What’s the Gift for a One-Year Lobbying Anniversary?

The inaptly named Save the Internet coalition is celebrating its first anniversary today, and Wayne is on the case:

“We all can probably agree that we want tomorrow’s Internet at the speed of light, not at the speed of government,” said CEI Director of Technology Policy Wayne Crews. “But a better starting point is to appreciate that we have no broadband today: cable and DSL are a trickle compared to the Niagara needed tomorrow. Freezing today’s Internet into a regulated public utility via net neutrality’s inevitable price-and-entry regulation would be the worst possible move, slowing investment and innovation, meaning fewer new companies, networking deals, products and technologies.”

“Activists fear that not regulating network owners will leave the Internet at the mercy of a few large companies when, in fact, the activists’ backers are themselves large companies. Moreover, often the problem is not that there’s no competition, but that it’s illegal or cumbersome thanks to franchise, zoning, and environmental barriers, or compartmentalization of our great network industries (electricity, water, rail, sewer, communications) into regulatory silos. Network liberalization should be the emphasis of both sides: Instead, the paradoxical result is that regulators and activists think we need “neutrality” on what, in reality, is sub-par infrastructure.

Full statement here.