essentially a monopoly, the 1996 Telecom Act addressed that by encouraging competition. Cable modems were a new market and cable created massive competitive pressure on dial-up and on DSL which was forced to lower its prices to attract customers. This Market is not a duopoly, it is a very dynamic market that is in successful transition from a monopoly eleven years ago to a competitive market today.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2006-06-30 09:52
Neutrality-ites claim Network neturality is a principle.
Their defense of it belies the fact that NN is NOT principled.
They justify new NN regulation by asserting there is a duopoly and market failure. If the motivation is principled, why do Snowe-Dorgan and the Markey bills apply monopoly net neutrality rules to competitive broadband providers like wireless, new entrants like WiMax and free services like WiFi? If it is truly a necessary "competitive" principle, why not apply it to Microsoft, which the government ruled a monopoly, or Google and Yahoo which are quickly becoming the defacto duoploists of search? Real principles are not double standards like NN.
Pages
|
