FTC Gets It Right on Net Neutrality
WASHINGTON, DC - The Federal Trade Commission issued its long awaited report on Net Neutrality today. The lengthy report comes to a few simple, but critical, conclusions:
- There is increasing competition in the broadband access market and there is no significant evidence of market failure or consumer harm.
- Existing antitrust law and federal agency authority is sufficient to handle any abuses of market power in the broadband market.
- Disclosure of terms of service and pricing information is an important feature for consumers to react to any potential market failure.
In other words, there is no reason to rush to impose burdensome Net Neutrality regulations in the broadband market. If there is one thing that we have learned from 70+ years of communications regulation, it is that regulation has significant costs and unintended consequences. The FTC clearly recognizes that government should react to actual problems, not hypothetical ones.
Posted by Jeff Campbell at 04:53PM PST
Milan Jul 17, 2007
I’d say in 1997 we had a broadband market that was tight and uni-lateral. Today, it seems like we have plenty of competition and fair prices…