1REMARKS OF FCC CHAIRMAN TOM WHEELER
AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MORITZ COLLEGE OF LAW 
SYMPOSIUM ON “THE FUTURE OF INTERNET REGULATION”
MARCH 27, 2015
Thank you all for that warm welcome. Thank you, Professor Shane and Dean 
Michaels for inviting me. It’s great to be here, and I’m not just saying that because 
I spent 5 of the previous 8 weekdays testifying before Congress.
It’s always great to be in Columbus. I chose to deliver my first policy speech as 
FCC Chairman at OSU, partly to send a message that my agenda would be driven 
by the interests of people across America, not special interests in Washington. 
Largely, I spoke here because I’m a proud Buckeye. 
Back then, I was new on the job and, frankly, didn’t have a whole lot to discuss. I 
no longer have that problem. 
Today, I want to visit about the Commission’s efforts to protect and promote the 
greatest platform for competition the world has ever known– no, not the College 
Football Playoff. The Playoff would be the SECOND greatest innovation of modern 
history.   
Of course, I’m talking about the free and open Internet. Today I would like to 
think out loud with you about the choices that government agencies must make. 
One of the most fascinating aspects of my job is that I sit in an office to which I 
used to go to advocate on behalf of my client.  The issues sure seem simpler when 
you’re an advocate for one narrow position than when you’re making a decision 
that is in the broad public interest.
2The job of government is to decide based on the facts and the record in a media-
saturated era when issues are advocated in apocalyptic terms.  One day 
demonstrators at my home kept me from leaving my driveway with a huge 
banner saying “Free the Internet.”  About a hundred feet from the driveway a 
stop sign (and multiple others in the neighborhood) has affixed to it a sticker 
causing it to say “STOP Wheeler from braking [sic] the Internet.”  If only choices in 
the real world were as simple as those opposing positions. 
The Commission’s Open Internet Order rejects these two purported choices as 
false. We can have both an Open Internet and continued investment in bigger and 
better broadband. We can have an Open Internet and light-touch regulation that 
encourages innovation and consumer choice.  The Commission’s Open Internet 
Order rests on a basic choice – whether those who build the networks should 
make the rules by themselves or whether there should be a basic set of rules and 
a referee on the field to throw the flag if they are violated.
Let me explain.
The open Internet allows innovation to come from anyone, anywhere. All you 
need is a computer and a broadband connection and you can introduce new 
products, services, or ideas to a global audience – and this is the key part –
without asking anyone’s permission. The marketplace – not some gatekeeper –
gets to pick winners and losers.  This simple reality has allowed inventors in dorm 
rooms and garages to launch start-ups that toppled powerful incumbents to 
become world-leading companies. 
For more than a decade, the Commission has grappled with the issue of how best 
to preserve Internet openness. The question has not been whether to protect 
and promote an open Internet; that has been the bi-partisan policy of Republican 
and Democratic Chairs alike--but how best to achieve that objective. Last month, 
the FCC moved to settle this dispute once and for all, adopting the strongest open 
Internet protections ever proposed by the Commission. 
I believe that the result will be overwhelmingly positive for consumers and 
innovators. I also firmly believe it is a positive as well for network operators who 
3now have regulatory certainty with no impact on their consumer revenue 
streams. 
Against this order we have heard an avalanche of arguments. We have been told 
that our rules are too clear and too uncertain; that we are too much fixated on 
the past and too much focused on the future; that we will protect the profits of 
incumbent broadband providers and that we will threaten them. 
What should we make of these contradictions; this fog of advocacy? We should 
conclude that the biggest broadband providers in the land have one objective – to 
operate free from control by their customers and free from oversight from 
government.
If they succeed, then, for the first time in America’s communications history, 
private gatekeepers will have unfettered power to control commerce and free 
expression.  
The true choice is between protecting the gatekeepers or protecting consumers 
and insurgents who wish to boost the greatest strength of America’s economy, 
namely innovation.
To understand the problem, it is necessary to understand the power of the 
biggest ISPs. Consider this simple fact: About three-fourths of American 
households have zero or one choice for high-speed, wired broadband to their 
homes. No choice or one choice does not make an attractive marketplace from a 
consumer’s perspective. As gatekeepers, the ISPs have the power to decide what 
travels between consumers and the Internet; they have all of the tools necessary 
to block, degrade or favor some content over others. In fact, there is no doubt 
that broadband providers have the ability to disadvantage companies that need 
to use their transmission services to distribute products and services to the public.
You remember the story of Robin Hood when he encountered Little John; Robin 
Hood wanted to cross the river but Little John controlled the passage from one 
side to another. Unlike Robin Hood, today’s consumers lack the power to fight 
back against ISPs. Consumers have few choices – wireless is not a full substitute –
and they face barriers in exercising the choices that may exist. 
