FCC Boss Under Fire For Facts-Optional Attack On Low-Income Broadband Programs

from the science-schmience dept

For a while now, we've noted how FCC boss Ajit Pai professes to be some kind of a hero to the poor, despite the fact that his policies are quickly making broadband and TV services more expensive for Americans. His extremely unpopular net neutrality repeal, for example, will only wind up driving up costs for consumers as entrenched ISPs jack up costs for competitors and consumers alike. And when Pai wasn't busy killing net neutrality, he was busy killing efforts to make cable boxes more competitive and affordable, or making it easier for prison phone monopolies to rip off inmate families via absurdly over-priced services.

Pai has also been taking aim at a government program dubbed Lifeline, which makes expensive American telecom services slightly less expensive for poor families. The program, started under Reagan and expanded under Bush Jr., simply gives low-income homes a $9.25 credit they can use for home phone, broadband, or wireless service (they have to pick one). Traditionally, this program has had pretty broad, bipartisan support, and is uniformly seen as pretty much the least the government can do to help those struggling to make ends meet.

But Pai's attack on Lifeline has come via death by a thousand cuts, and is starting to alarm folks that actually try to help poor people for a living. Most recently, Pai tabled a proposal that would declare that smaller wireless MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators, like Boost or Virgin Mobile) could no longer participate in Lifeline. While Pai has claimed that these changes will somehow magically boost broadband deployment, he hasn't been able to offer the slightest shred of data to support that contention.

Even Pai allies like Verizon, who didn't even ask for this deregulation favor, have stated that Pai's changes won't do what he claims and will harm the poor. It's pretty strange to see an instance of deregulation pushed through that the industry itself didn't push for, just as it's strange to see Verizon and consumer advocates agreeing on something.

That said, a group of 10 Senators including Ron Wyden wrote Pai last week expressing concern that Pai's actions are in stark contrast to his breathless support of closing the digital divide:

"Your proposal impacts over 70 percent of current Lifeline-recipient households by eliminating their wireless providers from the program, leaving less affordable and fewer Lifeline options, while making it more difficult for the companies trying to serve Lifeline customers," Senate Democrats wrote in the letter to Pai yesterday. "Instead of cutting the program, we should ensure Lifeline reaches more Americans in need of access to communication services."

The Senators were also quick to point out that the FCC offered no hard evidence to support its claim that reducing participation in the program will somehow expand broadband availability:

"The December 1, 2017, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) provides no evidence, analysis, or data to support its assumption that the FCC’s proposed changes to Lifeline will spur facilities-based broadband deployment and additional affordable services for low-income families. Provide any specific data, analysis, academic studies, economic reports, etc. that you relied on to support this assumption. Explain why the NPRM included no evidence or data to support this assumption."

The FCC has yet to vote on this proposal (the public comment period ended last week), but is likely to in the coming months. Hopefully Pai shows a little more flexibility than he did during his attack on net neutrality when he not only used debunked lobbyist data to justify his positions, but directed journalists to telecom lobbying organizations if they had questions. That said, if Pai has made anything clear, it's that he's on an ideological crusade that's not only viciously unpopular, but isn't likely to have its trajectory altered by pesky things like the welfare of the public, or, say... facts.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, fcc, lifeline, low income, ron wyden

Telecom Lobbyists: We'll Fight State Efforts To Protect Net Neutrality For A 'United And Connected Future'

from the we're-the-phone-company-and-we're-here-to-help! dept

Since the FCC rushed to give telecom monopolies a sloppy kiss with its net neutrality repeal late last year, more than half the states in the country are now pursuing their own net neutrality rules. Some states (most recently Washington and Oregon) have already passed legislation that effectively takes the FCC rules and encodes them on the State level (in some cases with a few improvements). Other states have signed executive orders that prohibit states from doing business with or subsidizing ISPs that engage in anti-competitive behavior.

