New America

The buzz over “5G,” the next generation of wireless technology, has been heating up, but most of the hype fails to account for the fact that a robust, innovative, and affordable 5G wireless ecosystem for all Americans will not result from empowering and allocating the best public airwaves to the four nationwide mobile carriers alone.

Congressional and state actions to preserve strong net neutrality protections have bipartisan support—while the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal had bipartisan opposition. Put another way, net neutrality is, and has always been, a bipartisan issue, and more Republicans, in particular, should follow suit. Here’s why:

Listen to the ongoing conversations on net neutrality, and you’ll notice that the United States, like other liberal-democratic countries, believes that, in the lexicon of policymakers, a free, open, interoperable, secure, and resilient internet can be a torchbearer for an open society—and democracy more broadly.