Before the

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20554

In the Matter of )
)
Restoring Internet Freedom ) WC Docket No. 17-108
)
Bridging the Digital Divide for Low-Income ) WC Docket No. 17-287
Consumers )
)
Lifeline and Link Up Reform and Modernization ) WC Docket No. 11-42

COMMENTS OF
AMERICAN COMMITMENT1 (ONE MORE TIME, FROM LOCKDOWN)

Not even a global pandemic can keep us from another battle in the long, bitter, and ever

more disconnected from reality net neutrality wars. We are now about two decades into the

angry left insisting that in the absence of heavy-handed government regulation, the evil ISPs will

engage in all manner of mischief including but not limited to maliciously blocking, throttling,

redirecting traffic, censoring speech, and, more recently, charging by the tweet. It has never

been clear why an ISP would engage in such malevolent practices towards its own customers,

who would soon thereafter become in large number former customers.

For the two glorious years that the left achieved their goal of reducing the Internet to a

regulated public utility there was no nirvana for uses or rebirth of political freedom. There was

a deficit of investment and a boom in paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense.

Then it was repealed, in another absurd hyperbolic pitched political mobilization

exercise in which the advocates who claimed the world would end without regulations that had

just recently been enacted reached new levels of extremism – up to and including death threats

leveled at the young children of members of Congress and the chairman of the commission.

1
American Commitment is a national free-market advocacy group dedicating to dedicated to restoring and
protecting the American Commitment to free markets, economic growth, Constitutionally-limited
government, property rights, and individual freedom.
Of course nothing the angry net neutrality obsessives alleged would happen came to pass.

Instead, we saw an incredible increase in network capacity, speed, and resilience as ISPs felt

confident that their networks investment would not be divested from them in the fever dream

of Marxists like Free Press founder Robert McChesney.2

Now, as many of us sit in our homes waiting for the virus lockdown to lift, surrounded

by children doing their school work and recreation on their computers and tablets while we take

video call after video call ourselves, we come to this docket, reconsidering the minor technical

matters that remain of the Obama order.

It is hard to think of any greater enhancement to public safety, broadly understood,

then having reliable, fast, high quality network connectivity during a time of global panic and

lockdown. The current pro-investment, pro-market policy has produced that outcome.

As the University of Pennsylvania's Christopher Yoo aptly summarized in the Wall Street

Journal:

"The U.S. and EU have seen dramatically different investment and utilization. Between
2010 and 2016, American providers invested on average annually 2.35 times as much
per household as their European counterparts. This allowed the average U.S. household
to consume more than three times as much data as the average European household in
2017, according to Cisco. This is a significant jump over the 44% difference between U.S.
and Europe that existed a decade ago. Emphasizing investments in infrastructure allows
consumers to realize more of the benefits that the internet can provide."3

Even Tom Wheeler, the onetime titular chairman (who knew better than to impose the Title II

order but licked Obama's boots and did as he was told) has been forced to acknowledge the

2
See, one more time for good measure: Tanner Mirrless, "Media Capitalism, the State and 21st Century
Media Democracy Struggles – An interview with Robert McChesney," The Bullet, August 9, 2009.
https://socialistproject.ca/2009/08/b246/
3
Christopher S. Yoo, "Coronavirus Crisis Vindicates the FCC’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Rollback," Wall Street
Journal, April 14, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-crisis-vindicates-the-fccs-net-neutrality-
rollback-11586906742
stunning outperformance of U.S. broadband networks compared to Europe, where they have

turned to throttling to manage the strain of pandemic-induced video traffic:

"Credit is due to the nation’s broadband providers. The fact we can work from home is
the result of hundreds of billions of investment dollars and construction and operational
skill."4

The usual devotees of ever larger and more intrusive government are surely committed enough

to their cause to file yet another recitation of their usual litany in this docket.

Commissioner Rosenworcel begged them to do their usual shambolic thing when she
tweeted:

"You might have missed this last week. The FCC asked the public to comment on
#NetNeutrality. But it did it in a document that's all legalese. It sure looks like the FCC is
doesn't want you to see it. Don't let the FCC cover up. Speak
up!https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-168A1.pdf ."5

A public notice regarding issues on remand from the DC Circuit? In legalese??? The horror!

So I'm sure this docket will have plenty of the usual junk. Ignore it. The rest of us, who

reside in reality, are tired of it and live in daily appreciation of the Pai commission's commitment

to fixing the ideologically motivated, economically ignorant actions of the Obama FCC. Please

complete the repeal of the Obama regulations and let America keep on relying on the Internet

to keep getting better, faster, more innovative and more reliable. We need it now more than

ever.

Respectfully submitted,

Phil Kerpen
President

American Commitment
1155 15th St NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005
April 20, 2020

4
Tom Wheeler, "Why the internet didn’t break," Brookings Institution website, April 2, 2020.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2020/04/02/why-the-internet-didnt-break/
5
Jessica Rosenworcel, Twitter post, February 27, 2020.
https://twitter.com/JRosenworcel/status/1233112667809861632