FSF Takes Aim at PK and Digital Discrimination Draft

The FCC draft digital discrimination order’s definition of “economic feasibility” and Public Knowledge’s proposed clarification for it are both bad for America, said the Free State Foundation in an ex parte filing Monday in docket 22-69. The draft item defines economic feasibility “in a way that will induce, if not require,” the agency to “conduct old-fashioned public utility style rate cases,” said the FSF filing. Under the clarification PK proposed last week, when determining if a policy is economically feasible, the agency wouldn’t look at the rate of return in only the area where discrimination was taking place but also at the expected rate of return for similarly situated areas that aren’t low income. “Because rates of return are lower for low-income areas, ISPs generally underinvest in these communities or avoid them completely,” PK said. That change would “render the task of evaluating ‘economic feasibility’ even less practically implementable” than the draft order’s proposal, FSF said. “The draft’s approach to defining the ‘economic feasibility’ standard is misguided. PK’s suggested “clarification” is doubly misguided,” said the FSF filing.