In response to a
Business Week article written by House Democrat Rick Boucher on the fairness of legislation banning a two-lane Internet, Tom Tauke, a Verizon Communications executive vice
president, warns that "stricter regulation of the Internet is unnecessary and could discourage broadband investment." He says Congress' plans to impose a new set of requirements on America's
broadband networks is "an attempt to fix a hypothetical problem that does not exist," and could also stop any future investment by network operators in even faster technology in the future.
Far from limiting consumer access to certain content, Tauke says Verizon has no plans to limit or slow down the transfer of existing information on its networks, nor would it offer any company unfair
advantage over its competitors. It's funny that Tauke complains his company is fighting Internet regulation, when legislators could actually argue the same thing. At the current rate of mergers and
acquisitions in the cable and telecom industries, the Internet will one day effectively be regulated by a few giant companies, who will have control over consumer access to high-bandwidth content.
There's more than a slight conflict of interest at play here, especially considering the bold moves cable and telecom companies are now making in broadband and mobile video, largely believed to be the
next major growth area of media.
Read the whole story at Business Week »