Lenard Points to European Union Network Management Language
Contact: Ashley Creel
(202) 828-4405
March 2, 2010 – TPI President Thomas Lenard urged the FCC not to reclassify broadband as a Title II service, as the agency reportedly is considering. Such a step, he wrote in comments submitted to the FCC, would “adversely affect innovation, investment, and consumer welfare, and would undermine the Commission’s goal of extending broadband penetration, particularly to underserved populations.” Lenard said his “earlier comments on the Open Internet NPRM apply even more strongly to the proposal to reclassify broadband as a Title II service.”
Lenard suggested that the Commission, which has been attempting to learn from the experience of other countries, should take a lesson from the network management language that the European Union recently adopted. This language is much more consistent with the light-handed policy the United States has followed up until now. Although the EU has been viewed as more regulatory than the United States, in this instance, according to Lenard, “Contrary to the direction of the NPRM, and contrary to Title II regulation, the EU’s approach does not rely on ex-ante rules to define practices that are permitted, but rather opts for an antitrust approach-i.e, a case-by-case, fact-specific approach based on a showing that a particular practice is harmful to competition.”,
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