Needless regulation threatens democracy, USTelecom President Walt...
Needless regulation threatens democracy, USTelecom President Walter McCormick told a Wednesday Media Institute lunch. “The Internet today is driving tremendous diverse participation in the democratic process in the absence of government management,” he said. The same freedom of speech…
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isn’t present in China, which “manages the Internet,” he said, voicing fear that regulation could stifle innovation. Net management rules aren’t needed because “today, anybody who wants to invest and to offer Internet access is free to do so,” he said. Broadband investment is private sector- based, making it “unique from other significant technologies and infrastructure programs,” he said. In today’s dollars, taxpayers paid about $20 billion per year for 25 years to build the interstate highway, and $10 billion per year on the Apollo space program, he said. “But, last year alone, private companies invested more than $70 billion in North American communications infrastructure,” he said. McCormick’s speech was his first to the Media Institute. “Just a few years ago, the Media Institute probably would not have been interested in having the president of what was then the United States Telephone Association address media issues,” he said. But, in a converged world, “this is no longer the telephone industry, but the broadband industry.” - - AB