Rubio Says Court Should Overturn Net Neutrality Rules

Also makes pitch for more spectrum, fewer legacy regs

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/21/2013 6:07:05 PM

Commerce Committee member Senator Marco Rubio told a Free State Foundation forum audience Thursday that he hopes the FCC's network neutrality rules are overturned and warned against classifying Internet access under Title II as a backstop.

In a speech outlining his communications priorities, he said they were chiefly keeping the Internet free of regulation foreign and domestic, making sure enough spectrum was being freed up, and FCC process reform.

All that came under a philosophical umbrella of light-touch regulation that spurs investment in the economy. He criticized legacy regulations unsuited to a digital world, saying the market had moved past brick-sized phones and giant desk-top computers and that it was time Congress moved past the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

He seconded FCC commissioner Ajit Pai -- an earlier speaker at the conference -- on a number of points, including applying cost-benefit analysis to regulations and reforming forbearance authority, and sounded the call for bringing down regulatory silos, an issue close to the heart of Free State Foundation.

He suggested the FCC chairman's disinclination to close the Title II docket remained an overhanging threat of Internet regulation.

"I hope that net neutrality mandates are overturned in court," he said. "And if that occurs, we must be prepared to oppose efforts by proponents of net neutrality to reclassify broadband and pass legislation doing so."

It may be a while before the case is settled, given that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has yet to schedule oral argument in the case.

As to efforts by some countries -- China, Russia, some Arab states -- to create a more top-down Internet governance model, he said: "We cannot stand idly by as countries try to justify censorship or economic regulation of the Internet. If we do, we will lose the very essence of what makes the Internet unique and great, and jeopardize the promise the Internet holds for the digital transition."

Rubio made a big push for spectrum for mobile broadband, including for more government spectrum. But he said the reason was not because wireless companies want it, but for the impact it will have on the economy and the people, particularly minorities who are disproportionately wireless adopters.

"Estimates are that for every 500 MHz of spectrum made available for commercial use, that's an additional 350,000 jobs created and $87 billion for our GDP," he said. "We have to [find more spectrum] for economic mobility. Wireless is the preferred route to the Internet for our minority populations. Hispanics and African-American wireless adoption outpace the general population. The path to economic prosperity for our minority populations is in large part wireless."