Internet Regulation

[Commentary] Internet providers have long offered an open internet experience. Along with web companies like Facebook and Google, internet service providers support open internet rules preventing blocking, throttling or unfair discrimination of online traffic. There is little objection to these common-sense consumer protections, but widespread resistance to the fiction that the government needs to impose outdated public utility regulation to assure openness. What we object to is regulating dynamic internet networks in the same way we regulate failing infrastructure like electricity, water, roads and bridges. Public utility regulation has failed America, and it’s foolish to apply it to the internet, the one infrastructure bright spot that has fueled America’s global competitiveness. The Federal Communications Commission is right to work toward restoring light-touch regulation before the information superhighway becomes marked with potholes.

[Powell, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is president and chief executive of NCTA, the Internet and Television Association]