Network Neutrality

AT&T CEO John Stankey recently said, “I’ve never seen federal policy this supportive of market-based investment in advanced networks.” That statement raises multiple interesting investor related questions about what does, and does not, support investment in advanced networks, including the relative importance of those policies that drive supply and those that drive demand, and how government is treating advanced networks versus networks that have lower cost structures but also involve lower performance metrics.

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to revoke Executive Order 14036, a Biden-era directive with sweeping implications for technology and broadband policy. Issued by former President Joe Biden on July 9, 2021, Executive Order 14036 contained provisions urging the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission to apply stricter antitrust review to mergers in broadband, cable, and Big Tech, warning that consolidation often hurts consu

Public Knowledge joined the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Free Press, and New America’s Open Technology Institute to announce a decision not to file a petition for certiorari seeking U.S. Supreme Court review of a lower court decision that struck down federal Net Neutrality rules.

The Federal Communications Commission announced its latest effort to remove rules and regulations as part of its “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative. This action makes the following deletions:

The Reason Foundation remarks to the Federal Communications Commission in response to the In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete request for comments. The Foundation's comments focused on:

Robert Waterman McChesney passed away on March 25 at age 72. He was a globally respected communications scholar who was wholly welcome in the halls of academia, yet he was never satisfied working within an ivory tower. He was a rigorous researcher into the worst abuse of corporate and political establishments.

Ever since Donald Trump bumped Brendan Carr up to chair of the Federal Communications Commission in November 2024 (after naming him a commissioner during his first term), Chairman Carr has attacked the country’s media, entertainment and even tech giants with a cool fury, threatening their business and, critics say, attempting to bully them into more favorable coverage of the President. Historically concerned with the sundry matters of broadcast licenses and station fines, the FCC hardly would seem like the centerpiece of a major media-suppression effort.

Today’s defining technology is the internet, along with the interlocking digital tools that contributed to and resulted from its inception. Artificial intelligence may well usher in its own technology epoch, but even this branch of computer science is as beholden to the internet — as the internet is to electricity. How and whether high-speed internet access is like the electrification of homes can teach us something. Getting online and knowing what to do once you’re there matters.

There is an interesting trend of internet service providers selling broadband products that are not always guaranteed to be at the same speed and quality as other customers. I've especially noticed this practice in recent years from big fixed wireless providers that sell home broadband using cellular spectrum. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have all reserved the right to throttle customers any time that the network gets too busy. It’s easy to understand why cellular companies would throttle home broadband customer first—they are protecting their cellular customers.

A federal appeals court’s rejection of the Federal Communications Commission’s decade-plus push for stronger oversight of the internet was a crushing defeat for “net neutrality” as it has been pursued since the Obama administration. But the ruling could also be seen as the latest indictment of the inability of Congress to regulate at anywhere near the speed of tech.