Net neutrality was a “time suck” for a...
Net neutrality was a “time suck” for a lot of people in Washington, and “people are tired of it,” CEA President Gary Shapiro told reporters at a lunch event in Washington Monday. “No one’s complaining about net neutrality” these days,…
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he said. It might be different if there were any “bad players” who do something that changes the dynamic, he said. It was a big deal four or five years ago, but “I want those two years of my life back,” Shapiro said. “Nothing happened.” Companies on both sides of the issue “hated it because it was a waste of their time,” Shapiro said. “All of us have bigger issues now” to focus on, he said, though he acknowledged that net neutrality was “a lobbyist’s dream.” For the hired lobbyists, “this is the best thing in the world.” Regardless of what U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit court decides on the FCC’s Open Internet order, “I think the network neutrality debate goes away,” provided that there’s real competition in broadband, transparency to consumers about an ISP’s network management practices and an ability for consumers to leave their contract for a competing provider, Shapiro said. On spectrum efficiency, Shapiro thinks one of the “great accomplishments” of the Obama administration is that federal spectrum is on the table, and there’s more discussion about how federal and private users can use the spectrum together. Shapiro was pessimistic on the near-term ability to embed software in hardware to be able to look for the best of available spectrum. “I don’t think it’s close to being realized in terms of actual physics, yet,” he said. “But it’s possible -- theoretically.”