AT&T’s Move to Disconnect DSL Customers Shows Harm of Deregulatory Agenda

Public Knowledge, Communications Workers of America, National Digital Inclusion Alliance, Next Century Cities, Common Cause, and Greenlining Institute filed an ex parte warning the Federal Communications Commission that its deregulatory agenda leaves consumers vulnerable to losing broadband service during the pandemic. AT&T recently told the FCC that it is discontinuing DSL broadband service. The news helps demonstrate the flawed reasoning in the FCC’s draft net neutrality Remand Order. The Order would affirm the 2017 decision to reclassify broadband as a Title I information service on the grounds that whatever harms this might do to public safety, or how it might impact access for rural and poor Americans, are “outweighed” by the benefits of deregulation. But as AT&T’s action shows, deregulating broadband actually reduces the availability of broadband to the poorest and most rural Americans. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai should withdraw the Order and restore the FCC’s oversight authority over broadband.