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May 2017

FCC's Clyburn: Only Silence Will Kill Net Neutrality

Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn told a crowd of Title II fans that network neutrality is dead unless they make themselves heard, no matter what the vote on the upcoming Title II rollback is. Commissioner Clyburn is currently the lone Democrat under the new Republican Administration, so she cannot stop the reversal of Title II but could delay it if she does not show up for the May 18 meeting and denies the chairman the necessary quorum. That does not sound likely since she said she did not know what the FCC would be launching this week, but she would vote "in the opposite way" from the Republicans. She said net neutrality is dead if "we are silent," no matter how the vote goes. Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch asked whether public comments matter and pointed to identical pro-Title II comments that had been filed. Commissioner Clyburn said that the comments will not be officially part of the record until the FCC votes the rulemaking and said commenters should keep weighing in. She said that was the only way to defend net neutrality. Commissioner Clyburn said the FCC has the technical tools to deal with the duplicates or get rid of the comments where "there is a little something going on."

Net neutrality 2.0: Perspectives on FCC regulation of internet service providers

[Commentary] Yet before the partisan noise over network neutrality rises to the level of screeching decibels, it might be useful to provide some much-needed context. During the past two years, as the original Title II Order proceeding moved ahead, I wrote a series of pieces for Brookings’s TechTank that touch on issues that have as much relevance now as they did when first released. Published collectively here for the first time, I hope they will be considered in real time by policy advocates of all stripes, along with the FCC itself, as positions are formulated and final new internet service rules are adopted that will have long-term consequences.

As Sinclair-Tribune megamerger looms, groups ask FCC to block return of UHF discount

With the prospect of the Sinclair-Tribune megamerger on the horizon, groups are urging the Federal Communications Commission to block the return of the UHF discount in order to slow broadcast industry consolidation. In a joint filing to the FCC, Free Press, United Church of Christ, Prometheus Radio Project, Media Mobilizing Project, Media Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition and Common Cause requested a stay of the reinstatement of the UHF discount, which would allow broadcasters to once again count UHF stations as 50 percent toward the national broadcast ownership cap. The groups argued that the technical logic for the UHF discount is no longer valid.

“It is arbitrary and capricious to adopt a provision that lacks any independent technical or policy support, and which contravenes the statutory limit on national television ownership,” the groups wrote in the filing. The groups also argued that news of the reinstatement is effectively triggering a new wave of broadcast industry mergers and acquisitions and allowing deals like Sinclair’s $3.9 billion bid for Tribune to move forward. The groups also said that a stay will benefit the public interest by maintaining more diversity in broadcasting. “Maintaining a diversity of voices goes to the heart of the Commission’s mission to promote competition and diversity, and all Americans will benefit from the grant of a stay,” the groups wrote.

Net Neutrality, Reclassification and Investment: A Further Analysis

Central to the debate over the Federal Communications Commission's reclassification of broadband as a "common carrier" telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 is the effect on broadband network investment. In April 2017, the Phoenix Center released its first statistical analysis of the investment question and found that between 2011 and 2015, telecommunications investment differed from expectations by between 20 percent and 30 percent, or about $30 to $40 billion annually. That is, over the interval 2011 to 2015, another $150-$200 billion in additional investment would have been made "but for" Title II reclassification. In this paper I expand my statistical analysis, restricting the analysis to investments in property and equipment (thereby excluding investment in intellectual property), altering the control group, and evaluating other modifications to the statistical model. My prior results are confirmed in this updated analysis, again finding "that investment in total fixed assets would have been about $30 billion more annually" and "[i]nvestment in equipment and property would have been $20 billion more 'but for' reclassification."

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