Ending net neutrality rules will not result in higher costs or lack of service for consumers, but instead will return control of the Internet back to engineers and entrepreneurs, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday.
"All we are simply doing is putting engineers and entrepreneurs back in charge of the Internet," Pai told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" co-host Steve Doocy. "What we want to do is return to the free-market consensus that started in the Clinton administration and served the economy in America for many years."
Net neutrality rules were imposed in 2015, Pai said, and were "inspired by 1930s Great Depression era regulations."
Pai announced Tuesday the FCC will vote to end the net neutrality rules Dec. 14. He said in a statement that under his proposal, the FCC will "simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that's best for them, and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can have the technical information they need to innovate."
The plan will remove rules imposed under President Barack Obama's administration that bar Internet service providers from blocking or slowing web traffic or creating paid "fast lanes" for certain tiers of service.
Pai is to release his full plan at some point Wednesday to give Americans three weeks to review it before the FCC votes on it Dec. 14. He also called claims from critics that say the new rules will allow companies to charge people more money for service that is now on an equal access basis for all users a "false fear."
"That's not the Internet economy we had from 1996 until 2015 when these rules were imposed," Pai told Doocy. "There was nothing broken about the Internet before 2015. And going forward, if a company acted in any competitive way, the Federal Trade Commission is expressly empowered to protect competition and consumers."
Pai added many critics "completely ignore" the fact the Internet was "free and open" before the Obama-era rules started, and there was a bipartisan consensus on the Internet that started with President Bill Clinton and lasted for two administrations before being stopped.
In addition, critics of the plan "greatly overstate the fears about what the internet will look like going forward," Pai said.
"I think they also ignore that we need much more investment in networks and infrastructure to get these businesses to take the risks, to build these networks, especially in rural and low income America," he told Doocy. "You need to have light touch market based regulations, not micromanagement from Washington, D.C."
The net neutrality rules also make it difficult for network operators to operate, and some have gone on to invest in other industries and especially overseas.
"To the extent of the rules here in the United States make it more difficult to build a business case for investing in networks, the less likely we will see investment in these networks," Pai said. "It leaves folks on the wrong side of the digital divide even worse off."