Ajit Pai's FCC Can't Stop Lying About Net Neutrality

Ajit Pai's FCC Can't Stop Lying About Net Neutrality

As the FCC rushed to repeal net neutrality, one common justification by Ajit Pai and the agency was that the FCC's 2015 rules "utterly devastated" telecom sector investment. Of course publicly available SEC filings, earnings reports, and the statements of numerous industry executives have proven that to be false, but it hasn't stopped the agency (and major ISPs) from repeating that claim anyway. Numerous things can impact sector investment (from DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades to wireless ambitions), but net neutrality simply wasn't among them.

Case in point: Pai assistant and FCC staffer Matthew Berry tried to claim on Twitter that Charter Communications is " is investing more in its broadband network and workforce" thanks to the agency's attack on net neutrality.

Unfortunately for Berry, that claim (once again) isn't remotely true.

Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica took a closer look at Charter's investment plans and notes that the company actually raised its capital investment in 2017 while the net neutrality rules were in place ($7.5 billion in 2016 to $8.7 billion last year). And the company told investors this week it will soon report a "meaningful decline" in spending on building and upgrading broadband networks, and that 2018 CAPEX will be "as a percentage of revenue to be a bit lower than 2017."

And while people have tried to tie this ebb and flow to arguably modest net neutrality rules, that's a bogus argument, Brodkin is quick to note.

"This doesn't mean that Charter boosted investment because of the presence of net neutrality rules or that it is now lowering investment because of the repeal," Brodkin observes. " That would be an overly simplistic conclusion, when the reality is that ISPs make investment decisions based on a variety of factors such as changes in customer demand and the peaks and valleys of technology upgrade cycles ."

"But the opposite, equally simplistic conclusion--that broadband investment falls because of net neutrality rules and rises when net neutrality rules are repealed--is exactly what FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and his staff have repeatedly claimed despite what the evidence shows," he continues. "This argument is what drove the FCC's public defense of its decision to eliminate popular rules that prevent ISPs from blocking, throttling, or speeding up Internet traffic in exchange for payment."

Granted Pai's office isn't exactly known for being honest. Pai's FCC has repeatedly and falsely claimed that net neutrality severely harmed broadband investment, something easily disproven by publicly available SEC filings, earnings reports, and statements from countless industry executives. The same agency has also tried to claim that net neutrality somehow emboldens dictators in Iran and North Korea, despite doing nothing of the sort.

This is also the same FCC currently blocking a law enforcement investigation into identity theft and fraud during the FCC's public open comment period. It's also the same FCC that directs reporters to telecom lobbying data when pressed for facts to support their justifications for the repeal.

The Pai-run agency clearly believes the repetition of falsehoods will somehow help justify what was the least popular policy decision in the modern broadband era. Angry voters and the looming lawsuits headed the agency's direction may have something to say about that.