The Burden of Network Neutrality Mandates on Rural Broadband Deployment

The purpose of this Policy Paper is to examine empirically the relative impact that a regulatory mandate like network neutrality would have on high-cost areas and to compare that relative burden to lower-cost urban areas. We find areas that are, on average, high-cost could be disproportionately affected by imposition of these mandates, even if the cost of complying with that mandate does not vary by geography. Using publicly available network cost models and data, we show that under plausible conditions, while network neutrality mandates negatively impact broadband deployment in all geographic areas regardless of average cost characteristics, such rules could disproportionately impact broadband deployment in high-cost areas. Moreover, our analysis that suggests the differential reduction in service availability for high-cost rural areas is six times as much as in lower cost, more urbanized markets