Federal Communications Commission FCC 15-24

3 A. Regul atory Flexi bili ty Anal ysis ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......... ......... ........ 577 B. Paperw ork Reducti on Act of 1995 Analy sis........ ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......... ......... ........ 578 C. Congr essio nal Revie w Act...... ......... ......... .......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... . 580 D. Data Quali ty Act ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .... 581 E. Access ible Format s ........ ......... ......... ......... .......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... . 582 IX. ORDE RING CLAUS ES......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......... ......... ........ 583 APPEND IX A – Final Ru les APPEND IX B – Final Regu latory Fle xibil ity Act Analys is

I . I N T R O D U C T I O N

1. Th e op en I nt er ne t dr iv es t he A me ri ca n ec on om y an d se rv es , ev er y da y, a s a cri ti ca l to ol for America’s citizens to conduct commerce, communicate, educate, entertain, and engage in the world around them. The benefits of an open Internet are undisputed. But it must remain open: open for commerce, innovation, and speech; open for consumers and for the innovation created by applications developers and content companies; and open for expansion and investment by America’s broadband providers. For over a decade, the Commission has b een committed to protectin g and promoting an open Internet. 2. Fo ur y ea rs a go , th e Co mm is si on a do pt ed o pe n In te rn et r ul es t o pr ot ec t an d pr om ot e th e “virtuous cycle” that drives innovation and investment on the Internet—both at the “edges” of the network, as well as in the netwo rk itself. In the years that those rules w ere in place, significant investment and groundbreaking inn ovation continued to define the broadband marketpl ace. For example, according to US Telecom, broadband providers invested $212 billion in the three years following adoption of the rules—from 2011 to 2013—more than in any three year period since 2002. 3. Li ke wi se , i nn ov at io n a t t he ed ge mo ve s f or wa rd un ab at ed . Fo r e xa mp le , 2 01 0 wa s t he first year that the majority of Netflix customers received their video content via onli ne streaming rather than via DVDs in red envelo pes. Today, Netflix sends the mos t peak downstream traffic in No rth America of any company. Other innovative serv ice providers have experien ced extraordinary growth— Etsy reports that it has grown from $314 million in merchandise sales in 2010 to $1.35 billion in merchandise sales in 2013. And, just as importantly, new kinds of innovative busin esses are busy being born. In the video space alone, in just the last s ixth months, CBS and HBO have ann ounced new plans for streaming their content free of cabl e subscriptions; DISH has launched a new package of channels that includes ESPN, and Sony is n ot far behind; and Discovery Communi cations found er John Hendricks has announced a new over-the-top service providing bandwid th-intensiv e programming. This year, Amazon took home two Golden Globes for its new series “Transparent.” 4. Th e le ss on o f th is p er io d, a nd t he o ve rw he lm in g co ns en su s on th e re co rd , is th at carefu lly- tailo red rules to protect Inter net openne ss will allow inves tment and innov atio n to conti nue to flourish. Consistent with that experience and the record built in this proceed ing, today we adopt carefully-tailored rules that would prevent specific practices we know are harmful to Internet openness— blocking, throttling , and paid prioritization—as w ell as a strong standard of co nduct designed to preven t the deployment of new practices t hat would harm Internet openn ess. We also enhance our transp arency rule to ensure that consumers are fully informed as to whether the services they purchase are delivering what they expect. 5. Car efu lly -t ail ore d rul es nee d a s tro ng leg al fou nda tio n to sur viv e and thr ive . Tod ay, we provide that foundatio n by grounding our open Intern et rules in multiple sources o f legal authority— including both section 706 of the Telecommunications Act and Title II of the Communications Act. Moreover, we concurrently exercise the Commission’s forbearance authority to forbear from app lication of 27 provisions of Title II of the Communications Act, and over 700 Commission rules and regulations. This is a Title II tailored for the 21

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