With the FCC's repeal on shaky legal ground and states now passing even tougher net neutrality rules, ISP lobbyists have truly begun reaping what they've sown. And it's becoming increasingly clear they're both annoyed and nervous as the true scale of their poor judgement comes into view.

For example, US Telecom, a top lobbying arm of the telecom sector (primarily funded and operated by AT&T), this week penned this blog post making it clear that major ISPs would fight tooth and nail against state efforts to (gasp) actually protect consumers from predatory telecom monopolies:

"It is said that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ Nowhere can we find a more perfect modern example for this sentiment than in the cacophony of disparate calls by state and local regulators across the country each seeking to impose their own brand of ‘net neutrality’ regulations on consumers’ internet experience."

Right. State level net neutrality protections that wouldn't exist if AT&T and USTelecom hadn't sued to overturn meaningful rules (both in 2010 and again in 2015), then prodded revolving door regulator Ajit Pai to repeal the FCC's extremely popular, modest and consistent federal protections. From here USTelecom makes its real agenda clear: reiterating the call for fake net neutrality laws it knows its member companies would get to write:

"Broadband providers have worked hard over the past 20 years to deploy ever more sophisticated, faster and higher-capacity networks, and uphold net neutrality protections for all. To continue this important work, there is no question we will aggressively challenge state or municipal attempts to fracture the federal regulatory structure that made all this progress possible.

We also will continue to work with Congress to enact one consistent set of national and permanent consumer protections. All Americans deserve equal rights online. Standing up for them means not merely saying no to state-level regulation, but hell no to the idea of dismantling what must be a united and connected future."

It takes an over-abundance of hubris to lobby and "donate" to government to kill extremely popular, uniform and modest consumer protections, then lecture people on the need for a "united and connected future."

US Telecom's blog post only really serves two purposes. One, telecom lobbyists are signaling they'll fight any state that actually tries to protect consumers from anti-competitive behavior by telecom monopolies (a "united and connected future" indeed). But while the FCC included language in their net neutrality repeal attempting to ban states from protecting consumers from privacy or net neutrality violations (at telecom lobbyist behest), the repeal they lobbied for leaves the FCC with shaky legal authority on that front (nice work, guys).

Two, they're again pushing for a fake net neutrality law they'll get to write. One that contains so many loopholes as to be useless when it comes to actually protecting consumers, but would pre-empt tougher state-level measures, and even the 2015 FCC rules should the FCC lose in court.

The more worried the telecom sector becomes about this whole thing blowing up in their faces, the harder you'll see them push for a new law they'll write that will only make the whole thing worse. For now if you support net neutrality, your best path forward remains hoping that the FCC loses in court, and if not, voting out lawmakers that prioritize AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Charter revenues over the will of the public and the health of the internet.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, net neutrality, states rights
Companies: at&t, us telecom

Senators Say The FCC's Broadband Maps are a Bad Joke

from the hide-a-problem-so-you-don't-have-to-fix-it dept

We've noted for some time how the broadband industry fights tooth and nail against more accurate broadband availability mapping, since having a better understanding of the broadband industry's competition problem might just result in somebody actually doing something about it. This dysfunction and apathy was most recently illustrated with the FCC's recent release of an "updated" broadband availability map, which all but hallucinates competition, speeds, and overall availability. This map (available here) also omits pricing data at industry behest, resulting in a $300 million pair of rose-colored glasses.

But it's not just the FCC's broadband availability map that's under fire. FCC maps that determine which area get wireless subsidies (more specifically Mobility Fund Phase II (MF II) funding) are also a bad joke for many of the same reasons. As such, a group of Senators from both parties fired off a letter to the FCC last week, politely pointing out how the FCC's new wireless coverage map dramatically overstates the availability of wireless broadband service:

"We write this letter to express our serious concerns that the map released by the Federal Communications Commission last week showing presumptive eligible areas for Mobility Fund Phase II (MF II) support may not be an accurate depiction of areas in need of universal service support. We understand that the map was developed based on a preliminary assessment from a one-time data collection effort that will be verified through a challenge process. However, we are concerned that the map misrepresents the existence of 4G LTE services in many areas. As a result, the Commission’s proposed challenge process may not be robust enough to adequately address the shortcomings in the Commission’s assessment of geographic areas in need of support for this proceeding."

