Today, the Federal Communications Commission held a hearing on broadband management at Harvard Law School. The following statement may be attributed to Mike McCurry and Christopher Wolf, co-chairs of the Hands Off the Internet coalition (HandsOff.org):

“For the typical Net user, today’s hearing is not just an academic debate about government policy. If the FCC yields to those pushing for government regulation over the Internet, the result will be higher broadband access costs, which fewer Americans will be able to afford. Our focus should be on new and faster access choices, not policies that tie this progress down in red tape and bureaucracy.”

The Hands Off the Internet coalition is a Washington, DC-based coalition of companies and nonprofit organizations that believes the Internet has flourished because government has not tried to regulate it. Members include Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, 3M, the National Association of Manufacturers, FiberControl, and Cinergy Communications. Nonprofit members include Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Conservative Union and the National Black Chamber of Commerce.