Ajit Pai says net neutrality was the top threat to broadband deployment

Enlarge / Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai arrives for his confirmation hearing with the Senate Commerce Committee on July 19, 2017 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla )

Net neutrality is the number-one reason many rural Americans still lack broadband access-at least, that's what Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai says.

In a speech to the American Cable Association (ACA) today, Pai said that "closing the digital divide is the FCC's top policy priority" and that nothing impeded that goal more than net neutrality rules.

The ACA is a lobby group for small- and medium-sized cable companies and was one of Pai's major supporters in the December 2017 vote to repeal net neutrality rules.

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