Broadband plan would vastly expand government power over the Internet

KPBJ.com
March 23, 2010

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Statements by Competitive Enterprise Institute telecom policy analysts on the FCC’s National Broadband Plan:

Wayne Crews, vice president for Policy Competitive Enterprise Institute —

The FCC deserves praise for acknowledging the importance of competition among technologies as a key ingredient for promoting a national broadband policy. At the same time, unfortunately, the Commission’s plan seeks new realms to rule even as the very need for regulation evaporates.

America’s challenge is not for the FCC to ‘do something’ in the communications and Internet realm, but rather to dismantle obsolete regulatory impediments that constrain the market’s freedom to expand infrastructure and content access. If we were starting from a clean slate in today’s world, we wouldn’t create a Federal Communications Commission with command over price, entry and services.

If ever an economic sector needed a coherent vision for substantial liberalization, broadband is it. The Internet has been among mankind’s most liberating technologies, erasing the constraints of distance and information scarcity while making broadcasters out of billions of people. Today’s communications landscape has empowered individuals to speak and exchange ideas in ways that our nation’s framers could never have imagined.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 11:53 am

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