CASE Files Comments in Support of Restoring Internet Freedom Order

April 1, 2020

Re:      Comments of CASE, Restoring Internet Freedom, WC Docket No. 17-108; Bridging the Digital Divide for Low-Income Consumers, WC Docket No. 17-287; Lifeline and Link Up Reform and Modernization, WC Docket No. 11-42

Dear Ms. Dortch:

            Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE), as the nation’s leading non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to promoting consumer interests through free-market principles, has a strong interest in the issues raised by the recent Public Notice in the proceedings noted above.  Consumers have always been best served when the government gets out of the way of free enterprise and allows vigorous competition in the marketplace to drive innovation, reduce prices, enhance quality, and increase consumer welfare.  The Commission correctly recognized this in its Restoring Internet Freedom Order—and returned to an information service classification for broadband precisely because “the presence of competitive pressures in itself protects the openness of the Internet” and is in fact “the best way to protect consumers” while promoting investment and innovation.  Restoring Internet Freedom, Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order, 33 FCC Rcd 311 ¶ 123 (2017).  That observation is just as true with respect to the three issues raised in the Public Notice: public safety, broadband access for low-income consumers (the subject of the Commission’s Lifeline program), and pole attachments.

            Public safety entities—and the consumers who rely on them—are benefitting today from the Commission’s market-driven, light-touch approach to broadband.  This time-tested policy of minimal regulatory intervention has been the cornerstone of the remarkable growth and unprecedented success of the Internet.  It has driven greater investment in broadband networks, faster speeds, and lower megabit-per-second prices, and has expanded connectivity throughout the country.  All Internet users reap the benefits of this approach—not just ordinary consumers, but also government users like police and fire departments.  Today, these public safety users are more connected than ever before; they share and receive information about emergencies over broadband links, coordinate activities in real time across high-speed data circuits, and stay in touch with the community over the web and social media.  The advanced broadband networks that make this connectivity possible are the product of enormous capital expenditures by broadband providers, which the Commission’s free-market approach to broadband helps foster.  And there is every reason to expect that public safety users will continue to benefit from such policies now that the Commission has reinstated them through the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.

            Public safety issues also illustrate how regulatory overreach in this context can affirmatively harm the public interest.  As an example, police and fire departments undoubtedly would benefit from services that enable some prioritization of public safety communications over other, less critical communications.  But the vague standards adopted by the 2015 Title II Order—the high watermark of regulatory intrusion into the Internet—left everyone uncertain over whether prioritization capabilities could even be offered to these users.  That mother-may-I regulatory regime almost certainly deprived police and fire departments of beneficial services.  There can be no doubt that the Commission’s repeal of those rules in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order has helped rather than hurt public safety users.

            Broadband access for low-income consumers is another area where the Restoring Internet Freedom Order advances the public interest.  Our country will never fully bridge the digital divide through invasive regulatory policies that raise costs and discourage innovative solutions for delivering value to consumers, like zero-rated offerings and related services.  Instead, the best way to ensure that all consumers, including low-income consumers, have access to broadband services at low prices is through free-market policies that lay the groundwork for vigorous competition and remove artificial barriers to infrastructure investment.  The Commission’s return to a light-touch approach in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order is doing exactly that.  And by fostering the availability of affordable services through competition and innovation, the Restoring Internet Freedom Order will directly further the goals of the Commission’s Lifeline program.  While the Commission may consider other reforms aimed at improving its Lifeline program, the interests of low-income consumers are advanced most immediately through the free-market, pro-competitive policies already adopted in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.

            On the issue of pole attachments, there is no evidence that the Restoring Internet Freedom Order has prevented broadband providers from accessing poles or otherwise slowed broadband deployment.  To the contrary, broadband deployment has accelerated since the Commission restored its information service classification for broadband and repealed common carrier regulation of Internet service providers.  And consumers are benefitting enormously from this uptick in deployment.  Thus, even if it were true that a small number of broadband-only service providers now can no longer take advantage of certain regulatory entitlements in negotiations with pole owners, it is impossible to justify re-imposing the full weight of Title II on the broadband marketplace on that basis alone.

            In short, the Restoring Internet Freedom Order was the right call for consumers, both as a general matter and with regard to the specific issues identified in the Public Notice.  The Commission should be confident in adopting a further order confirming that conclusion.

Respectfully submitted,

Matthew Kandrach
President, Consumer Action for a Strong Economy