In an interview on Newsmax TV, Steve Beaman, chairman of the Society to Advance Financial Education, didn't pull any punches in explaining his opposition to the new rules on Internet neutrality.

The Federal Communications Commission decided Thursday to treat the Internet like a public utility and to forbid Internet service providers from charging content providers extra to speed transmission of that content.

Beaman cited two objections on Newsmax TV's "MidPoint" show. "First of all, in the most open administration in our history, they hid a 350-page regulatory document from the public while they passed this," he said. "So this is another example of we'll wait to see what's in the law after they pass it."

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Second, "there are going to be severe, unintended consequences from this, and I get a little bit concerned for the future of the net because of this," Beaman said.

"Right now you and I have a pretty good Skype connection, and that's because I pay extra for higher bandwidth. Well, this net neutrality regulation will eliminate the ability of the companies to charge me for that extra bandwidth, so guess what, it won't be there."

And what of the government's guarantee of copious bandwidth for all in the land?

"That's what they said when they regulated airlines, that's what they said when they regulated the phone companies," Beaman said.

"This will affect innovation on the Internet. It's not a good thing, even though it looks like a populist, good thing, and that's the danger of it."

To be sure, Internet capabilities will continue to expand, Beaman said.

"That's not really a question." Transmission speed is the issue, he said. "As for the speed at which that technology will become available, this is going to slow it down because there will be less incentive, frankly, to increase the size of the pipelines."

And isn't the Internet already slow?

"We're using a lot of old cable as opposed to the new fiber optics," making things slower for the United States than some other countries, Beaman said.

"When a new country comes online it's actually easier to give them faster Internet because they're all brand new fiber optic cable," he explained. "We are replenishing our fiber optics in this country, and that's got us to that point. We've got to speed it up, and we will again."

But for now, net neutrality regulation "is just going to slow it down," Beaman said. "And it's going to make it more difficult in the near term for shows like this [MidPoint] to take place, because people won't be able to get that additional bandwidth."

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