When you're crafting telecom policy, actually understanding the "reality on the ground" is arguably important. But if you can twist, manipulate, and distort the data to indicate the industry doesn't have any real problems, you can justify the kind of head-in-sand approach to leadership that birthed the telecom industry's dysfunction in the first place. In this case, the MF II is intended to provide $4.53 billion in support over 10 years to preserve and expand mobile coverage to rural areas, something that won't actually happen if maps aren't correctly illustrating which areas need help and which areas don't.

The Senators were quick to point this out in their letter to Ajit Pai, who has repeatedly and breathlessly professed his dedication to closing the digital divide, even while the lion's share of his policies work to make these problems inherently worse:

"For too long, millions of rural Americans have been living without consistent and reliable mobile broadband service. Identifying rural areas as not eligible for support will exacerbate the digital divide, denying fundamental economic opportunities to these rural communities. We strongly urge the Commission to accurately and consistently identify areas that do not have unsubsidized 4G LTE service and provide Congress with an update on final eligible areas before auctioning $4.53 billion of MF II support."

Some lawmakers, like New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan, have taken to begging for public input on their websites in the hopes of getting a more accurate picture of real-world coverage. Some, like Kansas Senator Jerry Moran say the FCC map's “value is nil," while Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker stated the FCC's map was "utterly worthless of giving us good information." That's not particularly impressive for an FCC that has been crowing about how data driven it is, but it's the price of supporting revolving door regulators who prioritize monopoly revenues over science, competition, innovation or the welfare of the public.

And while the telecom industry will be quick to insist that this is just the inherent dysfunction of government at play, the reality that this is a feature, not a bug. ISPs have routinely fought tooth and nail against every and any attempt to build better maps, fearing that a more accurate picture will only result in efforts to not only (gasp) improve competition, but might result in the subsidizing of smaller competitors that could disrupt the comfortable (but very, very broken) telecom sector status quo.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, broadband map, competition, fcc

California Introduces New, Tougher Net Neutrality Rules; Uses Ajit Pai's Abdication Of Authority Against The FCC

from the reap-what-you-sow dept

Earlier this year, California introduced new net neutrality legislation as part of similar efforts across more than half the states in the nation. At the time, we noted how the EFF wasn't a particular fan of California's proposal, arguing that the wording of the effort left the law open to challenges by the FCC, which has (at AT&T and Comcast behest) promised to block states that actually try to protect consumers in the wake of its unpopular net neutrality repeal. But a new California proposal has no such Achilles heel, goes notably further than the first effort, and now has the EFF's full support.

California state senator Scott Wiener this week introduced SB 822, a much tougher, more comprehensive proposal that would prohibit not only the blocking and throttling of websites and services by ISPs, but would ban "paid prioritization" deals that would allow deep-pocketed content companies (like, say, ESPN) from buying an unfair advantage against smaller competitors and startups. The bill also takes aim at the kind of interconnection shenanigans and double dipping that resulted in Netflix performance issues back in 2014, while leaving the door open to reasonable network management practices.

