WISPA Disappointed by FCC Vote to Impose Stifling Utility Rules on Broadband Providers

The following statement may be attributed to Louis Peraertz, VP of Policy, WISPA – The Association for Broadband Without Boundaries:

Washington, DC, April 25, 2024 – WISPA is disappointed by today’s action to impose utility regulation on the broadband industry.  Although the Commission has indicated it will forbear from imposing a number of its core powers contemplated within the Order, make no bones about it:  the adopted Order is in-apt for today’s pro-consumer, hyper-innovative broadband networks, and will have costly, cascading and pernicious effects on broadband access, especially for small rural ISPs and their customers.  In a practical sense, ISPs will have to ask the FCC permission to do most anything to avoid agency liability, creating enormous uncertainty which will retard innovation and needed investment.

Although the draft Title II Order points to the COVID-19 pandemic experience as evidence why broadband is a vital service and needs protection, it does not fairly consider all of the relevant evidence from that experience.  It says nothing about the notable efforts of the commercial wireless industry to step up and ensure their customers had the reliable and resilient high speed broadband service needed to meet that demand.  The draft Order also did not fairly consider the burdens that these Title II rules would place on the broadband industry and, in particular, small broadband providers.

As WISPA pointed out throughout this proceeding, small broadband providers do not have the market power or the incentive to engage in the conduct these rules are meant to prohibit — blocking of lawful content, throttling, and paid prioritization of content from affiliates.  The vast majority of our members – approximately 65.5 percent – reported serving 2,000 or fewer residential customers.  Only a handful of our members serve 100,000 or more subscribers and none serve 250,000 or more subscribers.  More than 60 percent of our members have five or fewer full-time employees and more than 84 percent have 25 or fewer full-time employees.  That said, we are proud that altogether, our ISP members provide reliable broadband service to millions of American households.  By doing so, these small broadband providers are providing the only broadband service available or providing much needed competition to keep broadband service affordable.

Moreover, WISPA and its members have long supported an open internet rooted in the four “Internet freedoms” adopted by the Commission in 2005.  Since then, we have supported the “light touch” regulatory regime that existed before the effective date of the 2015 Title II Order.   That support was illustrated in a letter that 70 WISPs submitted to the Commission, in May 2017, in which they pledged fidelity to “freedom of consumers’ access to lawful content, freedom of consumers to use non-harmful applications of their choice, freedom of consumers to attach their personal devices to broadband networks, and freedom of consumers to obtain service plan information.”  Those commitments remain in place.  Consequently, imposing these burdensome rules on small providers was completely unnecessary.

The Internet exploded precisely because of what government did not do – that is, it did not heavily regulate it like plain-old-telephone-service.  The Order turns back decades of market success achieved through this “light-touch regulation,” effecting a massive sea change which Congress could not have intended or authorized in policy or statute.

Once the final Order is published, WISPA will carefully review it and determine what legal recourse we should take in order to ensure that our members can continue to provide their local communities with reliable high speed broadband service.

Celebrating 20 Years of WISPA – Broadband Without Boundaries
WISPA’s approximately 1000 members provide fixed broadband connectivity and include equipment suppliers, support services, and other industry partners and stakeholders. Our members provide broadband access to millions of residential and business customers in rural, urban, and Tribal areas across America.

Contact
Mike Wendy
WISPA
202-763-5257
mwendy@wispa.org