Obama and his FCC are after your Internet connect. ObamaNET will make your Internet much slower. The Obama FCC is expected to vote on ObamaNET this coming Thursday. Love ObamaCARE? You’ll love ObamaNET then. Slower broadband, less freedom of speech etc. ObamaNET, if it passes will be based on how the government defines your “Internet conduct.”
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| ObamaNET will make your Internet much slower |
How heavy-handed? The FCC will start regulating broadband rates. It will decree, based on a vaguely defined “Internet conduct” standard, whether companies can offer consumer-friendly service plans (such as T-Mobile’s Music Freedom program, which offers customers unlimited access to streaming music). It will institutionalize innovation by permission — giving advisory opinions on prospective business plans or practices (and companies will ask before innovating for fear of what will happen if they don’t). It will even assert the power to force private companies to physically deploy broadband infrastructure and route Internet traffic in specific ways. And in a gift to the plaintiffs’ bar, the FCC will deputize trial lawyers to file class-action lawsuits if they contend that any of these rules are being violated.
These Internet regulations will deter broadband deployment, depress network investment and slow broadband speeds. How do we know? Compare Europe, which has long had utility-style regulations, with the United States, which has embraced a light-touch regulatory model. Broadband speeds in the United States, both wired and wireless, are significantly faster than those in Europe. Broadband investment in the United States is several multiples that of Europe. And broadband’s reach is much wider in the United States, despite its much lower population density.
So why is the FCC swinging the regulatory sledgehammer? It’s not to guarantee an open Internet. Nowhere in the 332-page plan — which you won’t see until after the FCC votes on it — can one find a description of systemic harms to consumers or entrepreneurs online. And small wonder, for the Internet is open today. Consumers can easily access the content of their choice. Online entrepreneurs can and do innovate freely.