Gigi Sohn Quotations

This merger makes a net neutrality requirement all the more urgent.

The subcommittee missed an opportunity to maintain the free and open Internet that we have come to value over the years. The amendment ... would have set fair and reasonable boundaries on the conduct of telephone and cable companies which now will have control over the Internet, while guaranteeing the rights of consumers.

Permitting broadband video providers to avoid negotiating thousands of individual franchise agreements will bring more competition to markets faster, resulting in greater consumer choice and lower prices.

The fact that it's a bipartisan bill is tremendously important.

It's not a recipe for piracy. It's a recipe for competition, which is what Apple really doesn't like.

We are disappointed but not surprised that the committee voted to turn over the future of the Internet to the telephone and cable industry. Neither of those two sectors contributed to the creative development of the Internet, and neither is known for innovation. They are known for their desire to control what goes over their networks.

We were very pleased to see that Chairman Barton recognized the need for preserving the model of an open broadband network by codifying the duty of broadband providers to allow subscribers to have access to the services, equipment and applications they need without interference from network providers.

One of the parts we really don't like is the net neutrality provision because it's extraordinarily weak. It does suffer from the same problem as the House bill to the extent that there's nothing about discrimination in there.

This bill needs significant improvement before it will preserve the open Internet that consumers and service providers expect and deserve.

Think of the cable system. You as a consumer have no control over what channels the cable operator picks. They pick certain channels based on where they have a financial interest. Time Warner favors the programming in which it has financial interest. We're concerned that the cable model will essentially be grafted onto the InterNet.