PPI Senior Fellow Hal Singer’s analysis on the impact of the FCC’s net neutrality ruling was cited in the Wall Street Journal:
Before Obamanet went into effect, economist Hal Singer of the Progressive Policy Institute predicted in The Wall Street Journal that if price and other regulations were introduced, capital investments by ISPs could quickly fall from the $77 billion invested in 2014—between 5% and 12% a year, according to his forecast.
Now Mr. Singer has analyzed the latest data, and his prediction has come true. He found that in the first half of 2015, as the new regulations were being crafted in Washington, major ISPs reduced capital expenditure by an average of 12%, while the overall industry average dropped 8%. Capital spending was down 29% at AT&T and Charter Communications, 10% at Cablevision, and 4% at Verizon. ( Comcast increased capital spending, but on a new home-entertainment operating system, not broadband.)
Until now, spending had fallen year-to-year only twice in the history of broadband: in 2001 after the dot-com bust, and in 2009 after the recession. “In every other year,” Mr. Singer wrote for Forbes, “ISPs—like hamsters on a wheel—were forced to upgrade their networks to prevent customers from switching to rivals offering faster connections.”
Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal.
