Avoiding half measures on Net Neutrality

AVOIDING HALF MEASURES ON NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Ron Sege, Tropos]
[Ciommentary] In his recent op-ed, Randolph J. May of the Progress & Freedom Foundation argued that Congress could help achieve "Net neutrality" by adopting the Digital Age Communications Act. Under that bill, network operators would be prohibited from engaging in unfair competitive practices, like blocking certain Internet content, that present a threat of abuse of significant market power. I agree that Net neutrality is an important principle. But rather than focusing solely on a new complex and unwieldy regulatory structure to assess whether companies are obeying a particular set of rules, Congress should now establish measures that aggressively encourage additional so-called facilities-based competition in the delivery of broadband services. In an environment in which business models, technologies and citizen requirements are changing faster than any one service provider can embrace, our legislative environment should encourage rapid deployment of a full complement of approaches to keeping our citizens well connected, well served and safe. Rather than focusing solely on specific legislative "fixes" to ensure neutrality of an individual broadband "pipe," let's rethink our current telecom policies and choose to encourage a wide range of competitors that build a wide choice of broadband pipes to the consumer. As it considers a fundamental rewrite of our telecommunications laws, Congress can best advance the interests of consumers by aggressively encouraging a wide range of competitors and a true balance between old line carriers and new technologies, between licensed and unlicensed spectrum. With vigorous competition, we'll achieve Net neutrality for everyone.
http://news.com.com/2010-1028-6053415.html