Remarks of FCC Commissioner O'Rielly Before American Action Forum

The subject matter of the upcoming panel - “Shining the Spotlight on the FCC: How Rules Impact Consumers and Industries” – is fitting given all of the activity at the Federal Communications Commission over the last two plus years. By reinterpreting outdated law and precedent in creative (and destructive) ways, there is little doubt that the Commission’s leadership has attempted to assert its prominence above that of the private sector. I will briefly discuss two current examples: the move to expand the Lifeline program without instituting any real cost control, and the regulatory tunnel vision that allowed Netflix to downgrade its services to certain consumers while crying wolf about the potential for Internet service providers to do the same thing and demanding an overhaul of the entire communications landscape to stop them.

I have long argued that Lifeline should have a budget, and I believe that the program can be reformed to include broadband while staying within reasonable fiscal limits. However, the Commission majority appears determined to barrel ahead with a fig-leaf mechanism that doesn’t resemble any reasonable definition of the word “budget.” Given the [recent] developments, I want to share with you my thoughts on the revelation that Netflix has been actively downgrading the video quality of its service delivered over certain wireless networks. Netflix has attempted to paint a picture of altruism whereby it virtuously sought to save these consumers from bumping up against or exceeding their data caps. There is no way to sugarcoat it: the news is deeply disturbing and justly generates calls for government – and maybe even Congressional – investigation.