4In 2010, the Commission found that broadband providers have the incentive and 
the ability to block, degrade or unfairly favor content. And the D.C. Circuit upheld 
that conclusion, affirming the Commission’s conclusion that broadband providers 
could decide to exercise their ability to the disadvantage of consumers and 
innovation.
The biggest ISPs also have abilities that go beyond denying, degrading, or delaying 
material that must pass over their last mile transmission systems.  They have 
what may well be an equally significant power.  That is the power to establish 
norms for their industry, the customs of the trade that often will have more 
practical significance than the positive laws they are required to obey.  The norms 
will manifest themselves in standard terms in contracts with consumers—for 
example, mandatory arbitration clauses—or with contracts with other Internet 
merchants—for example, interconnection fees.  Or in the quality of customer 
service. They can determine the culture of innovation, shaping the expectations 
of consumers and innovators alike. 
In these circumstances, what could possibly go wrong?
Most of the approximately four million people who expressed themselves in the 
FCC’s Open Internet proceeding apparently thought that plenty could go wrong.  
We received a lot of elaborate, well-reasoned and carefully supported 
submissions in the Open Internet proceeding.  But most of the four million filings 
were simple expressions of preference.  How to understand them?  I believe by 
and large they were saying two things.  First, they were very concerned that there 
be effective rules to protect a free and open Internet.  And, second, they know 
that the ISPs have the upper hand.
The record in front of the Commission presented two fundamental choices, both 
of which I concluded were false choices.
First, must we choose between an open Internet and continued investment in 
bigger and better broadband networks? I will say frankly that this issue weighed 
heavily upon me during the course of our proceeding. But I concluded, in part 
because of the history of regulation of the wireless industry, that an open Internet
5would actually boost the incentive for network investment because consumer 
demand will increase when networks are open. 
Some ISPs say investment will suffer if an open Internet is mandated. Many ISPs, 
including companies like Sprint, T-Mobile, Frontier, Google Fiber and hundreds of 
rural companies and small, competitive wireless companies say they can build 
their businesses within the sort of light-touch rules we have adopted. Even 
Comcast, AT&T and Verizon who oppose what we did continued to invest in their 
networks even knowing the rule was coming.  In fact, AT&T and Verizon did so 
very dramatically in the Commission’s recent AWS-3 spectrum auction, which 
attracted more than $41 billion in net bidding, more than double the previous 
record.
Most importantly, ISP share prices were not adversely affected by the 
contemplation and adoption of the regulations.  Very curious.  Perhaps real 
investors, many of them, these days, professional investors, aided by professional 
securities analysts, concluded that the regulations wouldn’t do any damage.  They 
might even have concluded that the regulations would do more good than harm.
Just as I believe.
Following a determination that some type of regulation is needed, the issue 
becomes, what type?  This raised the next supposed dilemma in the form of an 
asserted requirement to choose between two principles that the Commission has 
supported on a bi-partisan basis for more than a decade. On the one hand, the 
Commission has clearly wanted to ensure that broadband connections are not 
treated like old-fashioned utilities; the kind of telephone companies that your 
grandparents remember. Rather, it wanted to dispense with unnecessary 
regulatory costs and, more important, provide strong incentives for network 
investment.  That was the basis of important Commission decisions in 2002, 2005 
and 2007.
On the other hand, the bi-partisan support for an open Internet has been equally 
clear. From an important speech by the then-Chairman in 2004, through the 
adoption of a formal policy statement in 2005, through enforcement actions, to 
the imposition of merger conditions and the requirement that Verizon’s 
6extremely valuable spectrum used for 4G services be subject to openness 
requirements, the Commission has supported a simple principle: The Commission 
must assure a future of an open Internet.
The Commission’s concerns were based on fact, not speculation. In 2008, a 
Republican-led Commission found that Comcast was throttling legal peer-to-peer 
traffic.
In 2013, when Verizon was asked in open court if it wanted to restrict access 
through special commercial terms, its counsel replied, “I’m authorized to state by 
my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those commercial 
arrangements.”  
Last summer, we saw disputes over the exchange of traffic between Netflix and 
major ISPs, and accompanying complaints from Netflix consumers that the 
Internet service they’d paid for was not adequately delivering the content they 
wanted. 
Last summer, Verizon Wireless also announced plans to limit “unlimited” data 
customers if the subscriber went over a certain amount of data used in a month. I 
wrote Verizon inquiring about this policy and it was ultimately reversed.
We are told today that the principles of limited regulation and an open Internet
are irreconcilable; that the quest to protect an open Internet is seeking a solution 
to a problem that does not exist.
I thought carefully about this and again I decided that this was, as well, a false 
choice. The Commission majority agreed.  It concluded that by following the 
terms of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, exercising the power given to us 
expressly by Congress, we could protect the Open Internet without using utility-
style regulation. 
