Free Press: Phone and Cable Companies Present a False Choice

Free Press filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to protect consumers and promote competition. Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, made the following statement:

"Years of lobbying and litigation by industry have undermined the intent of Congress to make the FCC the cop on the beat in communications markets. The Commission cannot and should not be prevented from protecting consumers and promoting competition. The phone and cable industries present a false choice between the current environment of extreme uncertainty and total government control of the Internet. Our position has always been that there are options in the middle -- clear places where the FCC can act to protect consumers and promote competition, without the doomsday scenarios portrayed by the ISPs. To the extent that incumbents now bemoan the regulatory uncertainty they face, it's their own fault for trying to eviscerate Title I so significantly that the Commission has been forced to revisit these questions."