It was a mutual broadband expenditure admiration society Thursday (Oct. 18) as USTelecom released research showing increased broadband investment and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released a statement spotlighting the new figures and said they confirmed his braodband policies are working.

Both Pai and USTelecom had argued that deregulating internet access would spur such growth and that the old Title II-based common carrier reg regime had depressed it.

According to USTelecom, broadband provider capital expenditures were $76.3 billion in 2017, up $1.5 billion over $74.8 billion expenditures in 2016. The research brief is credited to U.S. Telecom VP for industry analysis Patrick Brogan.

"The 2017 increase comes after a two-year decline during which annual broadband capital expenditures fell a total of $3.2 billion, from $78.0 billion in 2014 to $74.8 billion in 2016," said Brogan in a blog about the research. "This spending dip began when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved to impose common carrier regulatory classification—commonly known as Title II—on broadband providers in 2015. Growth returned after a series of pro-investment steps taken by the FCC and Congress, including the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, the tech transition order and tax reform. While many factors are at play, the parallel shifts in policy and capex suggest that policy expectations played a role, warranting additional analysis."

The tech transition order took a different approach to migrating from copper to fiber networks, an approach less regulatory than that under the previous FCC and thus more to the liking of USTelecom. "The tax reform bill lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.