FCC Can't Create 'Title II Light,' Phoenix Center Study Says
The FCC’s past actions prevent the agency from “using its forbearance authority as a way to establish some sort of ‘Title II Lite’” on net neutrality, said a Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies press release…
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Monday about a new study by the organization. The study, Section 10 Forbearance: Asking the Right Questions to Get the Right Answers, said “the agency's Phoenix [Arizona] Forbearance Order rejects the validity of forbearance in the presence of either monopoly or duopolistic competition. Given the Commission's repeated finding that Broadband Service Providers are ‘terminating monopolists’ as a justification for implementing Open Internet Rules, the Commission cannot reclassify broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service and then easily use its forbearance authority to create what is colloquially referred to as ‘Title II Lite,’" the release said. Also, Verizon responded to Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld’s blog post that said forbearance is so easy it makes him “want to puke.” Verizon on its blog Monday pointed to Friday’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision turning down Verizon and AT&T’s petition challenging the commission’s denial of a forbearance petition (see [Ref.1410310055]) to make the point that the court and the FCC “have provided more evidence that the forbearance process is nauseating, but not because it is easy,” wrote Verizon Senior Vice President for Public Policy Craig Silliman. “It is a mark of true desperation to portray a decision affirming the FCC's vast discretion on forbearance as somehow limiting discretion,” Feld responded in an email. “What part of ‘the court affirmed the FCC’ do you not understand?”