ISPs Lobbying California Lawmakers In Bid To Weaken State's Looming Net Neutrality Law
from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed... dept
More than half the states in the nation now pursuing individual net neutrality rules, either in the form of executive orders (banning state contracts with net-neutrality violating ISPs) or new state laws. And while ISPs have been whining about the unfairness of having to adhere to independent requirements in each state, that's probably something their lobbyists should have thought more deeply about when they worked to kill what, despite all the prattle about heavy-handed regulation, were probably some of the more modest net neutrality rules worldwide.
ISPs first tried to stop states from protecting consumers by lobbying the FCC to include language in its "Restoring Internet Freedom" repeal attempting to ban states from doing so. But in the process of gutting their authority over ISPs Ajit Pai's FCC may have also, amusingly, completely neutered its ability to tell states what to do.
As such, ISP lobbyists have been forced to run, state to state, trying to convince state lawmakers that giving consumers, small businesses and internet competition a giant middle finger is the smart political play here with midterms looming. Verizon, AT&T and Comcast are working extra hard to weaken a bill in California, that is actually a bit tougher than the FCC rules it's intended to replace. As the EFF notes, ISPs are particularly worried that California will ban "zero rating," or the practice of using usage caps and overage fees anti-competitively:
"California’s legislature has so far opted to ban discriminatory users of zero rating and prevent the major wireless players from picking winners and losers online. But new and increased resistance by the ISP lobby (led by AT&T and their representative organization CALinnovates) unfortunately has legislators contemplating whether discriminatory zero rating practices should remain lawful despite their harms for low-income Internet users. In fact, AT&T and their representatives are even going so far as to argue that their discriminatory self-dealing practices that violate net neutrality are actually good for low income Internet users.
AT&T (and even Facebook) have been pushing this idea that zero rating "helps poor people" for a while. Basically, they're trying to argue that because some users get content that doesn't count against the cap, they're somehow providing added value to low-income Americans. Of course that ignores the fact that it's only an incumbent ISP's own content (or content from the biggest, wealthiest partners) that's usually exempt, raising all kinds of anti-competitive questions.
You'd also have to ignore than American consumers pay more money for LTE mobile data than a laundry list of developed nations, and that usage caps and overage fees on these lines are arbitrary, unnecessary and meaningless constructs in the first place. Still, AT&T has spent a few years now trying to falsely conflate arbitrary caps and penalties with things like "1-800" numbers or "free shipping," successfully convincing many consumers they're getting something for free.
You'll recall that initially, the FCC didn't want to act on usage caps, overage fees and zero rating for fear of being accused of stifling carrier innovation and creativity. As a result, the 2015 rules were crafted with pretty ambiguous guidance on zero rating, something we warned would be a problem. Only at the tail end of its tenure did the Wheeler FCC start to realize caps and overage fees were being used anti-competitively to favor an ISPs' content over smaller competitors, at which point Donald Trump and Ajit Pai had already come to power--and quickly set to purging the rules entirely. You know, for freedom.
California's net neutrality law doesn't ban zero rating if an ISP wants to exempt an entire class of content (say, video) from usage caps and overage fees. But it does prohibit ISPs from striking deals that give specific companies cap-exempt status, preventing companies from buying an unfair advantage for themselves or a competitor. Given AT&T just gobbled up Time Warner and HBO with zero rating specifically in mind (HBO is free on our network but costs money if you use a competitor), you can understand why AT&T's so opposed to these rules.
This all comes to a head this Wednesday with a vote and hearing before the California Assembly’s Communications and Conveyance Committee. And while the majority of that committee say they support net neutrality, net neutrality activists say that major ISP lobbyists have succeeded in getting some lawmakers (like Committee head Miguel Santiago) to waffle on the whole zero rating part of the equation. After all, nothing quite says "restoring freedom" like letting AT&T give its own horse a half-mile lead in the streaming video wars to come.
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Filed Under: broadband, california, competition, lobbying, net neutrality
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon
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You are mixing up things.
It does help poor people. Beggars can't be choosers, and they get their choice pre-made. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch of course, and the "free" channels recoup their costs by excessive advertising and by placing proxy servers near the end points. The ads drives less poor people off to metered offers which incidentally have become more expensive since the quotas have been down-adjusted because of the available "zero rated" choices.
So yes: this does give less expensive options to poor choices while jacking up the prices for everyone else and/or reducing options.
The clincher is that the telcom companies get to advertise the rates for the paupers' Internet as their regular rates. Which looks good on paper but means that your monthly bills will be way above what you've been led to expect from the advertised rates.
Posterchild marketing. Doing good for your image and not all that much beyond. But undeniably some.
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Re: You are mixing up things.
What you're missing, or at least not pointing out, is that it only "helps" by taking away part of a "hurt" (the caps) that the ISPs themselves inflicted - and continue to inflict, everywhere outside of the scope of the limited exemptions they deign to offer.
It's technically within the bounds of the meaning of the term to describe that as "helping", but it's not nearly as simple a positive thing as just that term alone would make it sound.
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Which also means, citizens no longer have a voice because these monopolies are now government "blessed" and now that these businesses no longer need to actually compete for customers they can all gouge customers in their little carved up fiefdoms.
Yes, Pai is doing well as the industries dicklick, but it is shortsighted to no also bring up the fact that it was all made possible by the Pro NN crowd and the real shame is that they don't even understand how they are the builders and architects of their own demise.
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This is one area where the "property" should become "public". We did it with Water, and we did it with Roads... time for the poles and wires to get the same treatment...
O wait, I forgot you actually WANT the monopolies while also saying monopolies are bad and business is bad, but give businesses their monopolies because we can then use it as an excuse to build bigger government to control them.
Someone ran up on your porch stole your logic and replaced it with a bag full of shit and lit it on fire and then rang your fucking bell!
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And public ownership is the ONLY way to handle natural monopolies.
"I am getting better than 3MB, that is bytes, over ISDN at 3 miles out from the nearest roadside cabinet, and it is unlimited with no below the line charges."
What? We are talking about monopoly and regulation, not bandwidth speeds, technology, or distances here.
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1-800 numbers
That's interesting, because according to AT&T:
See also this official PDF: "Place calls with your GoPhone Pay As You Go service while within your coverage area to: ... • Toll-free numbers (airtime charges apply)".
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Re: 1-800 numbers
Do as we say, not as we do... we are the Corporations, you are the sheeple, all your base are belong to us
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Politics gets paid..
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It appears to have worked, at least temporarily.
Democratic lawmaker attempts to gut California net neutrality bill
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“The amendments that this committee imposed... are extreme amendments and gut the bill, and that’s why I couldn’t accept that,” Sen. Wiener said. “We all want a strong net neutrality bill going forward.”
Well no, clearly all of them do not, some of them want ISP money more and were willing to screw over everyone else to get it.
Reading that article it would seem that Assemblyman Miguel Santiago(among others I imagine, but he's the only one named) sold out, and sold out big, so if you happen to live in california and he's in your voting area might be a good idea to let him know that he's welcome to work for AT&T(one of his top donors) directly, because you'll be doing what you can to make sure he's not employed by the public come next election.
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