The Relationship Between Investment and Regulation

[Commentary] Recently, a few news sites ran stories about comments I made at an investor conference in response to a question about how the threat of Title II regulation might impact Verizon’s capital investment. As Verizon has indicated on several occasions over the past few weeks, discussions about potential regulatory changes related to network neutrality have been going on for a decade, and we don't change our short-term view on investment based on rumors of what might or might not happen. But as we and other observers of the net neutrality debate have made abundantly clear, experience in other countries shows that over-regulation decreases network investment. If the US ends up with permanent regulations inflicting Title II's 1930s-era rules on broadband Internet access, the same thing will happen in the US and investment in broadband networks will go down.

[Fran Shammo is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Verizon]