The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates...

The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates responded Friday to a “volley of ex partes” from various ISPs arguing the FCC shouldn’t reclassify broadband Internet as a Title II service. “Misclassification of Internet access has consistently undermined courts’ willingness to affirm” the net neutrality rules, NASUCA said in an ex parte filing in docket 14-28 (http://bit.ly/1oSy6Sh). ISPs’ “ad horrendum arguments” seek to “scare this Commission away from classifying broadband consistent with its function, i.e. as telecommunications,” NASUCA said. “AT&T preaches fire and brimstone” about the “evils of reclassification” -- namely that it will wreak havoc on the market and stifle investment, but that “apocalyptic vision ignores the fact that uncertainty is the state of the world,” NASUCA said. “Not-so-veiled threats” about reclassification’s “negative impact on investment” are counterbalanced by more than 170 Internet content providers and 150 venture capitalists “pleading” with the commission to “enact a clear and enforceable anti-discrimination regime,” it said. “Even under a common carrier regime, the nation’s carriers will prosper and investment will grow.”