Gigi Sohn Broadband Quotations

Should Congress grant video providers the extraordinary regulatory relief represented by national broadband video franchises -- turning nearly 40 years of local control of video services on its head -- Congress must also ensure net neutrality. Such a policy would ensure that those same companies make their broadband networks available to all applications, content and service providers on a nondiscriminatory basis.

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.

Basically this merger will mean even less competition for broadband Internet, and frankly that makes a Net neutrality requirement even more imperative. If there was real competition in the provision of high-speed Internet access we might not be having this conversation, but now the world has gotten even smaller than it was before.

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.