Network Neutrality and Industry Structure

In its attempt to establish rules that preserve the "openness" of the Internet, the federal government has recently considered implementing various regulatory constraints on the behavior of broadband service providers in order to ensure that consumers can freely access third-party applications over broadband networks without the fear that the network provider will deteriorate transmission to third-party services in favor of their own. Adopting these proposed "Network Neutrality" requirements, however, could exacerbate the very highly-concentrated industry structure by increasing industry concentration, and plausibly even rendering monopoly. Such forced commoditization of broadband access will leave consumers unambiguously worse off.