In some ways the proposal goes a bit further than the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules, in that it more concretely addresses the problem of "zero rating" ( when ISPs let a partner's content or their own bypass usage caps while still penalizing others). Zero rating in general is allowed, but only if entire classes of content are whitelisted. Individual efforts to whitelist only specific partners (as we saw with T-Moble's controversial "Binge On" efforts), would be forbidden, as would pay to play approaches where content companies are allowed to buy a zero rating advantage over a competitor:

"Wiener’s bill digs into more arcane matters that the Obama-era FCC’s now-abolished 2015 policy included. It tackles the “zero-rating” programs, such as T-Mobile’s Binge On, which exempt some sites, apps, and services from monthly data caps. Obama’s FCC allowed Binge On, since T-Mobile continued welcoming new video services. California’s law seems to require blanket access for all similar apps without a wait for the ISP to add them. “It can be allowed if it is about a certain class [of content], like you could have when you’re doing games,” says Wiener about zero-rating. “If they say we’re going to apply it to a category, not any one product, and all comers, then it’s not automatically illegal."

The bill is also more resilient to any efforts by the Trump and Ajit Pai FCC to hinder state efforts to protect consumers. Whereas many states are just regurgitating the FCC's 2015 rules in their own proposals, that alone isn't enough to protect them from potential FCC preemption, argues Barbara van Schewick, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, and the Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. She also argues that the FCC shot its state preemption efforts in the foot by rolling back the classification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act:

"The bill is on firm legal ground.

While the FCC’s 2017 Order explicitly bans states from adopting their own net neutrality laws, that preemption is invalid. According to case law, an agency that does not have the power to regulate does not have the power to preempt. That means the FCC can only prevent the states from adopting net neutrality protections if the FCC has authority to adopt net neutrality protections itself.

But by re-classifying ISPs as information services under Title I of the Communications Act and re-interpreting Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act as a mission statement rather than an independent grant of authority, the FCC has deliberately removed all of its sources of authority that would allow it to adopt net neutrality protections. The FCC’s Order is explicit on this point. Since the FCC’s 2017 Order removed the agency’s authority to adopt net neutrality protections, it doesn’t have authority to prevent the states from doing so, either."

More simply, the FCC shot itself in the foot, and when it neutered its own authority over ISPs at Comcast, AT&T and Verizon's behest, it managed to also neuter its authority to pre-empt states from filling the void. Of course this could all be moot if the FCC loses its battle in court, but it's amusing all the same, and it's another example of how Ajit Pai and friends didn't really think this whole thing through.

While ISPs have whined incessantly about the headaches of having to adhere to multiple discordant net neutrality rules, that's not quite as big of a problem as they claim (especially since they already adhere to numerous rules governing phone, broadband and TV, which can vary town to town). Most of these new state laws follow the same effective template, and Wiener's office says it will work with numerous states to help them mirror California's efforts. All told, if consistency and stability were really the goal of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast lobbyists, they should have left the popular federal protections alone.

Filed Under: ajit pai, california, fcc, net neutrality, pre-emption, scott wiener, states rights

Nobody (Even His Industry BFFs) Likes Ajit Pai's Latest Attack On Low Income Broadband Programs

from the death-by-a-thousand-cuts dept

So we've noted a few times how Trump FCC boss Ajit Pai enjoys wandering the country informing everyone he's a massive champion of closing the digital divide. But those claims have been repeatedly and consistently undermined by Pai's own actions, whether that involves rolling back net neutrality (a move that will make life harder and more expensive for countless consumers, non-profits, minority communities and startups alike), or his slow but steady dismantling of programs intended to make life a little bit easier for the poor.

One of Pai's biggest targets has been the FCC's Lifeline program. It's an arguably modest program that was started by Reagan and expanded by Bush, and it long enjoyed bipartisan support until the post-truth era rolled into town. Lifeline doles out a measly $9.25 per month subsidy that low-income homes can use to help pay a tiny fraction of their wireless, phone, or broadband bills (enrolled participants have to chose one). The FCC under former FCC boss Tom Wheeler had voted to expand the service to cover broadband connections, something Pai (ever a champion to the poor) voted down.

Now Pai is back with a new proposal that would prevent anybody but the nation's biggest carriers from helping provide service to the poor via the Lifeline program. According to Pai's new proposal, only "facilities-based broadband" providers (companies that own and operate their own networks) could participate in the program, forcing millions of the nations' poor off of existing MVNOs and other resellers, and forcing them onto the networks of incumbent wireless carriers.

