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upstart from IRC writes:

Ajit Pai promised faster broadband expansion:

2019 was the second straight year that Comcast lowered its overall cable capital expenditures (though Comcast's spending on line extensions and scalable infrastructure rose in 2018).

This wasn't supposed to happen, according to claims that ISPs and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai made in order to push through the repeal of net neutrality rules and other deregulatory measures. Pai, who just today released an 11-page list of his accomplishments as FCC chair, repeatedly argued that net neutrality rules caused broadband providers to reduce capital expenditures. After his net neutrality repeal took effect in June 2018, he claimed that the repeal and other FCC deregulation caused investment to rise.

But Comcast isn't the only major ISP cutting investment, as AT&T projects that it will reduce capital spending from $23 billion in 2019 to $20 billion in 2020. Charter Communications said in October that its capital expenditures excluding mobile services would total $7 billion in 2019, down from $8.9 billion in 2018. Verizon reported a small increase in capital expenditures in the first nine months of 2019.

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