FCC chair Kevin Martin chimed in with his take on the Internet network neutrality issue:
“We need to make sure we have a regulatory environment (in which network operators) can invest in the network and can recoup their costs,”
The question for Mr. Martin is: why must we throw out the baby with the bathwater? The neutral network has done wonders for spawning innovative use and competition between all sorts of web companies. Taking away network neutrality will essentially lock in the benefit to entities which can afford the increased access speeds.
Martin is already advocating for some kind of “regulatory environment,” so why must it be non-neutral? If driving network investment is the concern, certainly some kind of system to subsidize expansion could serve the same purpose while still maintaining neutrality. While this would be outside the FCC’s scope, Congress has the incredible chance for maintaining and even enhancing our great commons which is the Internet.
Perhaps Martin can find this point somewhere in his somewhat recent (2/10/06) comment on net video competition:
Given all of the benefits that additional competition offers for consumers,
we will continue to closely monitor the progress of all new entrants and
seek to eliminate any unreasonable barriers to entry and to address other
issues that we find impede such progress. [emphasis mine]