In general, I think that business regulations should be kept to a minimum — used only when necessary (like protecting the commons/environment, keeping the playing field level, etc.). One of the big regulatory issues that is coming up with regards to SBC/AT&T’s planned acquisition of Bell South is “net neutrality”:1.

Here’s an example from the wireless world (the world of oligopolies) that I think is illustrative of what will eventually happen in the broadband market without regulations. It was recently announced that Verizon wireless will soon be offering a service in conjunction with Tivo were you can program your Tivo directly from your mobile phone. The key quote from the WSJ’s “article”:2 on this announcement was…

bq.. Verizon Wireless executives said the service, to begin this summer, is expected to cost less than $5 a month, in addition to normal cellphone-service charges and TiVo subscriber fees, which are $12.95 a month.

p. The fact that they are even charging *_anything_* for something that you can do freely over the net on Tivo’s site highlights the greed (and cluelessness) of quasi-monopolistic companies (yeah, they probably created some neat “BREW”:3 application, but big deal) .

Unfortunately, I don’t believe that there is really a competitive marketplace for net access in the US. That is, you can choose to get your net on from one of two monopolies… phone or cable (obviously, this is even less choice than in the mobile world). That’s it, and that is not a marketplace. So until we have a competitive broadband marketplace, bring on the regulations.

[3(Wikipedia on BREW)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREW

[2(WSJ article on Tivo on your Verizon mobile)]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114169501674290993-search.html?KEYWORDS=tivo&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month

[1(Wikipedia on the concept)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality