Simington is No Fan of Changing Net Neutrality Rules

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There’s been much speculation in the news that since Joe Biden became President, the FCC would seek to reverse the Trump-era definition of net neutrality. New GOP FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington cautioned on Tuesday that doing that may have “seriously harmful unintended consequences.”

Net neutrality is the principle that an internet service provider (ISP) has to provide access to all sites, content and applications at the same speed, under the same conditions, without blocking or preferencing any content. Under former Chairman Ajit Pai, the FCC changed the laws to allow throttling or blocking in some instances, so long as the ISP’s intent was spelled out for consumers, Inside Towers reported.

In his first official speech as an FCC Commissioner, Simington spoke virtually to the Free State Foundation. The group promotes free-market, limited government principles applied to the telecom industry.

“Every corporate initiative has to compete for capital internally; if a project can’t make an adequate risk-adjusted return, it won’t get funded,” said Simington. He noted that “full telephone-style Title II net neutrality” might not kill the share prices of ISPs, “but it will make their infrastructure return profiles worse than they would be otherwise.” That, in turn, would chill infrastructure construction, maintenance, and modernization, according to the new Commissioner.

His biggest concern on this topic is, after a few years of chilling effects on infrastructure construction, the nation will find itself in an “entirely avoidable and artificial broadband infrastructure crisis.” The issue isn’t just about pressure on home phone lines, he said, but on the wired infrastructure needed for most wireless technologies.

“America’s hunger for wireless bandwidth has gone parabolic in the last 10 years. Wireless WiFi depends on predominantly wired connections. Wired infrastructure is more needed than ever, and major players in the wired infrastructure industry are now setting minimum bandwidth and latency standards that would have seemed absurdly high just a few years ago,” he said.

Chilling construction when demand is escalating may make free market solutions impossible, he cautions. 

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