Municipal Broadband Providers Back FCC’s Title II Reversal

A group of nonprofit municipal broadband providers -- all members of the American Cable Association -- support Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal to reverse the classification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II, and told him so in a letter dated May 11.

The letter drew a swift and lengthy thank you from the chairman. "By returning to light-touch regulation of broadband service, the Commission will give Muni ISPs incentives to invest in enhancing our networks and our deployment of innovative services at affordable prices while still ensuring consumers have unfettered access to the Internet," they wrote. They also said the FCC's "overly broad and vague" general conduct standard rule and other parts of the Open Internet order was based on the "unwarranted assumption" that they have the incentive or ability to be anticompetitive. They said the FCC, in adopting the 2015 Open Internet Order ignored the evidence that they don't block or throttle or engage in paid prioritization and put them in the "straight jacket" of utility regulation and the constant threat of action under the "unknown and unknowable" general conduct standard.