Title II And Utility-Style Regulation Is Not How We Should Protect Open Internet

[Commentary] Not only are Title II reclassification advocates wrong to think that utility-style regulation is the only way to ban discrimination, but they also completely fail to understand the collateral damage that would be caused by flipping our current model to Title II rules.

Utility-style regulations in Europe, for instance, have led to slower Internet speeds, more anemic competition and deployment of high-speed networks, and less affordability. That’s exactly why EU regulators are scrambling to abandon the public utility approach. We are doing the American public a disservice if we insist that the only path to protect the open Internet is a Title II regulatory approach. If we go down that dead-end road and turn the Internet into a regulated public utility, we will ignore the lessons learned a decade ago in the process that led to the “Pulver Order” and choke off a new wave of innovation and investment that will support the next generation of entrepreneurs.

[Jeff Pulver is the founder of Vonage, Free World Dialup, the VON Coalition, Vivox and Zula]