Letter to the Des Moines Register

To the Editor of the Des Moines Register

In her Sept. 1 Des Moines Register opinion piece, “Congress must protect net neutrality,” Clayola Brown gets it exactly wrong.

She wrote, “the FCC’s approach to net neutrality is a serious mistake,”  adding, treating the Internet as a common carrier utility could “dramatically cut back the new investments needed for the next phase of the Internet economy.”

What a bunch of bunk.

Title II protections were authorized by a bi-partisan vote of the U.S. Congress, giving the FCC authority to protect net neutrality. What the FCC did was restore these protections after millions of people urged the agency to do just that.

The rules set in February haven’t hurt investment and there’s no plausible reason to suspect they will. On the contrary, companies like Comcast, Google Fiber, Verizon and AT&T have made new investments in their Internet networks since the ruling.

For example, Comcast is rolling out new gigabit fiber services, called “Gigabit Pro” to 18 million locations.

What the FCC rules have done is provide a regulatory framework upon which Internet service providers will have to compete for business. The result has been investment in infrastructure.

As Brown asserted, “investment means jobs,” so what’s the problem?