Net neutrality repeal remains the right call

IT has been a year since the Federal Communications Commission voted to roll back “net neutrality” regulations imposed by the Obama-era FCC in 2015. At the time of the repeal, some critics were borderline apocalyptic. Yet the most notable thing about the past year is that there’s been no notable negative impact from net neutrality repeal.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone who paid attention to the impact of net neutrality regulations or the flawed logic undergirding their adoption, but the positive results are still worth celebrating.

Under the Obama administration, internet service providers were declared to be public utilities subject to Title II of the federal Communications Act of 1934, which applied to the old monopoly phone system. That internet providers were in no way comparable to “Ma Bell” made no difference, and the burdensome regulations were in marked contrast to the light-regulation approach employed with bipartisan support for the prior two decades.

The fact that heavy regulation slows progress soon became hard to deny. Jonathan Spalter, an official with US Telecom, a trade association representing the broadband industry, noted broadband investment declined from 2014 to 2016.

After the Trump administration rolled back net neutrality regulations, Spalter wrote this summer that investment was again surging. More recently, internet speed-test company Ookla reveals that broadband download speeds rose 35.8 percent in 2018 and upload speeds increased 22 percent. The annual Visual Networking Index report, produced by Cisco, showed the U.S. continues to extend its global lead in internet usage.

Those results directly contradict predictions that net neutrality repeal would cause internet service providers to artificially constrain traffic in pursuit of profit.

A recent column in Wired conceded that “the internet isn’t drastically different than it was before.” But the author argued “broadband providers didn’t make any drastic new moves to block or cripple the delivery of content after the FCC’s order revoking its Obama-era net neutrality protections” only because of “the uncertain future of net neutrality protections.”

In other words, all positive trends are the result of net neutrality, even when net neutrality is no longer in effect. Yet the investment trends before and after net neutrality paint a different picture that suggests broadband providers behaved very differently in very different regulatory environments.

And, while net neutrality’s defenders don’t want to admit it, the regulations were designed largely to financially benefit internet megacompanies like Google, Facebook and Netflix over internet service providers like AT&T and Comcast (and consumers by extension). Net neutrality kept service prices artificially low for companies like Netflix by restricting higher rates for higher usage. But what’s good for Facebook isn’t necessarily good for consumers because corporate favoritism stifles innovation and the entry of new businesses into the online realm.

The repeal of net neutrality is already reaping benefit for consumers and none of the catastrophes predicted. Consumers should celebrate this success and demand continuance of light-regulation policies.