I'll Go With the Under on Net Neutrality

The cable companies pet FCC commissioner has estimated the cost of net neutrality regulations to consumers at $17 billion, while an open internet advocacy group has pegged the cost at $0:

After a dramatic shift in the debate over net neutrality last month, many expect the FCC will reclassify internet providers so as to bar them from giving special treatment to some websites over others. The question now becomes how much (if at all) the agency’s decision, which turns on an arcane process called Title II, will cost consumers.
Depending on who you ask, the answer is that Title II, which would treat internet providers akin to public utilities, will be ruinously expensive — or will have little financial impact at all. Among the Cassandras, you can count Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai:

 “It will cost $17 billion in new fees,” Pai told an audience of telecom lawyers in Washington on Friday, warning that consumers’ monthly internet bills are set to soar.

Pai’s number, which has also popped up on the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page and in other right-leaning outlets, is lifted from a purported study by the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank that has reportedly taken funding from AT&T.

………

Like so much else in the pitched debate over net neutrality, however, the $17 billion number may have been ginned up for political purposes. According to Free Press, a nonpartisan advocacy group for open internet, the figure represents a misleading worst-case scenario that will never come to pass.

As the group points out, reclassification does not appear to require any new consumer fees. Such fees, it they do appear, will instead be the result of a separate set of decisions by the FCC and various governments.

I have no doubt that the PPI has taken funding from AT&T.  After all, their parent organization, the now defunct Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was funded by the Koch brothers.

Also note that most of the $17 billion involved is on a separate regulatory ruling, and that the FCC has made it very clear that they will engage in regulatory forbearance, and not impose the charges that Mr. Pai is mentioning, but these charges have nothing to do with reclassification of Title II.

Even if there are a few buck additional charges, it would well worth it to prevent "Cable Company F%$#ery."