Below the Belt: A Review of Free Press and the Internet Association’s Investment Claims

One of the central arguments in the Net Neutrality debate is over whether the Federal Communications Commission’s controversial 2015 decision to reclassify broadband Internet access as a common carrier “telecommunications” service had a negative effect on network investment in 2016. The evidence is mounting that it did. Free Press believes the consistency in the data does not carry over to Broadband Service Providers’ (“BSPs”) advocacy, however. Comparing statements made by BSPs to the FCC and to Wall Street, Free Press contends that these apparent inconsistencies imply that the companies are lying to the Commission and to the public about the effect of Title II on investment. The Internet Association—a trade group of companies favoring aggressive Internet regulation—recently borrowed from Free Press’s report to produce an online video summarizing the Free Press narrative.

Ford subjects Free Press and the Internet Association’s anecdotal evidence to review, and finds that it is Free Press and the Internet Association—and not BSPs—who are not telling the whole story. Free Press and the Internet Association have presented a false narrative to both the FCC and the public at large, and that their evidence actually points to the harms of reclassification on investment incentives.