Summary
The speech by Ivan Seidenberg is another example of a technique often used to attack an initiative you don't like - say it is an assault on a widely respected and worthy goal instead of discussing the real issues and alternatives.
Analysis
Of course regulations about net neutrality can be developed and administered in such a way as to inhibit innovation, which the vast majority of us agree would be a very undesirable outcome. However this is neither the philosophy of the FCC nor its intent. Indeed its intent is exactly the opposite, namely among others such as protecting consumers' rights, to ensure that small companies are not unreasonably and unfairly inhibited by large companies from access to customers as a consequence of polices and practices for traffic management which a few of the latter alone control or monitor. If you believe that large companies always act in ways that benefit innovation and competition from any source, and in the best interests of customers, then you probably do not understand why the Founding Fathers were concerned about checks or balances in the U.S. system of government, and/or you think that the recent and ongoing behavior of supposedly competitive banks and other financial institutions should be left unchecked without any regulation, or that the harmful consequences of their actions were solely the result of government regulation. It is very legitimate for network operators to emphasize that future valuable network investments may be inhibited if conditions are imposed upon them such that they will not be able to reasonably foresee achieving an acceptable rate of return. However, it is disappointing when these operators fail to acknowledge that leaving it solely up to them to decide which are legitimate traffic management techniques and which are not, especially since they have been awarded franchises to exploit scarce public resources, is not acceptable. They have every right to advocate on their own behalf, but so do other interests which may conflict in some aspects or at least have an equal right to be accommodated as theirs. If the temptation or the reward for misbehavior is too great, such as the ability to eliminate competitors whose innovations may compete very effectively with yours, or your own career may receive a huge boost regardless of the damage you may cause to others, then whether you are a politician, a business executive, a bureaucrat or a priest , the risk of your succumbing is too large to ignore. The challenge is to find cures or countervailing protections that are not worse than the damage they are designed to prevent or mitigate. The fundamental question behind the net neutrality debate is how to ensure that network resources are administered in as efficient and fair a manner as possible when congestion occurs, taking account of the realities of physics and engineering and priorities such as those of emergency and first responder communications needs. Network operators have a major and critical role to play in this arena, but they are not the only stakeholders. Scare tactics about the suppression of innovation and the drying up of investment if any regulations are put into effect are not helpful in clarifying possible answers to this question, although the impact of regulations that are proposed upon both innovation and investment is among the factors that must be taken into account, as well as the costs and practicality of their enforcement.
