FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr

Chairman Pai: "The report maintains the same benchmark speed for fixed broadband service previously adopted by the Commission, which we earlier proposed to retain: 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload. The report also concludes that mobile broadband service is not a full substitute for fixed service. Instead, it notes there are differences between the two technologies, including clear variations in consumer preferences and demands.

When the Federal Communications Commission ended the Obama Administration’s failed, two-year experiment with these heavy-handed regulations back in 2017, Title II advocates guaranteed that doing so would literally break the Internet.  They claimed that broadband prices would spike, that you would be charged for each website you visited, and that the Internet itself would slow down. None of this was true. Broadband speeds increased, prices decreased, competition intensified, and years of record-breaking infrastructure builds brought millions across the digital divide.

The Federal Communications Commission will vote on April 25 to further expand the government’s power over the Internet. It will do so by implementing President Biden’s call for the FCC to impose utility-style “net neutrality” regulations on the Internet through Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. This decision follows the five-member FCC’s partisan, 3-2 vote last October to seek public comment on this action.

Arpan Sura has joined Commissioner Brendan Carr's office as Legal Advisor. Sura previously served as Senior Counsel to the Chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, where he focused on spectrum policy, emerging technologies, and infrastructure matters. Before joining the FCC, Sura spent more than a decade representing clients in the telecommunications and technology sectors, most recently as Counsel in the Communications, Internet, and Media practice at Hogan Lovells. 

In October 2023, the Biden Administration called on the Federal Communications Commission to implement provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The FCC will vote on Nov 15 on new rules; I oppose the plan for several reasons:

The Federal Communications Commission will begin implementing President Biden’s plan for increasing government control of the Internet. There will be lots of talk about “net neutrality” and virtually none about the core issue before the agency: namely, whether the FCC should claim for itself the freewheeling power to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the Internet functions—from the services that consumers can access to the prices that can be charged. The entire debate over whether Title II regulations are necessary or justified was settled years ago.

The Biden Administration’s broadband policies are failing. The costs for building out Internet infrastructure in this country have skyrocketed thanks to inflationary policies under their watch. The Federal Communications Commission is sitting on spectrum that could connect millions of Americans to new, high-speed services. The Administration has needlessly blocked and delayed new broadband infrastructure builds. Fiber and cell site components are laying fallow in warehouses across the country due to the government’s failure to remove regulatory red tape. Permitting reform has gone nowhere.

Europe’s utility-style regulations, which have nothing at all to do with net neutrality, would be a serious mistake. The proof can be seen in the data. Just compare networks in the US to those in Europe:

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr announced that Lauren Garry has joined his office as Legal Advisor. Lauren joins Commissioner Carr’s office from the Wireline Competition Bureau, Telecommunications Access Policy Division, where she focused on the High-Cost Program, including the Connect America Fund and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Garry also served as the Designated Federal Officer for the Precision Agriculture Connectivity Task Force.

On April 18, 2023, Federal Communications Commission leadership wrote to Congressional leadership to restore the Commission's spectrum action authority. The FCC's auction authority expired for the first time in the program’s 30-year history on March 9, 2023.