If one only listened to net neutrality proponents, one would conclude that American innovation was at death’s door, because there was no “net neutrality� in law.
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The reality, which is obvious to anyone with functioning eyes or ears at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, is that innovation in the American market is exceptionally vibrant!
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As a result of the consumer electronics show this week, you can’t go to a web news service or look at any major newspaper or magazine and not see stories on the new innovations leveraging connectivity.
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Innovation and competition are obviously extremely healthy without net neutrality legislation.
Where is the evidence of the horrible discrimination problem the government must fix immediately? There is none!
Most telling is that the innovation and dynamism is hottest and most vibrant in the wireless space -- and wireless has never had net neutrality regulation. Congress in its infinite wisdom in 1993 decided to foster a competitive market in wireless. Ever since consumer adoption, growth, innovation has been explosive. The reason wireless is so successful in the U.S. is because of vibrant market competition and consumer choice not because of government regulation.
- U.S. pro-competition and deregulation policy has produced outstanding results.
- The U.S. has more large national wireless broadband competitors, which have built out to most of the Nation, than any other country.
- The U.S. has more WiFi hotspots than any other country.
- The U.S. has more private investment in broadband deployment than any other country.
Net neutrality for wireless would destroy much of the current incentive to invest and innovate in this mobility-obsessed market. Most everything imaginable is going digital and mobile. Clearly video is migrating to mobile. Video will continue to require vastly more bandwidth than data or voice. That explosive increase in bandwidth demand requires lots of additional investment -- just to keep pace.
Net neutrality proponents won’t come out and admit it, but their real agenda is to turn all broadband into de facto regulated utilities. They want every broadband provider to offer the same exact “dumb pipes� so edge devices can add all the value add and innovation.
The real world naivete of many net neutrality proponents is staggering.
- What do they think will happen to the quality, speed and reach of the many different networks that comprise the Internet, if a law is passed that declares networks are only to be dumb pipes and not allowed to add any commercial value or differentiated innovation to the transmission process?
- Neutrality is the opposite of innovation and competitive choice. Neutrality is mandated sameness and dumbness.
Do you see any net neutrality proponent explaining how de facto regulated utilities will do better for consumers than the competition, innovation and consumer choice that we have right now? Think about it.
