Outgoing FCC Boss Reminds Trump Supporters That Net Neutrality Is Good For Them, Too
from the burning-your-own-house-down dept
We've repeatedly noted how the idea of a healthy and open internet, free from the meddling of incumbent giants like Comcast, is a good thing. We've also noted that until we bring some real competition to bear on the broadband sector, the FCC's inconsistent protection is about the only thing separating you from a hearty "servicing" from Comcast corporation (whether that's usage caps or abysmal service). As such, the nation's net neutrality rules (which are really quite basic and if anything didn't go far enough) have broad, bipartisan support, and holding Comcast accountable is a bipartisan, very popular idea.
And while Trump's Presidential campaign endlessly promised Trump would focus on bringing power back to the people, Trump's new FCC boss Ajit Pai -- a former Verizon lawyer -- effectively represents the complete opposite of that. He's yet to seriously stand up to Comcast or any other ISP, adores media consolidation, wants to kill net neutrality, is incapable of admitting the broadband market lacks competition, and has promised to dismantle the FCC's consumer watchdog functions solely at AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter's behest.
On his way out of office, former FCC boss Tom Wheeler had a message for Trump supporters: you need net neutrality protections and healthy broadband competition too.
"The Trump administration campaigned that they are the voice of the forgotten," Wheeler said in a phone interview with Ars yesterday. "Well you know, the half-dozen major carriers [lobbying against FCC regulations] are hardly forgotten."
The people who are forgotten are the "two-thirds of consumers in America who have one or fewer broadband choices," Wheeler said. "Where are those choices most limited? In the areas where Donald Trump got the strongest response, in rural areas, outside of major cities. If indeed this is an administration that is speaking for those that feel disenfranchised, that representation has to start with saying, 'we need to make sure you have a fast, fair, and open Internet because otherwise you will not be able to connect to the 21st century.'"
In many of these states, convincing people to vote against their own best interests has become an art form. Like in Tennessee, where Representative Marsha Blackburn has allowed companies like Comcast to write horrible laws protecting giant corporations from public accountability (the end result for the consumer should be obvious). Again: improving broadband networks shouldn't be partisan. Ensuring that these networks remain healthy and open shouldn't be partisan. Keeping Comcast from destroying level competitive playing fields should not be partisan. Yet here we are.
For his part, Wheeler responded to indications that the incoming administration intends to kill net neutrality and neuter the FCC with sadness and alarm:
"I think it would be tragic," Wheeler said of taking away the FCC's competition and consumer protection authority. "This is tragic for the American consumer and the competitive marketplace."
"We’re talking about a handful of companies who are lobbying for their own self-interest, and trying to say to the new commission, 'you need to listen to us, not to consumers, not to a competitive marketplace, not to those who could be affected by a network where we act as gatekeepers,'" Wheeler said. "And if they are successful, that will put in jeopardy tens of thousands of other companies that rely on open networks and millions of consumers."
Historically, most FCC bosses paid empty lip service to the competition problem in the broadband sector. Many, like former FCC boss turned top cable lobbyist Michael Powell, went comically out of their way to pretend the market was perfectly healthy. While his solutions were sometimes imperfect, Wheeler was at least capable of admitting that the core issue in the telecom sector is a lack of competition. A lack of competition not only in the last mile, but in the very cable boxes and closed hardware at the heart of the industry's control.
In contrast, Pai's entire platform rests on the idea that the real problem in the broadband sector is that government has been too hard on companies like Comcast and AT&T, and that these companies need less oversight than ever before. Of course, that kind of thinking is what helped create the Comcast and the pricey, annoying broadband and cable sector most consumers know and love today. Believing that dismantling the only government agency to stand up to Comcast this decade is going to somehow fix everything is precisely the kind of thinking that gave us Comcast in the first place.
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Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, net neutrality, tom wheeler
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Balderdash
Believing that dismantling the only government agency to stand up to Comcast this decade is going to somehow fix everything is precisely the kind of thinking that gave us Comcast in the first place.
Nonsense, everyone knows that the only reason Comcast and the other companies do everything in their power to hose over their customers and provide the worst service for the highest price they think they can get away with is because of those horribly burdensome rules put forth by the FCC.
If they didn't have a government agency breathing down their neck and putting forth such absurdities like 'You need to treat all traffic the same and not give preferential treatment to some over others for purely profit-driven reasons' and 'You need to tell customers what info you're gathering and selling and make it so that they opt-in to such collection rather than jumping through dozens of hoops in an attempt to opt-out' I have no doubt whatsoever that they would bend over backwards to offer the most amazing service possible for the least amount of money, purely out of the goodness of their hearts.
If people mistakenly think that Comcast and similar companies are to blame for the absolutely atrocious service they offer then I can only shake my head in disbelief, as they have been horribly mislead by the fiend in the FCC that is thankfully getting the boot, a fiend who even now continues to insist that such paragons of generosity and selflessness such as Comcast, Comcast of all companies, is somehow to blame for the reputation they have earned with the public.
I've no doubt that with such a sterling individual and champion of the public such as Ajit Pai at the helm the toxic rules will shortly be no more, and the likes of Comcast will finally be able to give the public the service they have been held back from delivering for so long.
