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06.18.10 Will Net Neutrality Cost Billions, And Lead To Job Loss?  By John Vinson'The sky is falling, the sky is falling', it's a tactic used by lobbyists and organizations whenever legislation being introduced might be bad for business. The keyword being 'might'. A study released by New York University Law School has proposed that the FCC's regulation of high-speed internet could cost $62 billion, and lead to 502,000 job losses. All of which would happen in a span of five years. Between 2010 and 2015, it's estimated that ISPs and other companies could cut investments by 10-30 percent. The worst case scenario at 30 percent, would end up costing $80 billion. This information coming from another report which was released yesterday. The report was devised by Charles Davidson, of NY Law School's Advanced communication Law& Policy institute. Bret Swanson, president of technology researcher co-wrote the report with Swanson. He had this to say about the findings, "A diminution of investment by the big infrastructure companies will reduce network capacity, new services, and investment by all the ecosystem companies." Today, the FCC is taking public comments regarding their proposal for having greater authority over ISPs. Their call for net neutrality would require services to allow all content online to be accessible. And would restrict the ISPs from blocking content to its users. There have been a wide array of concerns being noted by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Most are worried by the same findings listed in the reports. 'How will the proposed regulation affect jobs, and investment in broadband?' In April, a report released by Battle Group stated some worrisome job numbers in regards to the FCC's plans. By 2011, 14,217 jobs would be lost, and by 2015, that number would increase to 342,065. One goal of the FCC's plans is to simply lower the costs of broadband service. In a report, it was found that one-third of Americans can't afford broadband. The FCC's goals would be to change this scenario. However, there are arguments that regulation adopted by the FCC could lead ISPs to pass their costs onto customers. Which could lead to even less broadband adoption. It's always important to weigh various scenarios before something as important as net neutrality regulation is decided upon. However, it's also important to realize these are nothing more than estimates and hypotheses. The future is always open, and studies can only guess how ISPs will respond to net neutrality. But nothing is written in stone. No matter the outcome, this next month will certainly be interesting for ISPs and internet users in general. About the Author: John is a staff writer for WebProNews. |
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