It’s been widely reported that Chairman Edward Markey and Rep. Charles “Chip” Pickering have introduced a bill which includes a requirement that the Federal Communications Commission study how broadband providers are coping with the exploding growth of data sent over their networks. The FCC would also have to hold eight conferences to assess broadband service competition.

We have a great respect for Chairman Markey and we’re certainly pleased that today’s bill doesn’t try to revive what Congress decisively rejected two years ago — government Internet regulation. Regarding the study specifically, there’s no question that a reasoned examination of the facts will demonstrate the folly of net neutrality. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently examined the issues that the Markey bill proposes be studied. Neither study found evidence of any problem warranting regulation. Both agencies have also clearly affirmed their ability to monitor and deal with any problems that may arise.

On its face we agree with the concept; Hands Off the Internet has always supported efforts to gather public opinion. However, we are concerned that an effort to seek public input is intended to be a stalking horse for federal Internet regulation. The continued push by special interests to regulate Internet neutrality undercuts the best hope Net users have for faster, more affordable broadband. Network innovation and deployment free from federal regulation are the keys to meet consumers’ rapidly growing bandwidth demands. More importantly efforts behind Net Neutrality regulations will create uncertainty for investors and internet service providers that must build the infrastructure to meet consumer demands.

Consumers cannot afford the cost or delays created by Net Neutrality; now is the time to clear the way for investment and innovation. Vigorous competition, not net neutrality bills and arbitrary decisions by lawyers and bureaucrats, is the best way to guarantee that open, affordable Internet.

Yesterday, Rep. Ed Markey held the latest of his series of hearings into the future of the Internet, titled “Digital Future of the United States.” The first one was a mild disappointment, with World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee as the lone guest. The latest hearing was something else altogether, with representatives from YouTube, TiVo, Disney and HDNet — and the subject of “net neutrality” was on everyone’s minds.

The hearing was a big deal in the blogosphere. Because the theme for yesterday’s hearing was “The Future of Video,” Markey held up a digital video camera to capture the first-ever YouTube video taken from the perspective of a House committee chairman:

Things like this are a lot of fun, and another reminder of how far the Internet has come in the past decade. However, the rapid growth of YouTube and other video-sharing services should put us in mind of expanding broadband capacity.

Yesterday, in the video below, Cuban lamented the fight over “net neutrality” issue, which he rightly sees as a distraction from the truly important goal — bringing the United States’s broadband speeds up to the level of our trading partners in Europe and along the Pacific Rim.

As he said yesterday:

This issue goes away completely if bandwidth constraints go away.

Unlike Mr. Cuban, we don’t think that the need for QoS necessarily will go away – guaranteed packet delivery will always have its place – but we agree the “net neutrality” cause could disappear tomorrow and the world would be the better for it, so long as there was much greater broadband capacity and greater competition for providing that broadband for the consumer.

With 100 million views per day and counting, YouTube takes up much more of the limited capacity than AOL chat rooms ever did — and this is especially an issue that Mark Cuban raised over a year ago, in a post at his Blog Maverick site, “Hey Baby Bells & Cable, We need multiple tiers of service.”

And now with TV-like online video services like Joost coming online, it makes even more sense to make last-mile fiber a priority. We’re not at the moment of crisis yet, but considering the ever-growing demands on our nation’s broadband networks, we should be investing now.

That includes making the broadband market more attractive — which also means putting hypothetical worries about “neutrality” aside and building the capacity that will prove it irrelevant.