The net neutrality rollback is already stimulating better broadband deployment across America, a new FCC report states.
Despite nearly two dozen lawsuits from U.S. state attorneys general, four oppositional Executive Orders from state governors, and one pro-net neutrality bill awaiting signature in California, the FCC says its net neutrality rollback is already having a positive impact on broadband deployment in America.
The FCC, led by chairman Ajit Pai, ficially repealed net neutrality in December 2017.
In the FCC-issued ‘2018 Broadband Deployment Report,’ the net neutrality rollback is credited for lifting serious restrictions on ISPs. Those restrictions were harming millions Americans, according to the report.
Strangely, the report seems largely dedicated to praising the FCC — or ‘the agency’ — and that praise is mostly delivered in the third person.
In the assessment, issued last week, the FCC fered high praise to its controversial decision to eliminate net neutrality, and cited quick results.
“Steps taken last year have restored progress by removing barriers to infrastructure investment, promoting competition, and restoring the longstanding bipartisan light-touch regulatory framework for broadband that had been reversed by the Title II Order,” the agency noted in a press release sent to the members the media.
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The ‘Title II Order’ refers to the 2015 net neutrality decree that prohibited ISPs from enacting ‘fast lanes’ or otherwise throttling internet traffic. That Order was demonized throughout the report, and characterized as a yoke resulting in sub-standing internet for huge portions the population.
“The progress broadband deployment slowed dramatically in the wake the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 Title II Order that regulated broadband Internet access service as a utility, according to the agency’s 2018 Broadband Deployment Report,” the FCC report stated, while continuing to refer to itself in the third person.
The glowing report declined to mention massive pushback against the FCC’s rollback.
That includes a bill flat-out banning paid prioritization and throttling in California. It also leaves out a growing number Executive Orders requiring ISPs to adhere to neutrality provisions. Just recently, five states accounting for more than 20% the country’s population enacted measures protecting net neutrality.
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Just this morning, Hawaii joined the growing list US states issuing Executive Orders requiring ISPs to follow net neutrality provisions. Other states are likely to follow suit.
Here’s the FCC’s press release about its report.
