Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is a big fan of former President Bill Clinton's approach to regulating Internet service. Pai has repeatedly said that the FCC should return to Clinton-era regulatory policy, and he claims that tomorrow's preliminary vote to reverse the classification of ISPs as "Title II" common carriers will achieve that goal.

Pai mentioned Clinton's regulatory policies five times in the speech in which he outlined his plan to deregulate broadband providers and eliminate the current net neutrality rules. Today's FCC should "embrace the light-touch approach established by President Clinton and a Republican Congress in [the Telecommunications Act of] 1996," he said. The policy set in place under Clinton "enabled the Internet to grow and evolve beyond almost anyone’s expectations," Pai said.

But returning to 1990s-era Internet regulation would require more of the Title II utility-style regulation that Pai abhors, not less. If we had 1990s and early 2000s regulatory policy, Internet providers would be forced to open their networks to companies that want to resell Internet access, potentially unleashing a wave of competition in a market where today's consumers often have no choice of high-speed broadband providers.

"Without government oversight, phone companies could have prevented dial-up Internet service providers from even connecting to customers," technology reporter Rob Pegoraro wrote in The Washington Post last week in an article titled, "The Trump administration gets the history of Internet regulations all wrong." "In the 1990s, in fact, FCC regulations more intrusive than the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules led to far more competition among early broadband providers than we have today. But Pai’s nostalgia for the ’90s doesn’t extend to reviving rules that mandated competition—instead, he’s moving to scrap regulations the FCC put in place to protect customers from the telecom conglomerates that now dominate the market."

Internet competition in the Clinton era

In 1996 and for years afterward, copper telephone wires that were regulated under Title II of the Communications Act provided the primary infrastructure for Americans to access the Internet. Dial-up Internet was initially the king, and Americans could choose from many dial-up providers that offered service over those phone lines. DSL greatly improved upon dial-up, but Americans still could choose from many providers because of a decision made by Clinton's FCC.

In November 1999, the FCC "unanimously voted to adopt new rules that will force local telephone companies to share their lines with high-speed Internet access providers," The Washington Post reported at the time.

"Line-sharing provides more choice and flexibility for the consumer, ultimately, and of course more competition in the marketplace," then-FCC Chairman William Kennard said the day of the vote. "It's another important milestone."

Because of line sharing, many companies could offer DSL Internet service over the phone lines controlled by the incumbent telephone companies. This resulted in "a choice of broadband providers that today’s users might find bizarre," Pegoraro noted. "A consumer guide that ran in The Washington Post's Sunday Business section in 2003 featured 18 DSL services available here."

The line-sharing (or "unbundling") requirements remained in place throughout the four years of President George W. Bush's first term in the White House. Finally, in August 2005, in Bush's second term, the FCC voted to eliminate the line-sharing requirements on phone providers. Bush's FCC had previously decided not to impose line-sharing requirements on cable Internet service, so the path forward was now clear: to offer Internet service to residential customers, companies generally needed to build their own infrastructure.

Today, the FCC defines broadband as speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream. The commission's latest data shows that large parts of the country lack any providers offering these speeds. One or two broadband providers in any given region is normal, while a lucky few have at least three options.

Net neutrality rules for an uncompetitive market

The FCC's new approach set in 2005 remained in place throughout the rest of the Bush presidency and through all eight years of Obama's White House. Even when the FCC reclassified all home and mobile Internet providers as Title II common carriers in 2015, the commission did not impose line-sharing requirements. Even Tom Wheeler, the most liberal FCC chairman of the past 17 years, rejected consumer broadband price caps and line-sharing mandates.

Instead, Wheeler's FCC used Title II to impose some rules that prevent today's ISPs from taking unfair advantage of their dominant market position—chiefly the net neutrality rules that forbid blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. These rules are designed to prevent ISPs from blocking or limiting access to websites and applications that compete either against the ISPs' own services or the services of companies that pay ISPs for better access to consumers.

The Title II classification used by Wheeler also prohibits "unjust" or "unreasonable" rates and practices, and "unjust or unreasonable discrimination," allowing the commission to step in on a case-by-case basis to stop any egregious abuses not covered by the net neutrality rules.

As we've previously written, net neutrality rules might not even be necessary if the dominant ISPs had to share their lines with other companies. If ISPs had to compete to offer the best service, there'd be less incentive to take actions that harm consumers or companies that can't or won't pay for greater access. Here is a list of such actions ISPs have taken over the years.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act that Pai praised also ordered the FCC to encourage competition in the Internet service market, and said the commission may use price caps and other regulatory methods to make sure that all Americans have access to advanced telecommunications capabilities. But neither Pai nor his predecessors have imposed price caps on residential Internet service, even as a shortage of competition has allowed ISPs to charge whatever they'd like with little fear that customers will stop paying.

No return to 1990s regulation

To make today's Internet service market look more like it did in the era about which Pai fondly reminisces, the FCC could impose line-sharing requirements on copper and fiber phone lines and the cable networks that now dominate the broadband market. Instead, Pai has proposed eliminating net neutrality rules and eliminating the Title II classification that could make such line sharing possible.

Yesterday, we contacted the FCC's press office to ask if Pai believes the line-sharing requirements from the Clinton era helped create the large amount of ISP competition that Americans enjoyed in those years. And since Pai believes 1990s-era regulation was a smashing success, we asked if the FCC will consider a return to line-sharing requirements. We haven't gotten a response yet.

A Pai spokesperson did talk to Pegoraro of the Post, arguing that dial-up providers and DSL resellers did not face utility regulations. The spokesperson "says what Pai praises about that era was that Internet providers weren’t stuck under Title II rules, even if the phone companies were," Pegoraro wrote. "'Dial-up ISP service was Title I, delivered over the Title II phone line,' the spokesman said."

That quote suggests that Pai would support strict utility regulation of the companies that build the networks and lighter-touch regulation of companies that offer Internet services over those networks via line-sharing agreements. That would require an increase in regulation.

But in reality, Pai has proposed only the elimination of regulations. Tomorrow, Pai's Republican majority is expected to approve a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would overturn the Title II classification and eliminate or replace the net neutrality rules. A final vote, after public comment, would occur in the second half of this year.

After that process, Americans will be left with roughly the same amount of broadband choice they have today and fewer regulations that ensure access to the whole Internet and prevent ISPs from abusing their dominant market positions.