The American Consumer Institute assembled a panel of experts this morning on Capitol Hill to discuss the potential impact of net neutrality regulations on innovation. The event coincides with the latest study from ACI, which finds net neutrality will hurt private investment and impede consumer friendly innovations.
Of course, with innovation being such an important theme that rings throughout the broadband policy and net neutrality dialogue, Dr. Larry Darby, the moderator of the panel, noted that really we have no clear definition of the term itself, from the FCC or otherwise. He suggests the broad definition of innovation as “anything new that creates value for consumers,” which seemed fitting as many of the panelists echoed that consumers need to be a top focus in discussions going forward.
Jeff Campbell, Senior Director of Technology and Trade Policy for Cisco, spoke strongly on behalf of the consumer constituency. He believes that with the broadband dialogue shifting to net neutrality, which is really an economics and market structure discussion, we have lost focus on the consumers. He shared his experiences with potential customers who are hesitant to buy video transmission tools because they are afraid regulators are going to inhibit network investment and efficiency so then the application itself won’t work. And he points out that this is only one of many “edge” applications that benefits from the ongoing investments in broadband networks.
A new voice on the panel was Matthew Hussey, Legislative Assistant to Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). Hussey has an electrical engineering degree and extensive background in broadband and telecommunications. He believes that it’s important not to infringe on the fundamental rights of end users, but said that when you have voice and video, that you need to consider the deliverability of these things. “The complexities of the Internet are not rocket science, but they’re close,” he said noting that it takes significant coordination already among the private and public sector to make the Internet work.
NextGenWeb will be posting footage of the event in its entirety. And be sure to check out these interviews with some of the panelists. Economist, Dr. Hal Singer, talked about his recent op-ed that ran in The Hill and moderator Dr. Larry Darby discussed his recent study on broadband and job creation.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 12:05 pm
[...] Click Here for NextGen Web summary and vidoes [...]
March 4th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
[...] read more about what experts are saying about net neutrality and the ACI study, review this blog over at [...]