For Broadband, Competition Is Best

The groups backing the No Gatekeepers coalition must not be getting their Internet service from America Online [“Telecom Reins Belong in Hands of Local Citizens,” Digital Nation, June 21]. If they were, they might realize their position benefits the marketing interests of the industry’s foremost “gatekeeper.” More than any other Internet service provider, America Online makes it difficult for users to get beyond the company’s intranet “portal” and onto the actual Web.

Unfortunately, the groups that comprise No Gatekeepers have allowed themselves to become pawns in the ongoing effort of the monopoly local telephone service providers to avoid opening their networks to competitors, as they were ordered to do under the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

NetAction agrees with Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard that the best way to ensure that consumers have a choice of affordable broadband Internet access services is to promote competition and limit regulation.

If we let local and state regulators impose restrictions on deployment of the broadband infrastructure, we can expect the same regulatory, legal and legislative logjam that has delayed the introduction of competition in local phone service.

Gary Chapman and the groups that formed No Gatekeepers are simply wrong. The only “gatekeepers” we ought to be concerned about are the local phone monopolies.

AUDRIE KRAUSE

Executive Director, NetAction

https://www.netaction.org