Trump hires two net neutrality opponents to oversee FCC transition

President-elect starts building team that might reverse regulation of ISPs.

President-elect Donald Trump has appointed two outspoken opponents of net neutrality rules to oversee the Federal Communications Commission's transition from Democratic to Republican control.

The appointees announced yesterday are Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison. Eisenach is director of the Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), while Jamison is a visiting fellow at the same institution. Eisenach previously worked on behalf of Verizon and other telecoms as a consultant, and Jamison used to manage regulatory policy at Sprint.

Eisenach and Jamison aren't necessarily candidates for FCC chairman, but they will help set the commission's direction and could help Trump choose FCC leadership. Their views on net neutrality match those of Trump, who opposed the net neutrality rules passed under current Chairman Tom Wheeler. Those rules prohibit ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet traffic or giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment.

Jamison recently described net neutrality rules as "economics-free regulations for the Internet," saying that such rules should only be adopted "if there is actual evidence of monopoly."

"Net neutrality in the US is backfiring," Jamison wrote. "There are two basic reasons for the failure. One is that net neutrality policy has lost its focus and is now a growing miscellany of ex ante regulations that frequently work against the entrepreneurs and consumers the rules are intended to help. The second reason is that the net neutrality mindset is locked into a fading paradigm in which networks are distinct from computing and content. Facebook, Netflix, and Google are investing in customized networks and, in doing so, demonstrating that next-generation breakthroughs will leap beyond the old mindset."

Jamison also opposed Wheeler's proposal to free consumers from renting set-top boxes by requiring cable companies to make video applications for third-party devices.

Eisenach testified against net neutrality rules in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in September 2014, before the FCC passed its regulations. "Net neutrality regulation cannot be justified on grounds of enhancing consumer welfare or protecting the public interest," Eisenach said. "Rather, it is best understood as an effort by one set of private interests to enrich itself by using the power of the state to obtain free services from another—a classic example of what economists term 'rent seeking.'"

Concerns about ISPs using market power to harm competitors or consumers are best addressed through existing antitrust and consumer protection laws, he argued.

Eisenach made FCC submissions on behalf of Verizon as recently as 2013 but said this month that he's no longer working for Verizon. "[T]he facts are: [I'm] Not a lobbyist; not consulting for Verizon; no consulting business before the FCC at all," Eisenach tweeted.

In addition to their AEI roles, Eisenach is a managing director at NERA Economic Consulting while Jamison is a professor and director of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida. While Jamison wasn't previously linked to the Trump transition, Eisenach's appointment is no surprise, as he was advising Trump during the presidential election.

Trump vowed during his campaign to oppose AT&T's purchase of Time Warner, the owner of CNN and HBO, but his appointments of Eisenach and Jamison may be good news for AT&T. A Recode article notes that both Eisenach and Jamison supported AT&T's attempted purchase of T-Mobile USA in 2011, even though the FCC's Democratic leadership blocked the deal.