This morning the FCC majority will approve an order that purports to address the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s remand in Mozilla v. FCC. The court ordered the FCC to address the impact of its Restoring Internet Freedom Order and specifically the Order’s reclassification of broadband Internet access service as an unregulated information service on three critical issues: 1) public safety; 2) competitive access to pole attachments; and 3) support for the agency’s Lifeline program, which provides broadband subsidies for low-income Americans. The FCC’s Order on Remand affirms the  Restoring Internet Freedom Order, concluding that any harm to public safety, limitations on access to pole attachments and legal threats to the use of Lifeline funds for broadband Internet access service is outweighed by the benefits for the broadband industry of deregulation.

The following statement should be attributed to Gigi Sohn:

“Today, the Trump FCC doubles down on the complete abdication of its responsibility to protect public safety, promote competition and make broadband available to all Americans. In its fervent yearning to free the broadband industry of all oversight, the FCC once again relies on an argument that has been proven time and again to be false – that reclassifying broadband as an unregulated information service will result in greater investment in broadband networks, more competition and lower prices. The agency has apparently forgotten that soon after it adopted the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, every major broadband provider announced that it would reduce investment in their networks. And it ignores the plain fact that the broadband market is a series of regional monopolies where prices are among the highest in the world.

“The FCC says the quiet part out loud when it finds that “we would still reach the same conclusion that we did in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order even if a court were to conclude that the Lifeline Program could not support broadband Internet access service.” In other words, deregulating the broadband industry is more important to this FCC than ensuring that low income Americans have broadband. This is a remarkable admission at a time when Americans can’t work, go to school, visit a doctor or safely socially distance without a broadband connection.”

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Gigi Sohn is a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Benton Institute for Broadband & Society Senior Fellow and Public Advocate. She is the host of the Tech on the Rocks podcast. Gigi served as Counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and worked on the 2015 Open Internet Order. She can be reached for comment at the email above or at 202-253-0876.