Four months in and net neutrality hasn’t stifled broadband investment

It’s been four months since the FCC passed its net neutrality rules, and broadband investment still hasn’t suffered. Many opponents of net neutrality claimed that the implementation of the FCC’s regulation would reduce broadband investment in the United States, but that hasn’t happened yet. In fact, several Internet service providers have even started expanding in the months since the regulations were passed.  

Predictions from net neutrality opponents that regulations would choke off broadband investment haven’t come true, with several service providers announcing expansions in the four months since the U.S. Federal Communications Commission passed new rules, the agency’s chairman says. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler defended the commission’s net neutrality rules Friday, saying that it would be “unthinkable” for the FCC to allow broadband providers to operate without consumer protection, interconnection and other basic rules. The FCC is focused on expanding broadband coverage and competition and increasing speeds across the U.S., he said, but the commission’s net neutrality rules won’t get in the way. “We’re not going to let imaginary concerns about investment incentives and the omnipresent boogieman of so-called utility regulation cause us to let up on polices to encourage fast, fair and open broadband,” Wheeler said in a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C.