Chris Morran

Speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai blamed network neutrality for causing uncertainty in the broadband market and declared that “uncertainty is the enemy of growth.” However, many of the nation’s largest broadband providers have grown in the last two years.

Since Feb. 26, 2015, the day that the FCC voted to approve the neutrality rules, AT&T’s share price has increased by more than 20 percent, Comcast’s is up 26 percent. Verizon’s stock price is at the same level as it was, though it has fluctuated as much as 15 percent in either direction since then. Charter’s share price is up 40 percent, after the FCC allowed it to acquire Time Warner Cable and Bright House in 2016. The only major broadband provider whose stock has fallen dramatically in the last two years is CenturyLink, whose share price has sunk around 50 percent in that time.

In its most recent earnings report, Comcast — the nation’s largest broadband provider — noted that in 2016 year over year “capital expenditures increased 7.5% to $9.1 billion.” The lion’s share ($7.6 billion) of that $9.6 billion went to the company’s Cable Communications division, “primarily reflecting increased investment in line extensions, a higher level of investment in scalable infrastructure to increase network capacity and continued spending on customer premise equipment related to the deployment of the X1 platform and wireless gateways.” In case you were wondering, that $7.6 billion was an increase of 7.9% over the previous year.

Likewise, AT&T said it its most recent earnings that it spent $22.9 billion on capital investment in 2016, up from $20.7 billion in 2015.

[Commentary] With every word he writes, recently installed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler shows he has little interest or belief in network neutrality as most consumers understand it.

In another flimsy attempt at defending his position on “fast lanes” -- i.e., allowing Internet service providers to charge more to content companies seeking priority access to end-users – Chairman Wheeler contends that consumers should do what Verizon and other telecoms want because well, it could take a while to do it correctly.

Once again, Chairman Wheeler completely glosses over the fact that the only reason a federal appeals court gutted the previous neutrality rules was because a shortsighted FCC never thought to categorize Internet service providers as vital communications infrastructure.

As numerous supporters of a true net neutrality have repeatedly pointed out, reclassifying ISPs would likely mean the FCC could reinstate the old rules (and possibly more stringent ones) and survive a legal challenge. He once again points to this so-called “blueprint” that the appeals court laid out in its opinion as a way to “create Open Internet rules that would stick,” without regard to whether or not those rules result in an Internet that is open.