I have been continuing my reading on the theme of Network Neutrality and came across the Washington, DC based Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Policy Studies. A long name for a consultancy – but they probably needed the extra words in order to distinguish themselves from a concert hall in Arizona – I’ll call them Phoenix for short.
Phoenix released an interesting report on Network Neutrality with a somewhat counter-intuitive conclusion that merits repeating here.
Policymakers … need to balance concerns about discrimination with the danger that commoditizing the market for broadband Internet access services may lead to the monopoly provision of broadband Internet access service in many markets. The result would be lower broadband penetration rate rates, due to higher broadband prices, and would certainly impede the expansion and technological advancement of broadband networks
The arguments put forward by Phoenix are thoughtful and may be beyond the reach of many of the purveyors of hyperbolic rhetoric involved in this debate. But there appears to be some sound reasoning.
I have written before that I find much of the dialog from some of the participants to sound more like Marxist manifestos – “the internet belongs to the people” and “broadband monopolists”. Phoenix argues that forcing internet access providers to provide commoditized, vanilla service will serve as a disincentive to further market entry. And the net effect [excuse the pun] would be to exacerbate the limited availability of choice for consumers and content providers alike.