A New Path Forward For Net Neutrality

[Commentary] The changing of administrations offers a fresh chance for Washington to rethink network neutrality. While it’s easy to find faults with the prior regime, it is hard to articulate an alternative that would satisfy more than a narrow constituency. The replacement to Title II must balance the dual objectives of stimulating investment at the core and the edges of the Internet. With ironclad protections that ban new business models, investment at the core can be discouraged. Indeed, the imposition of Title II in early 2015 has been associated with ISP investment declines in recent studies by PPI and by USTelecom. Too little protection, including a naive reliance on antitrust enforcement, could threaten investment at the edge.

With this delicate balance in mind, an ideal regulatory regime for the Internet would embody three principles:
It would reject ex ante prohibitions of new business arrangements on the Internet, and instead embrace case-by-case review of allegations of discriminatory or exclusionary conduct;
It would reject asymmetric regulation of core and edge providers, and instead establish a forum for adjudicating complaints against any dominant platform provider, including Internet intermediaries and mobile operating systems; and
It would fill gaps in antitrust laws that leave upstart edge providers vulnerable.

[Hal Singer is a senior fellow at the George Washington University Institute of Public Policy]