That's the word Monday from Free Press, a consumer advocacy group. In a new report, the group took a look at investments made by the publicly traded broadband companies before and after the Federal Communications Commission put in place its strong net neutrality rules in 2015.
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A new report says that broadband investment actually rose after net neutrality regulation
In the two-year period following the new net neutrality rules, overall investment among those companies was up 5%, according to Free Press.
In the two-year period following the new rules, overall broadband-related investment among those companies was up 5% from the two-year period immediately preceding them, Free Press found. And if you exclude Sprint and AT&T, both of which decreased their investment after completing the build out of their high-speed LTE networks, overall investment would have been up 9%, according to the report.
The biggest drop in investment among public companies was at US Celluar, where investment fell by 24% from the first time period to the second. But Free Press noted the company had previously informed investors it would curtail its investment after completing its own LTE roll-out.
Not only was investment up overall, but so too were overall industry revenue and profits, Free Press found.
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"The supposition made by Chairman Pai, and by his supporters inside Washington and cable company lobbying shops, is that irrational fear of a hypothetical future intervention could kill off investment in an otherwise booming sector of the economy," Free Press said in its report. "Don’t believe them."
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