FCC move to reinstate heavy-handed Net Neutrality regulations risks health of telecommunications infrastructure

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced her intention to re-instate so-called Net Neutrality rules that were repealed in 2018. The FCC issued the Restoring Internet Freedom order in early 2018, which declared that Internet service providers would not be regulated like telephone companies.

Director of CEI’s Center for Technology and Innovation Jessica Melugin said:

“The resurrection of net neutrality regulations is completely unnecessary and risks the health of telecommunications infrastructure. By every metric, U.S. networks are thriving under the repeal of net neutrality. Reinstating Title II classification risks harmful government meddling, depressed investment in expanding and improving networks, and a degraded experience for consumers. Rather than hamstringing telecommunications progress, the Federal Communications Commission would be wise instead to spend its energy on getting spectrum into productive use and make sure the tens of billions in federal broadband subsidies are being spent wisely.”   

Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies Wayne Crews said:

“Despite Rosenworcel’s call for ‘national’ standards for net neutrality and ‘openness,’ it is unreasonable to create a universal regulatory (and rent-seeking) superstructure to deal with occasional access disputes or pricing problems that are themselves rooted in FCC’s decades old monopoly regulatory legacy, including the granting of exclusive franchises. Some critics of neutrality mean well but they are wrong to call the public utility model ‘obsolete’; it was never appropriate for old-school phone service and electricity, and remains inappropriate for broadband.”

More from CEI:

• Biden’s FCC Nominees Mean Trouble on Net Neutrality, Broadband Policies
• Net Neutrality Regulations Are Harmful, Unnecessary, and Unconstitutional