Amicus Brief In Support of California Net Neutrality Law

OTI joined Access Now, Mozilla, Public Knowledge, and Free Press in filing an amicus brief in support of California's net neutrality law against an industry-backed lawsuit.

Internet service providers (“ISPs”) and their amici like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (“Chamber”) claim, falsely, that industry investment declined in 2015 and 2016, when the FCC’s strong net neutrality rules were in place. They also claim, falsely, that investment rebounded in 2017 and 2018, when the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) eliminated those rules. Yet it is evident from these ISPs’ own SEC disclosures, and from deployment reports filed on FCC Form 477, that just the reverse is true: when the rules were in place, there was instead an overall increase in aggregate broadband capital expenditures and deployment (in urban and rural areas alike) by the publicly traded ISPs that report these numbers. Since the rules’ elimination, aggregate broadband investment has decreased. That is not to say that the rules caused increased investment, or that their elimination caused a decrease; yet the numbers belie the Chamber’s claims about the direction of any change in investment when these rules were operative.