ITIF Cheers FCC’s Return to Light-Touch Broadband Regulation

WASHINGTON—The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a leading science and tech policy think tank, today applauded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for moving to return broadband Internet access service to a lightly regulated “information service” classification. Following news reports that the FCC is set to finalize its rulemaking on the matter, ITIF issued the following statement from Senior Telecom Analyst Doug Brake:

The misguided 2015 rules and the outmoded common carrier legal authority they relied on were poorly suited to a dynamic, evolving communciations platform like the Internet. The Internet undeniably thrived for over a decade under light-touch regulation, and ITIF congratulates the commission for returning to that path.

We wish the FCC would have gone further to achieve bipartisan compromise on this unfortunately politicized issue, but simply removing broadband Internet from Title II classification is laudable, given the lack of net neutrality harms to date, the virtually null chance of disruptions to business as usual, and the limited options afforded under the statute. Hopefully Congress can now take up the issue and end this unnecessarily acrimonious debate once and for all.