What a Surprise, Ajit Pai is a Lying Sack of Sh%$

The FCC Chairman has been asserting that net neutrality cripples investment in broadband.

It turns out that this is unequivocally false:

You'll recall that ISPs (and the lobbyists, think tanks, politicians, and consultants paid to love them) argued incessantly that if we passed net neutrality rules, investment in broadband infrastructure would grind to a halt, leaving us all weeping gently over our clogged tubes. ISPs like Verizon proudly proclaimed that net neutrality rules would "jeopardize our investment and the development of innovation in Broadband Internet and related services." ISP-tied think tanks released study after statistically-massaged study claiming that net neutrality (and the reclassification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II) would be utterly catastrophic for the broadband industry and its consumers alike.

But as time wore on it became abundantly clear that these warnings were the empty prattle of a broken industry, using a thick veneer of bunk science to defend its monopoly over the uncompetitive broadband last mile.

Since net neutrality was passed there has been absolutely no evidence that a single one of these claims had anything even remotely resembling merit, with broadband expansion pushing forward at full speed, constrained only by the ongoing lack of competition in many markets. We've watched as outfits like Google Fiber continue to expand its footprint. We've watched as Verizon suddenly promised to deploy fiber to cities long neglected. We've watched as Comcast and AT&T rushed to try and keep pace with gigabit investments of their own. In short, nothing changed, and things may have even improved.

This is not a surprise.

There isn't a lot of money in supplying customer with better and more technically advanced service.

The money is in leveraging monopoly rents, hence things like the lobbying of state legislatures to prohibit municipal broadband.