Network Neutrality
The freedom of the Internet is under attack. We cannot allow large corporations to erect tollbooths on the Internet Superhighway. The Internet is the most dynamic and innovative means of communication and commerce developed in the last fifty years. We need to ensure that the Internet’s very nature of open access remains protected.
Read Phil’s letter on Network Neutrality below:
May 23, 2006
Dear Senator Boxer,
I am writing to urge your continued support for strong provisions for Network Neutrality when the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology this week considers S.2686, the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006.
The Internet is the most dynamic and innovative means of communication and commerce developed in the last fifty years. We need to ensure that the Internet’s very nature of open access remains protected. However, the effective duopoly that controls broadband access for consumers, content providers, and applications developers––the largest telecommunications and cable corporations––threatens the very nature of the Internet. The business model they are promoting for the Internet would create a fast lane for those content and application providers able to pay for privileged access and a slow lane for small businesses, start-ups, and grassroots groups.
As Stanford Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig testified to your committee in February 2006, "By effectively auctioning off lanes of broadband service, this form of (access) tiering will restrict the opportunity of many to compete in providing new Internet service." (2/7/06)
Open access has been one of the key drivers of the Internet economy over the last ten years. It has been vital to the success of Silicon Valley and the creation of hundreds of thousands of California jobs. We cannot allow the next generation of entrepreneurs, artists, and civic groups to be slowed down by corporations erecting tollbooths on the Internet Superhighway. Continued innovation and access demand protection of Network Neutrality.
Sincerely,
Phil Angelides
California State Treasurer | 
