Troy Wolverton

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is set to testify Aug 16 in front of a Senate oversight committee. He's certain to have to respond to questions while there about false statements he and some of his subordinates made to lawmakers about an incident in 2017 in which the agency's computer systems got overwhelmed during the comment period for its then-ongoing net-neutrality proceeding. Chairman Pai has tried to distance himself from those false statements, blaming them on the agency's former chief information officer, David Bray.

[Commentary]  The Republican Senate's passage May 16 of a measure that would reinstate the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules is a strong indication that support for those regulations is gaining steam. Net neutrality started as an obscure policy debate, but it has become a mainstream issue, and the more people know about it, the more they support it, regardless of their political identification.

A Q&A with Dane Jasper, co-founder of Sonic, a Santa-Rosa (CA) based Internet service provider.

Asked, "Why do you support net neutrality and the FCC’s just discarded privacy rules?"

Jasper said, "I think it’s good business to take care of your customers. Your customers will be loyal to you when you take good care of them. That might be good pricing. That might be good customer service. Or it’s that you don’t sell them out to advertisers or that you don’t engage in practices that would violate their privacy for whatever small commercial gain that you might have. Also, I think the ecosystem of the internet is something that needs to be preserved. As I’ve watched the internet blossom from the early start of my career more than 20 years ago, I am stunned by the wonderful ideas and amazing services that people have put together. And they’re the reason that every day, consumers are signing up for Sonic. It’s important to preserve neutrality so we can continue to see great new ideas come to fore, even if those ideas use a ton of bandwidth, or even if those ideas require really low latency."

Q FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has criticized the net neutrality and privacy rules as being examples of “heavy-handed regulation” and regulatory “overreach.” He’s argued that cutting such regulations will increase competition, lower prices and get higher speeds to broadband consumers, because it will encourage innovation on the network side and will free things up so that you can get investment on the network side. What do you say to those arguments?

A One of the things Pai has said is if you regulate broadband like it’s a monopoly, you end up with a monopoly. That’s not entirely unfair. If there is a vibrant, competitive environment with many, many choices, then I think that bad behaviors will be held in check, and innovation in business model and infrastructure and in the network won’t be a bad thing.

In today’s environment, though, where consumers have, in many cases, only one choice at greater than 25 megabits, what we see is rent-seeking behaviors and abuses of the consumer, whether it’s bad customer service or expensive pricing or network neutrality concerns.

Q Has Sonic’s ability to innovate been affected by the FCC’s decision under Obama to re-regulate broadband?

A No. And we certainly supported former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in his efforts to protect network neutrality. And that didn’t hamper our investment or our concerns about our future ability to monetize the networks that we build.

[Commentary] If Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s network neutrality proposal was shocking, his justifications for it ranged from the misleading to the flat-out false. Chairman Pai argues, for example, that Tom Wheeler’s net neutrality rules represented a radical departure for the FCC, moving it from a “light-touch” regulatory regime that had allowed the internet to thrive over the last 20 years to an outdated and “heavy-handed” one that’s put the internet under government control. There’s so much wrong with this argument that’s hard to know where to start.

But that was just one of Pai’s misleading justifications. Relying on industry-backed studies, he also argued that investment in broadband has declined over the last two years thanks to the net neutrality rules. But according to a study authored by Free Press, in the two-year period following the passage of the new rules, investment by the broadband providers that are public companies is actually up compared with the two-year period immediately before they were passed.

Network neutrality is under threat, but you can do something to defend it. Activists working on the issue have numerous suggestions. But they all boil down to this: Make your voice heard. Hard as it may be to believe sometimes, policymakers do actually listen to the public. “The short answer is to raise hell,” said Craig Aaron, CEO of Free Press. That’s how net neutrality was saved before. Millions of everyday citizens made their voices heard, and the FCC responded. So how exactly can you make your voice heard?

Here’s what the advocates recommend.

• Call or send a snail mail letter to your senators and congressional representative.
• Call and leave a message for Chairman Pai.
• Sign a petition.
• Sign up for alerts.
• Join and donate to an advocacy group.
• Encourage others to get involved.
• Be prepared to send in comments.

[Commentary] Silicon Valley is rightly focused on President Donald Trump’s immigration order. But it should be gearing up for another fight that’s vital to both tech companies and their customers. Network neutrality is in the crosshairs again. Ajit Pai, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has made it clear that he’s no fan. He’s already halted a net neutrality-related investigation launched by hi predecessor and recently reaffirmed his belief that, one way or another, the “days are numbered” for the Open Internet rules. Advocates think internet users — who flooded the FCC with comments in support of net neutrality — played the key part in getting the rules in place and will play a crucial role in defending them. But they are hopeful the tech industry will have their backs. The tech companies “have a responsibility, in my opinion, to not only stand up for their users, in terms of their policy positions, but to fight for them,” said Evan Greer, a campaign director at Fight for the Future.