The three companies, MovieFlix, Doctors TeleHealth Network and KinderStart, have taken a position directly opposite that of the likes of Google and Yahoo, who have urged that the government adopt network neutrality provisions.
MovieFlix.com is a movie-download service, Doctors TeleHealth Network provides real-time data and video communications between physicians and their patients, and KinderStart owns a web search-engine dedicated to information about parenting and child care.
In their formal comment submitted to the FCC, the companies asserted that “there is growing evidence that [network neutrality regulation] could slow the deployment of the super-fast local broadband networks that are crucial to continued growth of our industry.”
“Evidence of this risk comes from the cable, cellular and telephone carriers who have begun to deploy these extraordinarily expensive networks, from Wall Street analysts, from telecom researchers, and from scores of companies that produce the hardware and software products necessary to make broadband networks work,” the companies said in the joint statement. “If investment in local broadband networks were to slow as a result of net neutrality regulation, the Internet content industry would be hurt by forcing it to rely on existing and less desirable network technologies.”
In a press release announcing their submission of the formal comment on network neutrality, the three companies also maintained that they are “not alone among Internet content companies opposing network neutrality regulation.”
According to the press release, in the formal statement submitted to the FCC, the companies “cite by name a number of other Internet content providers whose public statements indicate that they likewise oppose such regulation because they believe that such regulations run the risk of harming the Internet industry as well as consumers and future broadband network development.”