If you've followed Pai's ideological rhetoric, it's pretty clear he sees government as a pesky impediment to the miracles of the broadband free market, which, in Pai's head, will always do the right thing if left in an accountability vacuum. But if you've also followed the broadband industry, you'll know it's not a free market. It's a mish-mash of regional monopolies that enjoy regulatory capture on the state and federal level, resulting in limited competition, high prices, and awful service. In telecom, history shows us that mindlessly gutting regulatory oversight instead of reforming it doesn't magically fix this problem, it makes it worse.

Still, it's clear that Pai believes that slowly dismantling the FCC as both an agent of altruism (empathy is painfully unfashionable) and oversight is the path to nirvana. And he's justifying his latest efforts to scale back Lifeline by insisting that booting resellers off the program somehow will magically boost broadband deployment:

"[W]e believe Lifeline support will best promote access to advanced communications services if it is focused to encourage investment in broadband-capable networks...We believe this proposal would do more than the current reimbursement structure to encourage access to quality, affordable broadband service for low-income Americans. In particular, Lifeline support can serve to increase the ability to pay for services of low-income households. Such an increase can thereby improve the business case for deploying facilities to serve low-income households."

Consumer advocates argue in their own filings with the FCC (pdf) that the effort is a pointless attempt to help drive additional revenue to incumbent carriers. And former FCC staffer Gigi Sohn recently noted in Wired how this is part of a broader effort that will make life more difficult for low-income Americans to actually get broadband:

"One of Pai’s first acts as chair was to chill competition and innovation in the Lifeline program. Pai reversed a decision made by former FCC chair Tom Wheeler that allowed nine new Lifeline providers into the program. In the process Pai got rid of new competitors who could drive down prices and improve services.

Now, Pai proposes to limit Lifeline even further. Eliminating a Wheeler-era designation that welcomed new broadband providers into the program, the FCC said in December, will “better reflect the structure, operation, and goals of the Lifeline program.” But if the goal of the program is to ensure that low-income Americans have affordable access to broadband, reducing competition in the program will do the exact opposite.

The problem is only compounded by Pai's failure to do anything about a lack of competition in general in the telecom market. And while incumbent ISPs (like Pai's former employer Verizon) routinely applaud Pai's efforts on these fronts, even they doubt the effectiveness of Pai's proposal. For example Verizon was quick to point out in its own filing (pdf) that Pai's plan wouldn't do what he claims and would actually be harmful:

"The proposed exclusion of resellers from the Lifeline program would be highly disruptive to existing Lifeline beneficiaries and is at odds with the Commission's goal of supporting affordable voice telephony and high-speed broadband for low-income households."

Even all of the dollar per hollar think tankers, academics, and others the industry uses to parrot anti-consumer policies aren't impressed by Pai's proposal. US Telecom, a lobbying group spearheaded by AT&T, also panned Pai's plan for Lifeline, saying it wouldn't accomplish what Pai says it would (pdf):

"[T]he proposed elimination of resellers from the Lifeline program would not materially further the deployment of broadband infrastructure, because revenue from resellers already contributes to facilities-based carriers' deployment of broadband facilities."

Again, you've got industry and consumer advocates agreeing here that Pai is wrong and his plan will actually harm the poor.

But as his attack on net neutrality made pretty clear, Pai's blinded by an ideological vision of the telecom market that may or may not be supported by actual reality. And whereas a good leader would listen to opposition to his plans and reconsider positions that run in contrast to the will of the public, the insight of experts, and the facts -- Pai's default tendency is almost always to double down on bad ideas. And it this case Pai's bad idea is pretty clear: dismantling telecom programs that help the poor via death by a thousand cuts, no matter how counterproductive it is.

