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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SAVE THE INTERNET ACT OF 2019
______
speech of
HON. ZOE LOFGREN
of california
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of
the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 1644) to
restore the open internet order of the Federal Communications
Commission:
Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Chair, the Federal Communications Commission's
(FCC's) partisan vote to rollback net neutrality regulations
implemented under the Obama Administration was extremely troubling and
quite wrong. Allowing internet service providers (ISPs) to charge for
``fast lanes'' would alter the internet significantly.
The idea that broadband internet access is an information service,
rather than a telecommunications service, was a convenient legal-
fiction in the 90s when broadband was in an infancy, to help speed its
adoption. But classifying broadband as anything other than
telecommunication service today is intellectually empty.
The argument the FCC puts forward that broadband is an information
service because it offers domain name resolution is laughable.
According to the FCC, you aren't buying internet access you are buying
a DNS service, something I'm willing to bet 98 percent of broadband
customers have never heard of.
It must be a triumph of marketing genius that broadband providers
have sold 98 percent of their customers something that they have never
heard of, or even knew they had. Under this logic, I guess telephone
lines aren't telecommunication services, but phonebook information
services.
Likewise, the FCC's argument that somehow net neutrality has harmed
broadband deployment has not only been directly contradicted for years
by broadband providers' statements to shareholders, one only needs to
look at Comcast for an example of how wrong the FCC is.
Because of the consent decree it agreed to for its purchase of NBC
Universal, Comcast was subject to net neutrality longer than any other
broadband provider, from 2011 to 2018. In those 7 years, the average
Comcast broadband connection went from 18 megabits per second to 69
megabits per second. In 2017, Comcast had the fastest national Speed
Score according to internet speed test company Ookla.
As for the concerns around the reclassification itself, the FCC never
attempted to use any of the Title II authorities that broadband
companies were allegedly concerned about. In fact, the FCC barred
themselves from doing so in the original net neutrality order.
By voting in favor of H.R. 1644, we will be codifying this
forbearance, effectively preventing any future FCC from undoing that
forbearance without Congress.
The Internet has become an indispensable part of all aspects of
modern life. And our reliance on it as a neutral gateway will only
increase. It would be irresponsible of Congress not to protect the
openness and freedom of the Internet that has made so much possible.
I can't fathom why this isn't a bipartisan issue, but to quote Wade
Randlett, founder of TechNet: ``The GOP seems to think that Orwellian
language is going to work on the world's smartest people, . . . . If
you say net neutrality is government regulation--and if you think
there's anyone in the valley who thinks that's a true statement--you're
already dead in the water. They would be better off just saying, `We
respectfully disagree.' ''
I am a proud original cosponsor of H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet
Act, and urge my colleagues to vote in favor.
____________________
