Subject: [NEXTEL-1] CEI: Court Verdict Threatens Future of Internet

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:59:21 -0400

CEI: Court Verdict Threatens Future of Internet

Oct 13, 2003

A controversial federal court decision last week has thrown the commercial
future of the Internet into question, opening the telecommunications
industry to the possibility of increased regulation and price controls for
cable modem service, contends the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive
Enterprise Institute.

The court's ruling reclassifies Internet service provided by cable companies
as a "telecommunications service," a more highly regulated category than an
"information service," the category the FCC had previously placed it in.

"The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is bad news
for those wanting more predictable rules and fewer lawyers determining the
fate of an entire industry," CEI Counsel Braden Cox, told Communications
Today. "The decision opens the floodgate to further judicial interpretation
of regulatory actions by any one of 94 federal judicial districts at the
expense of certainty."

The Ninth Circuit decision also raises a fundamental policy question of
whether judicial review or agency rulings are a more appropriate way to
regulate industry. Government regulations are not very good at accommodating
new technologies in ways that benefit consumers to begin with, but when even
the advantage of their predictability is removed, complying with the rules
while providing the service customers desire most becomes next to
impossible, Cox said.

"Hopefully, Congress will view this case as yet another indication that it
needs to revisit the 1996 Telecommunications Act and craft a new set of
regulations fit for the 21st Century," says Cox. "The possibility of this
service laboring under the same heavy-handed controls that currently hold
back other telecom services is too troubling to ignore."

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