On behalf of The Technology Policy Institute, Davis Wright Tremaine filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the FCC’s reclassification of Internet service as an information service. Certain groups are challenging the FCC’s action in a consolidated proceeding pending in the D.C. Circuit. The FCC’s order on review freed internet service providers from the regulatory constraints of Title II that had been imposed previously under the guise of “net neutrality.”
The brief painted a grim economic picture of the previous “heavy-handed” rules and that “evidence shows that adding common carrier rules (“Title II”-like) tend to reduce investment, while eliminating such rules was more likely to increase investment.” Moreover, TPI argued, eliminating Title II rules could pass savings on to the Internet subscribers net neutrality supporters said they wanted to serve. “Net neutrality is instead especially likely to cause greater harm to low-income populations.”
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