Gigi Sohn Providers 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.

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.

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

It is vitally important that the Internet remains open and accessible to consumers and to service providers and remains the source of innovation it has been over the past two decades.