Pai’s claim is usually countered with the actual history of Internet service providers preventing or throttling Internet traffic or applications. The most pre-eminent example is Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing. Pai thus had to battle with these real-world examples in his new proposal to eliminate net neutrality rules.
Pai’s solution has occurred to argue that these blocking and throttling events stopped after public pressure, that they haven’t occurred much since, and likely won’t happen again. Of course, the most obvious reason that net neutrality invasions have been rare since Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent is that the FCC has supported net neutrality rules since 2010 aside from a year-long farce without rules caused by a Verizon lawsuit.
But to Pai, this just shows that the rules aren’t necessary.
“Because of the paucity of strong evidence of harms to the openness of the Internet, the Order and its advocates have heavily relied on purely speculative threats,” Pai’s proposal says. “We do not believe hypothetical harms, unsupported by empirical data, economic theory, or even fresh anecdotes, provide a basis for public-utility regulation of ISPs.”
Pai is breaking with preceding FCC Republicans with his attempt to downplay the importance of Comcast/BitTorrent.
In 2008, the FCC then led by Bush appointee Kevin Martin argued in its determination to punish Comcast that BitTorrent file sharing had “become a competitive threat to cable speculators such as Comcast because Internet users have the possibility to view the high-quality video with BitTorrent that they might otherwise watch on cable television.” The threat was especially acute to Comcast’s video-on-demand service, the 2008 FCC also said.
When Comcast consumers noticed trouble with BitTorrent downloads, Comcast “misleadingly rejected any responsibility for the customers’ problems,” Martin’s FCC said.
“Although Comcast warrants that its conduct is necessary to ease network press, we conclude that the company’s discriminatory and absolute practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet and does not authorize reasonable network management,” the FCC said, while requiring Comcast to take steps to prevent it from happening again.
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