2 good WSJ op-eds on net neutrality dangers

by on February 25, 2008 · 4 comments

Got busy last week and failed to blog about this Wall Street Journal column by my colleague Bret Swanson and tech visionary George Gilder about the dangers of net neutrality regulation. They argue that:

The petitions under consideration at the FCC and the Markey net neutrality bill would set an entirely new course for U.S. broadband policy, marking every network bit and byte for inspection, regulation and possible litigation. Every price, partnership, advertisement and experimental business plan on the Net would have to look to Washington for permission. Many would be banned. Wall Street will not deploy the needed $100 billion in risk capital if Mr. Markey, digital traffic cop, insists on policing every intersection of the Internet.

And there’s another editorial in today’s WSJ by business author Andy Kessler entitled “Internet Wrecking Ball.” Kessler also points to the innovation-killing nature of NN regulation:

“With net neutrality, there will be no new competition and no incentives for build outs. Bandwidth speeds will stagnate, and new services will wither from bandwidth starvation. … The trick to an open and innovative Internet is not sneaky technical fixes nor more rules and regulations and bureaucracies to enforce them. The Internet will only expand based on competitive principles, not socialist diktat. The more we can do to clear a path, the greater our national wealth will be.”

Make sure to read both pieces.

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About Adam Thierer

Adam Thierer is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He previously served as President of The Progress & Freedom Foundation, as Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, and as a Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation. He is the author or editor of six books on technology and media policy and also writes a weekly column for Forbes called "Technologies of Freedom." Thierer earned his bachelor's degree in political science and journalism at Indiana University and received his master's degree in international business management and trade theory at the University of Maryland. His passions in life (besides technology and liberty, of course) are fast cars, fine cigars, and good beer.

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  • http://www2.blogger.com/profile/14380731108416527657 Steve R.

    The news media has recently reported on the concept that ISPs be required to “filter” internet content to assure that copyright owners would retain control over their works. The imposition of a filtering requirement would be a form of regulation. Like network neutrality, this is a hot topic with significant implications on how the internet is operated. What is your position on content filtering?

  • http://www2.blogger.com/profile/14380731108416527657 Steve R.

    The news media has recently reported on the concept that ISPs be required to “filter” internet content to assure that copyright owners would retain control over their works. The imposition of a filtering requirement would be a form of regulation. Like network neutrality, this is a hot topic with significant implications on how the internet is operated. What is your position on content filtering?

  • http://www2.blogger.com/profile/14380731108416527657 Steve R.

    Over on Ed Foster’s Gripeline I ran accross the following post: “BitTorrent kept slowing down to nothing until I figured out Comcast was sending the resets. Now I have my Linux firewall (software called iptables) configured to drop all packets with the Reset flag set. BitTorrent screams & Comcast can’t stop it. ;-) ”.

    Please note that I have no knowledge on whether the above poster was making a valid statement or not. Ed Felten reported over at his website on Febraury “Freedom to Tinker” that “My point is that if this is the most authoritative citation Comcast can find, then their argument doesn’t look very solid. (And, indeed, it seems pretty uncontroversial to call these particular packets “forged”, given that they mislead the recipient about (1) which IP address sent the packet, and (2) why the packet was sent.)”.

    At this time we can’t say whether or not net neutrality legislation would be good or bad, but it seems to be speculative to assert that net neutrality legislation will destroy the internet. If one looks at what corporations are actually doing today to the supposed free flow of information on the internet the anecdotal evidence indicates that companies are, in some cases, obstructing the free flow of information in apparent violation of net neutrality principles.

    Rather than focusing on speculative legislation and predicting doom we should be demanding that corporation, such as Comcast who are actually hurting the internet now, clean-up their operations. If these corporations process their packets in a neutral manner then legislation would not be needed.

  • http://www2.blogger.com/profile/14380731108416527657 Steve R.

    Over on Ed Foster’s Gripeline I ran accross the following post: “BitTorrent kept slowing down to nothing until I figured out Comcast was sending the resets.
    Now I have my Linux firewall (software called iptables) configured to drop all packets with the Reset flag set. BitTorrent screams & Comcast can’t stop it. ;-) ”    .

    Please note that I have no knowledge on whether the above poster was making a valid statement or not. Ed Felten reported over at his website on Febraury “Freedom to Tinker” that “My point is that if this is the most authoritative citation Comcast can find, then their argument doesn’t look very solid. (And, indeed, it seems pretty uncontroversial to call these particular packets “forged”, given that they mislead the recipient about (1) which IP address sent the packet, and (2) why the packet was sent.)”.

    At this time we can’t say whether or not net neutrality legislation would be good or bad, but it seems to be speculative to assert that net neutrality legislation will destroy the internet. If one looks at what corporations are actually doing today to the supposed free flow of information on the internet the anecdotal evidence indicates that companies are, in some cases, obstructing the free flow of information in apparent violation of net neutrality principles.

    Rather than focusing on speculative legislation and predicting doom we should be demanding that corporation, such as Comcast who are actually hurting the internet now, clean-up their operations. If these corporations process their packets in a neutral manner then legislation would not be needed.

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