Cisco, CommScope, Qualcomm and several other members of the Telecommunications Industry Association embrace call for FCC to reduce broadband regulation.

However, they did call for the dropping of “net neutrality.”

“As you consider whether to return the classification of broadband internet access to a lightly regulated information service or to maintain the utility-style Title II classification, we urge you to consider this fundamental truth – reducing regulations and other barriers that raise costs and slow infrastructure deployment drastically improves the business case for deploying next-generation wireline and wireless broadband infrastructure,” the companies said in a letter sent to the FCC.

The Title II classification decision under previous FCC leadership made the Internet a “utility-style” regulation and has been challenged in federal court.

“This [FCC] proceeding is not a debate about whether to have an open internet; it is a question of what regulatory regime can achieve internet openness while also maintaining the incentives for investment that have made America’s broadband networks the envy of the world,” the TIA members said in the letter.

“Thus, reaffirming that broadband internet access is properly classified as an information service should not be viewed as an effort to undo net neutrality. Rather, it is an action to reduce regulation and lower costs to incentivize investment.”

In a seperate statement, the TIA pointed out that “TIA’s member companies – the fabricators and innovators who have made the network of networks’ rise possible – have been adversely affected by the internet ecosystem-wide shock accompanying the Commission’s decision to turn decades of bipartisan consensus on its head,”

Companies signing the letter were:

  • ADTRAN, Inc.
  • Alticast
  • ARRIS
  • Blonder Tongue
  • Cisco Systems, Inc.
  • CommScope Network Solutions
  • Corning Incorporated
  • Ericsson Inc.
  • Infinera
  • Juniper Networks, Inc.
  • KGPCo
  • Nokia Inc.
  • Panasonic
  • Qualcomm
  • Walker and Associates

Read more at:

http://www.tiaonline.org/