Regulations: Verizon started letting people sign up for its new wireless 5G Home high-speed internet service this week. It doesn't just mark the start of the next internet revolution. It obliterates the case for net-neutrality regulations.
 
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On Tuesday, Verizon said that people can start signing up now for its 5G Home, with service starting on Oct. 1 in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento, Calif. Speeds will, the company says, be as fast as 1 Gbps, which is about as fast as Verizon's FIOS gets. It's more than 10 times faster than what the average home gets today.
What's different about 5G Home is that it doesn't require digging trenches or laying cable to hit those blistering speeds. Instead, it uses new wireless transmission technology. That means Verizon can start offering fiber optic speeds anywhere in the country, simply by installing mini cell towers in a given area.

5G Race Is On

Other carriers are racing to get their own 5G networks deployed. AT&T says it will launch its first mobile 5G network by the end of this year. T-Mobile aims for a nationwide 5G network in less than two years, with speeds up to 4 Gbps.
All of it means more competition for high-speed internet at home.
And that's why the case for "net neutrality" just collapsed — not that there ever was a good case for it to begin with.
Internet giants pushing the courts to reimpose "net neutrality" regulations that the FCC just killed rest their entire argument on the claim that home broadband today is a monopoly.

In their August filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Internet Association — which includes Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and others — claimed that "market forces cannot effectively discipline ISP conduct because customers cannot readily change providers if they disagree with their ISP's (Internet Service Provider's) practices."
They went on to say that "early 50% of Americans are served by only one or zero wireline broadband service providers meeting the current FCC speed benchmark of 25 megabits-per-second download."

No Competition?

As a result, the filing argues, "it is irrational to think that transparency regarding ISP practices alone can protect net neutrality for the millions of consumers who cannot switch providers; they must either accept their ISPs' disclosed traffic management practices or go without internet access."
So, they said, the only way to prevent ISPs from doing things like throttling certain services, or charging more for access to certain sites, is for the government regulators to stop such practices.
But this argument hinges on the idea that ISPs aren't competitive. If they are, then market competition, not government regulation, will solve the problem.
That's how it works in the mobile world, where wireless companies are constantly trying to woo or keep customers with better offerings and lower prices.

Cable Wires Obsolete?

With 5G, the cost of bringing high-speed internet to everyone, nationwide, plunges. There's no doubt that traditional cable companies will start building out their own networks, for fear of losing all their customers to faster, cheaper 5G services.
In fact, the use of wires to connect homes to the internet could very well become as antiquated as those old dial-up modems.
The idea that internet needed federal "net neutrality" rules to stay free and open was never strong to begin with. The internet grew and thrived without them for all but two years.
"Net neutrality" advocates paint lots of horror stories about life in an unregulated internet. But they've never been able to produce any concrete examples of consumer harm.
Quite the contrary. One of the offerings that zealots said was a clear violation of "net neutrality" rules was an unlimited video streaming plan offered by T-Mobile.

Like a House of Cards

With the advent of 5G home and wireless services, the "net neutrality" argument falls down like a house of cards. If one internet provider does something stupid, like block certain websites, consumers will simply switch providers.
But that's always the way it is with government regulations designed to "protect" consumers. They're always several steps behind the blistering pace of free market innovations.
At best, they're quickly outstripped by free-market innovations. At worst, they inhibit innovations and make consumers' lives worse off.
It was the FCC itself — the agency Google and company say must act as the guardian of internet innovation — that delayed TV for years, tried to strangle cable TV, stymied phone companies from offering competing services, and delayed cell phones by a decade. All in the name of consumer protection.
Why innovators like Google and Facebook can't understand any of this is a complete mystery.