The self-appointed consumer advocates don’t like it, but the Federal Communications Commission has correctly ruled that a year from now Internet service providers can no longer squat on telephone companies’ property.
In a 4-0 decision, the FCC ruled that digital subscriber lines are an information service and therefore subject to far less regulation than traditional phone service. No longer will the federal government require phone companies to lease their high-speed lines at regulated (price-controlled, discounted) rates to competing Internet service providers. (Phone companies also offer high-speed Internet connections; the decision should allow them to compete harder with cable companies that have not been forced to share their lines.)
This decision follows – and was prompted by – a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that said cable companies do not have to open their lines to Internet service providers. It’s good news if this decision indicates the FCC is going to stop fighting the courts and finally recognize that the Internet is a data network, or an information service, and not a conventional telecommunications system that falls under archaic regulation.
The consumer advocates – a misnamed bunch if there ever was one – are moaning that the FCC is heading the wrong way with what looks like a deregulation agenda. To that we ask: What’s wrong with respecting property rights?
Government regulation is a killer of competition, the executioner of innovation. When competition and innovation are restrained, consumers get hurt with higher prices and fewer options. But when they are allowed to thrive in a free and open market, consumers benefit from lower prices and more options.
So why do we call these people “consumer advocates” when their crazy policies would almost always force consumers to pay higher prices and have fewer choices?
Wouldn’t a better name for them be “consumer madvocates”?