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 The text of the comment I submitted to the FCC on the proposed Open Internet Rule and the subject of Net Neutrality:

“It is manifestly evident that, in function, the Internet is a public utility. As such, the stakeholders of this utility are the members of the general public and it is their interests the Commission must hold paramount. The interests of the private businesses who provide this utility for profit should be of little concern to the Commission. These businesses, primarily cable television companies, entered this market without the premonition of its growth potential; it is more the case that providing broadband service was mostly a function of their desire to poach market share from the telephone companies with which they competed after the deregulation of the 1996 Act removed the walls between the traditional telecoms and the cable TV industry. Previous to then, access to the Internet was via dial-up modem and DSL.

“The serendipitous growth of Internet use was mostly unforeseen and unregulated. The Commission now proposes to allow de facto regulation by the very same private interests who are motivated to extract the maximum revenue from the service with no incentive to improve or innovate upon that service. They are the beneficiaries of a windfall. It is the Commission’s obligation that this redound to the public and not the rent-seekers.The central principle of a free market should be to allow unfettered access to the Internet and for these companies to compete on service.”

CFS Filing Receipt - Confirmation number: 201464347570