Pai, Clyburn Differ on Open Internet Comment Emphasis; Day of Action Sparring Continues

FCC commissioners diverged on how to assess open internet public comments, and outside parties continued to disagree on the significance of Wednesday's net neutrality Day of Action (DOA) (see 1707120017). Chairman Ajit Pai said the agency will review all comments in the record and make a decision based on the law and other facts. The raw number of comments isn't as important as the substantive ones, he said at Thursday's news conference after the commission meeting. He declined to provide a timetable for action and said he didn't have any DOA conversations with participants. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said it would be "short-sighted" and "problematic" to ignore or discount individuals' comments. Docket 17-108 had 493,462 filings by late Thursday, bringing the cumulative total to 7,382,933 (after 797,577 were posted Wednesday, and over 400,000 both Monday and Tuesday). Pai said the agency's electronic comment filing system seemed to be holding up despite the crush of comments. Demand Progress, a DOA organizer, called the protest against FCC-proposed rollback of Title II net neutrality regulation a "historic day" that "broke records." It said Thursday that DOA sparked at least 2 million comments to the FCC (some of them apparently not yet posted) and over 5 million emails and phone calls to Congress, with "tens of millions" of people seeing protest messages online. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said his office joined the DOA "to sound the alarm about the FCC's attack on net neutrality" and ask for people's support. But FreedomWorks said: "The response, largely from companies greatly benefiting from so-called net neutrality, was unimpressive. The fundamental problem with their message is that it is laughable. The average user's Internet experience today is no different than in 2014. ... Net neutrality is a solution without a problem." NCTA CEO Michael Powell said in a piece also distributed on Medium, which took part in DOA, "the duplicity of big tech’s call to action is revealed by asking are they willing to subject themselves to government regulation to ensure the internet is neutral rather than skewed in favor of their pocketbooks." The Phoenix Center said broadband and telecom capital spending "is down significantly in 2016." Incompas unveiled a poll saying Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump back current net neutrality protections by a 3 to 1 margin.