The Internet's 51 New Regulators

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler went ahead with his proposal to give his agency the power to decide whether the terms and prices of broadband Internet services are "reasonable." That's bad enough as political discretion, but according to dissenting Commissioner Ajit Pai, regulators from every state will also be able to get into the act.

For two decades Congress has wisely refused to give the FCC the same power over the Internet that it holds over the telephone system. And for two decades the Internet has enabled a gusher of creativity that was unimaginable over a century of regulated telephony. Wheeler's brainstorm to change all this is simply to pretend the Internet is a phone network. Think of this as ObamaCare for the Web: enact an unworkable system and then get busy issuing waivers to prevent the new system from operating as designed. The one sure result if telecom regulation is applied to the Internet is that fewer new networks will be built, and fewer start-ups will even try. The FCC will now await public comment on its two regulatory alternatives before it writes a final rule.

As wireless Internet entrepreneur Brett Glass tweeted after the FCC vote: "May need to try selling my business before anything like this can be enacted."