ISPs Invest Less Under Title II, Say FSF, USTelecom; Free Press Dubious; Oracle Laments Rhetoric

Horney based the estimate on capital expenditure data on 16 of the largest ISPs for 2014-16, and also cited USTelecom data on broadband capital expenditures (see 1612140074). Free Press, which unlike FSF supports the 2015 FCC rules, disagreed with the analysis, while USTelecom said spending appears to be affected, and Oracle meanwhile seeks a return to pre-2015 rules. "This is not a regression analysis, so I cannot say by how much the regulatory uncertainty and costs imposed in the Open Internet Order negatively impacted broadband investment," wrote FSF's Horney. "If the FCC was right about broadband capital investment not being suppressed by the Open Internet Order, we should have expected the market to continue along or above its trend of investment growth." These "empty claims" are belied by publicly traded ISPs showing a 5.3 percent increase in investments in the two-year period, responded Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. USTelecom estimates were "flawed and vague numbers," and "Horney descends even further," Wood said. USTelecom’s "initial analysis strongly suggests that investment in 2016 continued to trend downward," the group blogged Friday following FSF. ISPs, usually comprising 90-95 percent of annual industry capital expenditures, spent $71 billion in 2016, down from $73 billion in 2015, wrote USTelecom Vice President-Industry Analysis Patrick Brogan. "Claims by some interest groups that broadband provider capex actually may have increased in 2015 and 2016 depend on figures that ignore accounting adjustments for certain non-material items like leased cellphones and acquisitions, such as AT&T’s merger with DirecTV and a Mexican wireless operation." FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been doing media interviews and making speeches about his plan to propose to change net neutrality rules (see 1705050025). Oracle meanwhile, backing a proposed return to Title I Communications Act net neutrality rules, sees debate having "inexplicably evolved into a highly political hyperbolic battle, substantially removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality," it wrote Pai Friday in docket 17-108 after previously backing this move. "The stifling open internet regulations and broadband classification that the FCC put in place in 2015," the year of the past net neutrality order, "threw out" the "technological consensus" and "certainty," the software maker said. "Reclassifying broadband internet access as an information service will eliminate unnecessary burdens on, and competitive imbalances for, ISPs. ... It will restore the FTC as the impartial cop on the broadband beat with authority to reach all of the participants." The company was part of a meeting with Pai last month, before he unveiled a draft NPRM to undo Title II common-carrier net neutrality rules (see 1704260002 and 1705050025).