Rate Regulation. Many commenters say they fear rate regulation, meaning that the FCC could become involved in setting their rates. I can’t see any merit in this argument. The FCC and state commissions have relaxed regulation on telephone service over the years and in many states have deregulated rates. There has never been any rate regulation on competitive telephone companies (CLECs) or VoIP providers who are free to charge anything they want. The FCC also brought cellular voice under Title II in 2007 and there has been no regulation of those rates. Basically the FCC’s philosophy is to let the free market and competition set rates whenever possible and this has been true everywhere in the industry. The FCC only steps in when there is blatant abuse, such as when unscrupulous payphone providers were were billing people many dollars per minute.
I think the real fear of the carriers is having the FCC get involved in disputes of the charges between the large ISPs and companies like Netflix. On that count I think they are right, but that is the whole idea behind net neutrality – to not let carriers use their market power to pick winners and losers among web content providers. This is not exactly rate regulation in the historic sense, but its very likely that under Title II that the FCC will be asked to mediate differences between carriers.
Taxes. Several opponents of Title II have floated the idea that putting Internet service under regulation will mean a whole new host of taxes. At least in the short term that claim has no merit. Congress has been excluding the Internet from taxation for fifteen years and just recently renewed the law that stops states and localities from taxing Internet service. This is not to say that Internet service under Title II will never be taxed, because politicians everywhere are always looking for a new tax base. But the fact that Congress has felt the need to pass and renew this law means that taxing the Internet doesn’t require Title II regulation. States and localities have found ways to tax almost everything over the years and will tax the Internet if Congress allows it, with or without Title II.
There probably is a legitimate concern that Internet service would become subject to the Universal Service Charge. But since that FCC has frozen the size of the USF Fund, any new USF taxes on Internet service would mean lower taxes on other telecom services with no net change in tax to the public. Frankly, since the USF funding is now being used to expand broadband coverage, Internet users ought to help pay for it.
Increased Regulatory Burden. The big companies say that being under Title II will increase regulatory burden. It’s hard to say what exactly that might mean, but they are probably right because regulators like to regulate. Interestingly, the large ISPs make this argument on behalf of small ISPs and not for themselves. And here I thought they didn’t like the small ISPs that compete with them!
Pole Attachments. Cable companies fear that being under Title II will mean an increase in the rates they pay to attach to poles. Apparently today they often get cheaper attachment rates then some regulated companies. I have a hard time sympathizing with this. Cable companies love to raise the issue of level playing field when they have to compete with a municipality. But that same level playing field concept would say that every company that leases space on a pole ought to pay the same rate. They are arguing to maintain an un-level playing field that happens to be in their favor.
Tariffs. Regulated telephone companies, including the CLECs must file tariffs. These documents define the terms and conditions under which the companies will sell service to the public. In the tariff a company must define things like their policies for disconnecting a customer who doesn’t pay their bill. I suspect that many states would use Title II as a reason to impose tariffs on cable companies. And I suspect that cable companies would get dragged into some state laws that require certain levels of customer service. Considering how crappy the cable companies treat the public I suspect the public would be in favor of this.
Uncertainty. The large companies complain that requiring them to be under Title II means many years of uncertainty until all of the consequences of such a ruling are worked out. That is certainly true, but that is not a reason not to not impose net neutrality. There is a huge amount of uncertainty in the cable industry already. I am sure that Google introducing gigabit broadband into their markets, or Dish Networks launching of an OTT product that includes ESPN are causing a lot more uncertainty inside cable boardrooms than concerns about complying with regulatory rules. I really can’t picture cable company Boards spending a lot of time worrying about net neutrality.