New FCC chairman takes swing at Internet neutrality
President Trump’s new Federal Communications Commission chairman is adamant on jettisoning Obama administration Net-neutrality regulations, especially as the industry moves toward next-generation 5G networks.
“The torch of the FCC has been passed to a new generation,” Ajit Pai declared in remarks he made during the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.
Calling for a “light-touch approach to regulation,” Pai pledged to pursue a broadband policy that is “practical, not ideological,” adding that the government will “embrace what works” and “dispense with what doesn’t.”
What he clearly thinks doesn’t work are the Net-neutrality regulations that aim to level the playing field for Internet traffic. Under the regulations, for example, Internet content providers cannot pay the companies that supply broadband so that their content gets preferential treatment through higher-speed Internet lanes.
Content companies such as Netflix and Google were in favor of the FCC using its power to protect an open Internet. Companies such as AT&T and Comcast that offered the bandwidth balked at the regulation.
Last month, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., also pressed Pai to protect Net neutrality, passed in 2015 by the FCC, then chaired by Tom Wheeler, a Democrat.
That appears unlikely, based on the comments made at MWC by Pai, named FCC chairman last month by President Trump. He likened the Obama policies to regulations crafted for a 1930s telecom monopoly, while praising what he says was a moderate bipartisan approach pursued by the Clinton administration.
“The policies of the Clinton administration, Bush administration and the first term of the Obama administration have produced a free and open Internet and strong incentives for private investment and broadband infrastructure,” Pai said. “Two years later it is evident that the FCC made a mistake (which) injected tremendous uncertainty into the broadband market, and uncertainty is the enemy of growth.”