FCC To Vote On Net Neutrality On December 21

GovTechGuy writes "The FCC just released its tentative agenda for the December 21st open meeting, where the Commission will vote on whether to adopt rules to preserve net neutrality. According to the agenda the FCC will consider 'adopting basic rules of the road to preserve the open Internet as a platform for innovation, investment, competition, and free expression.' House Republicans have already promised to oppose any solution put forth by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski."

Comments

Re:Not even there's to legislate.

[girlintraining]

They need to let a free market determine what should be supplied instead of protecting the monopoly.

Free markets led to the Great Depression. Unregulated capitalism leads to mass exploitation, poor working conditions, and boom/bust cycles. A completely unregulated market is a disaster waiting to happen. You need a hybrid system where critical economic infrastructure is protected from wild fluxuations in price, and where there is government oversight to prevent any corporation from monopolizing such infrastructure. We deregulated the financial sector and look what happened - subprime mortgages and a huge housing bubble which later crashed and caused a global recession. We didn't have sufficient oversight on offshore drilling and now the Gulf of Mexico is an ecological disaster.

Free (unregulated) markets don't work. And even if they did, this market was artificially created and now has a few corporations monopolizing the vast majority of the resources, the cost of entry is exorbinant, and there would be no return on the investment for years, possibly decades, once you factor in all the legal challenges and bartering with the thousands of municipalities which have to approve the contracts for new infrastructure to be built. You cannot, after creating such an unbalanced system, simply step back and say "Oops. Well, I'm outa here!"

A more sound economic approach would be taking away the municipalities rights to negotiate said contracts and mandating it be at the county, or state level. This would sharply reduce the number of middlemen at the bargaining table and greatly lower the cost of entry into the market. As well, the federal government could pass legislation mandating that service providers and carriers be separated, allowing anyone to purchase contracts to gain access to the so-called "last mile". And hopefully they won't screw it up like they did with xDSL this time.

Bottom line: Once the government has created a monopoly, either by action or inaction, it needs to step in and dismantle it so that the market returns to equilibrium. This does not happen on its own by simply returning it to an unregulated status, at least not in any reasonable timeframe.