May 5, 2008
Chairman John Dingell
House Energy and Commerce Committee
2328 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ranking Member Joe Barton
House Energy and Commerce Committee
2109 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Chairman Edward Markey
Subcommittee on Telecommunications
and the Internet
2108 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ranking Member Cliff Stearns
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
2370 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Re: Net Neutrality and the harm to the telecommunications industry
With the United States economy at a precarious position, it is urgent that Congress and the Administration support legislation that encourages investment and promotes job growth. This is particularly true for the telecommunications industry, which provides the vital links on which so many other industries depend.
That is why we have strong concerns about Net Neutrality regulation or any similar effort to regulate the Internet. Our companies and other telecom manufacturers are committing billions to research and develop advanced networking systems on which America’s economy increasingly relies. In the process, we are creating jobs in America and helping expand affordable broadband choices, particularly for rural and underserved citizens who do not share in the broadband revolution.
Mr. Chairman, we strongly agree with you that consumers deserve the right to access the legal content and applications of their choice. Fortunately, in our view, existing federal laws and the FCC’s “Four Principles” already provide strong protection against the kind of hypothetical abuses that you have rightly condemned.
However, some have urged Congress to go much further, by imposing new Net Neutrality regulation. We have several concerns about such regulation and its impact on the broadband Internet:
Net Neutrality will drive up consumer costs and slow down broadband deployment. As you know, America has fallen far behind other nations in broadband deployment and there is urgent need to deploy new, faster access choices. But Net Neutrality gives large online companies a legal loophole to escape paying the full amount of the bandwidth they use. That ultimately shifts huge national deployment costs onto consumers – raising the price of monthly access fees and slowing broadband adoption for those consumers least able to afford it.
Net Neutrality will hamper job growth. As many independent observers, including the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America, have noted, heavy-handed Net Neutrality regulations introduce legal and economic uncertainty into basic decisions about technology deployment. This inevitably delays job growth – a terrible option for the current difficult economic climate!
Net Neutrality could hamper efforts to combat online piracy, which would make entertainment companies less likely to offer their products online. As your former colleague and current chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Dan Glickman, stated this month:
Today, new tools are emerging that allow us to work with Internet Service Providers to prevent this illegal [copyright infringement]. And, new efforts are emerging in Washington to stop this essential progress. This effort is being called by its proponents “net neutrality.”
Like consumers, our manufacturing companies have a strong interest in seeing piracy issues resolved so that more content is made available online. More online content means better subscriber growth which in turn helps finance the nation’s broadband expansion.
In conclusion, we urge you to reconsider your support for Net Neutrality regulation, taking into account its serious drawbacks for job growth, broadband expansion and opportunity for those who still do not share in broadband’s promise.
Respectfully,
Actiontec Electronics, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA)
ADC Telecommunications, Inc. (Eden Prairie, MN)
Berry Test Sets, Inc. (Omaha, NE)
BTECH Inc. (Rockaway, NJ)
Camiant, Inc. (Marlborough, MA)
CBM of America, Inc. (Deerfield Beach, FL)
Condux International, Inc. (Mankato, MN)
Enhanced Telecommunications, Inc. (Norcross, GA)
FiberControl (Aberdeen, NJ)
Independent Technologies Inc. (Omaha, NE)
Metrotel Corp. (Omaha, NE)
MRV Communications, Inc. (Chatsworth, CA)
Neptco, Inc. (Pawtucket, RI)
Norland Products Inc. (Cranbury, NJ)
NorthStar Communications Group, Inc. (Birmingham, AL)
NSG America, Inc. (Somerset, NJ)
OFS Fitel, LLC (Norcross, GA)
Optical Zonu Inc. (Van Nuys, CA)
PECO II, Inc. (Galion, OH)
Preformed Line Products, Inc. (Mayfield Village, OH)
Prysmian Communications Cables and Systems USA, LLC (Lexington, SC)
Sheyenne Dakota, Inc. (West Fargo, ND)
SNC Manufacturing Company Inc. (Oshkosh, WI)
Sunrise Telecom, Inc. (San Jose, CA)
Suttle Apparatus Corporation (Hector, MN)
Telesync, Inc. (Norcross, GA)
Vermeer Manufacturing Company (Pella, IA)
CC: Members of U.S. House of Representatives
