OPINION:
The Federal Communications Commission has announced it will reimpose Obama-era “net neutrality” rules, granting itself sweeping powers to regulate the internet by setting prices and policing traffic. Internet regulation failed under President Barack Obama’s FCC. So why does President Biden’s FCC want to bring it back?
The FCC adopted the legally dubious Open Internet Order in 2015 after a pressure campaign from left-wing activists, the White House, and late-night talk show hosts. Activists online warned that internet service providers would throttle internet service for their customers unless they were regulated like a public utility. In the face of apocalyptic predictions, the Trump FCC repealed the policy in 2018 under then-Chairman Ajit Pai. The Senate Democrats’ Twitter account famously claimed we would get the internet “One. Word. At. A. Time.”
Instead, since the order was repealed in 2018, the opposite has happened: The average speed of broadband internet service is up, and prices are down. According to the speed-tester Ookla, the median speed for fixed broadband increased by nearly 190%, from under 50 megabits per second to almost 150 Mbps in the three years after the repeal of Mr. Obama’s Open Internet Order.
By contrast, speeds increased only 44% in the three years net neutrality was in effect. This was about the same as the rate of increase in the three years before the policy was enacted. Internet overregulation did nothing to improve download speeds and may have held them back.
And faster internet hasn’t come only to ritzy areas of the Acela Corridor. To take some of the most rural and expensive-to-build-in states, the median speed for internet service is up 67% in Alaska, 78% in Montana, 80% in West Virginia and 87% in Maine, according to data from speed-testers.
At the same time, prices are lower, and not just when adjusting for inflation. Since 2015, the average price for broadband service nationally has fallen by half. In 2022, internet prices fell nearly 15% despite widespread inflation in nearly every other sector. Americans are getting faster and cheaper internet with each passing year. By any reasonable measure, government control failed to deliver for consumers, who saw rapid improvements after its repeal.
The commission’s current chair, Jessica Rosenworcel, now argues that restoring these powers (which the Supreme Court is likely to overrule) will give her the authority she needs to enforce newer cybersecurity standards. The national security argument is new; traditionally, Democrats have justified government control of the internet on economic grounds.
It is no mystery why the FCC is trying to use national security as a justification: Regulators have lost the economic argument.
But this rationale falls apart when you consider that the FCC already has the authority to keep foreign adversaries out of the U.S. network and has excluded companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party from providing service here. Furthermore, Ms. Rosenworcel has led an evenly split FCC for more than two years with bipartisan support for most of her cybersecurity initiatives.
If this has been such a concern, why are we only hearing about it now that a fifth Democrat has been confirmed?
No matter the justification, the data shows that giving the government less control over the internet leads to faster, cheaper access. The national security argument makes little sense when innovation and economic growth, not regulation and stagnation, are the keys to American power.
If you are completely satisfied with the quality of your electric and water utilities and want to pay monopoly prices for internet service treated as a monopoly, then utility-style internet regulation was designed for you. If you prefer faster speeds and lower prices, then the FCC should pull back from this bureaucratic overreach.
• Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform.
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