Podcast: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai calls for a ‘lighter touch’ to internet regulation

A Q&A with federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on network neutrality.

“We don’t want to impose monopoly-style regulation developed for Ma Bell in the 1930s, to apply to every single company in the United States that is building out a broadband network,” Chairman Pai said. “We would much rather have the free-market ‘light touch’ approach that the Clinton administration adopted. We’re not saying the choice is either Title II or the Wild West, it’s light-touch regulation, the middle ground, that we’re looking to return to.” He continued, “We have to remember that not all four million were in support of the [net neutrality] rules. Some 1.6 to 1.7 million were opposed. But this is not a numerical threshold. What we have to do at the agency is figure out the right regulatory framework to preserve a free and open internet and the incentive to invest in networks.”