For Immediate Release: February 7, 2006

Contact: Susan Martin, Press Office
415-955-6120 or smartin@pacificresearch.org

SAN FRANCISCO – Today the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee will conduct hearings on the issue of “network neutrality” – the principle that holds that network owners should remain neutral with respect to the content they carry. “The issue at hand appears to be how best to ensure an open Internet, but the underlying agenda is something much different. In reality, it’s an attempt by content providers to use regulation to interfere with market forces,” warns Sonia Arrison, director of Technology Studies at the California-based Pacific Research Institute.

“Some content providers like Google and Yahoo! would like elected officials and the public to believe that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will shut off consumer access to certain web pages if the content providers decline to pay for premium services,” Arrison said. “In reality, the marketplace will discourage such harmful action and what’s at question is whether ISPs such as Verizon and AT&T can charge content providers more for faster Internet services. In a healthy economy, those decisions should be left to the marketplace, not government bureaucrats.” She added, “It would be foolish for the government to dictate the terms of business agreements among tech companies. That sort of unnecessary regulation only serves to harm consumers and innovation.”

Ms. Arrison provides the following points for members of the Senate Commerce Committee to consider as they listen to the testimony on Tuesday:

1. During its commercial lifespan, the Internet has remained largely unregulated. Bear in mind what the Internet has done for consumers and businesses in such a short period. The tremendous growth of economies, the rapid exchange of information, and flattening of our world have all been the result of the Internet and its growth. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
2. Market forces respond to consumer demand. If an Internet service or access provider like AT&T, Verizon or Qwest were to block their consumers’ access to certain popular web pages like Google or Yahoo!, it would not take long for their customers to become former customers, seeking out a new service provider that doesn’t block legal content. Consumers drive the marketplace.
3. It wasn’t long ago that we all relied on slow and pokey dial-up service. Consumer demand for faster and bigger services like DSL and broadband cable has brought us to where we are today, on the cusp of a rapid deployment of high-speed Internet service.
4. Companies, not the government, should be allowed to choose the business model that best serves consumers in a market economy.
5. History shows that a heavy regulatory regime, such as forced access mandates under the 1996 Telecom Act, was a disaster and put American consumers at a disadvantage by slowing the deployment of high-speed Internet services.

“We have only scratched the surface of what high speed communications can do. Let’s not allow government regulation to hinder the new technology we see today and the technology that has yet to be invented.”

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