And that is what we have done, constructing Title II for the 21
st
Century built on 
the strong foundation laid by the treatment of wireless voice. I was there when 
Title II was sought by the wireless industry. I know that the application of Title II 
to wireless voice services was followed by hundreds of billions of dollars of 
investment, great innovation and, of course, enormous benefits to consumers.
7In other words, we have two false choices and one real choice: Whether to stand 
with incumbents or with consumers and Internet innovators.
From this perspective, the order the Commission adopted last month can be 
understood as a calculation of risk and its distribution.  The ISPs sometimes say 
that they no longer have any intention of engaging in any of the conduct that the 
Open Internet order seeks to prevent.  Moreover, they and their allies have 
argued vociferously that there were very few incidents that could be thought of 
as violations of net neutrality.  In other words, net neutrality violations should be 
understood to be very low probability events.  The logic of their position is, why 
undertake any cost to insure against these low probability events?
The response of the FCC majority can be understood this way.  Whether or not 
they are low probability (and we were not convinced that they would be), if they 
occur, they are likely to be highly consequential.  As a result, the majority thought 
it was prudent to secure some insurance.  Let me draw an analogy.  There is a low 
probability that you’ll get in an automobile crash. But the state requires you to 
have insurance to protect the other person in case that low probability occurs.  
The same concept that applies to the Interstate applies to the Internet.  I am 
convinced we have been able to achieve this insurance at low cost for two 
reasons.  First, we have not precluded broadband providers from doing anything 
that, at least in the most recent round of pleadings, they indicated they intended 
to do. Second, through the use of forbearance authority and after-the-fact 
regulatory tools, we have minimized any direct regulatory costs that a law abiding 
ISP would incur.
At the end of the day, the job of a government agency is to make choices. The 
rules in the Open Internet Order are solidly based on the record before us. But I
also know from my real-life experience as an entrepreneur that gatekeeper power 
is real.
Once upon a time, I was part of a new pay-per-view video service. When we’d 
seek to get on a cable system the first question the cable operator would ask was 
“What’s our cut?” Access had to be purchased. 
8And years later, as a venture capitalist in the early days of mobile data, I learned 
that little had changed.  The only way a wireless carrier would let an application 
provider on its network was for a cut of the revenue. Mobile networks were a 
walled garden.  Again, access had to be purchased. 
These personal experiences get at why the Internet has been such a game-
changer, and why openness is essential. 
Let’s look ahead. We are on the verge of a new reality for video – but it won’t 
happen without Internet openness. 
Many people are unhappy with cable rates, and customers are increasingly 
frustrated and looking for alternatives.
New competition to the traditional cable bundle is being introduced like never 
before. DISH launched its $20-a-month Sling TV service last month. Sony just 
announced a streaming TV option for PlayStation owners. CBS now offers $8-a-
month streaming service. Starting next month, HBONow will be available without 
cable TV. The over-the-top mainstays, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime continue 
to grow, and Apple is expected to launch its own streaming service later this year.  
But these streaming ventures only work if the network is open.
When you sweep aside all the hypotheticals and look at the world we’re living in, 
you come back to the real choice we face. The Internet is the most powerful 
platform for innovation, commerce and free speech in human history. We can 
have a cop on the beat to enforce common sense rules of the road that ensure
Internet openness for consumers and innovators, without any retail rate 
regulation or similar rules that would hamper investment in faster networks. Or 
we can have the people who operate the networks making the rules for the 
Internet and leave decisions about blocking, throttling, and prioritizing traffic to 
them. 
Put in simpler terms: we can have an open Internet policy that advances the 
interests of tens of thousands of innovators, and millions of Internet users; or we 
can have an Open Internet policy that advances the interests of a few powerful 
companies.
9The choice is clear. And I’m proud that the Commission has made the right choice, 
adopting strong, sustainable, and sensible open Internet protections.
So what are some of the practical effects of our new Open Internet rules?
Perhaps most significantly, innovators have certainty that they will be able to get 
on the networks owned by Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and other ISPs. Openness 
without fear of pay-to-play is the key to innovation. 
Investors in Internet start-ups no longer have to worry that their capital will be 
siphoned off unfairly by the big network providers, or that the companies they are 
investing in might not be able to reach consumers. The online content-
applications-services space is where competition is possible and is thriving, and 
we now have assurance that if someone attempts to put up barriers – tolls or 
otherwise – that would harm this sector, the FCC is positioned to intervene.
One final prediction: the FCC’s new rules will be upheld by the courts. The DC 
Circuit sent the previous Open Internet Order back to us and basically said, 
“You're trying to impose common carrier-like regulation without stepping up and 
saying, ‘these are common carriers.’” We have addressed that issue, which is the 
underlying issue in all of the debates we've had so far. That gives me great 
confidence going forward that we will prevail. 
When that happens, the big winners will be America’s consumers and innovators 
and our economy as a whole.  We will finally have strong, enforceable rules that 
assure that Internet remains open now, and into the future. That is, I am 
confident, the right choice.
Thank you.