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Re: Balderdash
You really think that Comcast only just recently started providing horrible customer support and raising rates faster than the Cost of Living Index? You really think it's only to spite Wheeler and his attempts to provide fair Internet access for consumers and business?
I want some of the drugs you're taking, dude. They must really take you on a hallucinogenic trip more powerful than LSD.
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Yours truly,
Friendly Troll
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On a side note
#MAGA
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Re: On a side note
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Re: On a side note
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_executive_orders
(Yes, I know it's Wiki, but it's sourced and shows Obama having issued 89 less EOs than Clinton did).
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Re: Re: On a side note
The way the EO's have been used have no constitutional underpinning.
EO's are essentially how the POTUS tells his admin to freaking work and do their jobs not write actual law. EO's should naturally expire at the end of each admin, unless Congress adopts them and makes them into actual law.
But hey, its not like this is the first time that branches of government have self appointed more power than they were given by the Constitutional toilet paper they wipe their asses with.
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Re: Re: Re: On a side note
Well, I'm not trying to fight, I'm just asking for evidence in a subject that's rife with misinformation. When this subject comes up, it tends to be characterised as if Obama just passed through whatever he wanted with EOs without having to go through the normal democratic process. The evidence seems to show that if anything, he held off using them as a tool to bypass a totally hostile congress, even when some would argue it would have been correct to do so.
Now, I'm more than ready to admit I'm no expert in this area and I sometimes find I learn more from discussing a well researched citation than I do from independent research. But, given that the first AC was basically saying "Trump's using EOs immediately because your guy did it", citations are needed. It's childish enough to be saying "you made me do it". It's worse when the reason for doing that is a fiction to begin with.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
I don't like bamy or trump, but I am not about to join a specific side on EO issues because all sides are wrong about it. Obama is not the first president to overstep their boundaries and I am certain Trump will be the same.
I am pissed off more about congress letting them just skirt the system. This is a republic and unless there is a war the legislative branch has the most power. It needs to do its damn job, not farm it out to the President.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
But we now find ourselves in a perpetual state of "war".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
The pseudo war is is just that, a gimmick by the government to terrorize its citizens so they will willingly give up more liberty. That is the only end game, it is the ETERNAL end game for governments. Power Grab, it will never stop attempting that play... EVER!!!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
Well, there we go. How did he do that? The issues I have heard before tend to be either because there were "too many" (so demonstrably not a problem with Obama specifically) or that the person disliked the subject of the EO (which can be highly subjective).
So, before any common ground can be located, we need to know what the boundaries for your claim are. Which is what i was getting at - I suspect the OP was someone who fell for the "Obama passed so many" lie.
On congress doing its job, I definitely agree. But, that's something that should be done regardless of who is in the big chair. So, singling out Trump or Obama is counter to what you claim to want.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
where did I single either of them out? Are you confusing something? Or did you just fire off in half cocked mode? I misread things myself sometimes and do that same but it always needs to be called out, when it occurs.
Get with the program!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
Do humanity a favor and learn something before you open your mouth (or type) next time!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
That would be just about everything.
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Re: Re: Re: On a side note
When Obama said, "I don't need congress to act, I have a pen and a phone," that was an example of the dangerous authoritarianism that Democrats cry so much about under Trump (before he even took office!) that they completely ignored under Obama.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
You are right, it is interesting that NOW people are up in arms over EO with Trump but seemed to care little when Obama was going crazy with them.
The real problem is that the EO's are being used this way while congress does shit about it. This is one of those examples of how stupid and ignorant Americans and members of Government are. The rules are in plain fucking English, but no one cares to go and read them and fewer still care to even try to understand them.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: On a side note
And get your information from a more reliable source than right wing nut sites.
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Re: Re: Re: On a side note
This type of fighting really gets us no where.
Bull shit. I for one refuse to sit by while marginally retarded fucksticks rewrite history to support whatever goes along with their agenda.
Retards like to OP need to come to terms with the fact that we can actually count and measure things. And he is NOT entitled to his own facts because he refuses to accept the truth.
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Re: Re: On a side note
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Re: On a side note
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Re: Re: On a side note
LOL. 14. He signed 14 more.
Oh and BTW:
Than... it's than Obama.
http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/number-of-executive-orders-per-president/
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Re: Re: Re: On a side note
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Re: On a side note
As someone said, c'mon m8, no more excuses. You got everything you need to implement all the policies you want and show us why they're good.
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Re: On a side note
So instead, I'm just going to tell you to shut up.
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Suckers
Stupid suckers.
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Re: Suckers
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Re: Re: Suckers
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"bringing power back to the people"
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Re:
Given enough time, Trump will become a leftist liberal and Ajit Pai a socialist.
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Given enough time, Trump will be replaced by a leftist liberal and Ajit Pai a socialist.
FTFY
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My money is on panicked reform and New Deal 2.0.
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The description by the Declaration of Independence.
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
And the prophesy by... George Washington in his farewell address.
"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."
I see no discouragement or restraint. I see instead both sides chomping at the bit to waylay the other in a fit of blissful ignorance and worse... hypocrisy!
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Re:
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And there's the problem. If these voters are allowed to become compatible with modern society, then they wouldn't vote Republican anymore.
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Should the be forced to get enough connectivity to support other peoples high bandwidth business models?
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To whom?
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