There's still time for Pai to back off his plan, given the FCC isn't expected to vote on the proposal until sometime after the public comment period ends on March 23. Still, when your definition of "helping the poor" includes ensuring cable boxes stay expensive and closed, allowing duopolies to abuse net neutrality and drive up service costs, protecting prison monopoly telcos that have price-gouged families for years, and preventing smaller ISPs from actually helping the poor you profess to love -- you have to wonder what it looks like when Pai actively wants to harm something.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband access, digital divide, fcc, lifeline, poverty

After Chat With Ethics Lawyers, FCC Boss Declines NRA Gun Award For Killing Net Neutrality

from the good-call,-hoss dept

Last month you might recall that the NRA gave FCC boss Ajit Pai the Charleton Heston Award for Courage for his decision to dismantle popular net neutrality rules. The tone-deaf celebration was a pretty hollow attention seeking move, but was also an ouroboros of blistering idiocy. One, the NRA appears oblivious to the fact that net neutrality rules would have helped it as well, since the entire point is to ensure the internet is a level playing field for all competitors and voices. Net neutrality protects free speech (even speech you don't agree with), something you'd think the folks at the NRA would be able to appreciate.

Two, there's simply nothing courageous about teaming up with Comcast to screw over the public and the nation's small businesses and startups. Pai's decision is widely derided as the dumbest decision in the history of modern tech policy. And while ISPs like to frame net neutrality as partisan to sow division and prevent meaningful rules, surveys repeatedly indicate the rules had broad bipartisan support.

It didn't take long for ethics experts to point out that the award and the NRA's gift to Pai (a Kentucky long rifle) was over $200 and therefore violated ethics rules and lobbying restrictions:

After a chat with FCC ethics lawyers, Pai appears to have finally realized that accepting the award probably wouldn't be a particularly bright idea. As such, Pai wrote a letter to the NRA declining the gun while insisting this whole thing simply caught him by surprise:

"As you know, once my staff became aware of what was happening, they asked backstage that the musket not be presented to me to ensure that this could be first discussed with and vetted by career ethics attorneys in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel," Pai wrote, according to an FCC source who relayed the text of the letters.

“Therefore, upon their counsel, I must respectfully decline the award,” he wrote. “I have also been advised by the FCC’s career ethics attorneys that I would not be able to accept the award upon my departure from government service."

Of course Pai and his staff could have rejected the award at any point (the award occurred on February 23), but then they wouldn't have been able to enjoy all the yucks at the expense of startups, consumers, and the health of the internet. From stem to stern this was just a PR disaster, and you couldn't have paid a fiction author to craft a dumber, more absurd narrative. And while those behind the effort likely believe they were being clever trolls, Millennial voters likely got a decidedly different impression from the tone-deaf gala.

Filed Under: ajit pai, awards, ethics, fcc, net neutrality, nra
Companies: nra

Sprint's CEO Thinks This Whole Killing Net Neutrality Thing Is Pretty Nifty

from the with-friends-like-these... dept

So when the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules were passed, we warned how the agency's failure to include zero rating (exempting an ISP's own content or the content of a deep-pocketed partner) was going to let ISPs creatively engage in anti-competitive behavior. And sure enough, companies like Verizon and AT&T began exempting their own content from usage caps, giving them a leg up in the market. Carriers like Sprint similarly began to fracture the internet experience, at one point charging users more money if they wanted to enjoy music, video and games without having their connection throttled.

T-Mobile pushed these creative barriers further with its Binge On offering, which exempted only the biggest and most popular video services from the company's usage caps. This automatically put thousands of smaller video providers, non-profits, educational institutions and startups at a notable market disadvantage, but by and large nobody outside of the EFF and academia gave much of a damn because a) ill-informed consumers are happy laboring under the illusion that they're getting something for free and b) the public (and by proxy media) was lazy and tired of debating net neutrality.

Just as the Wheeler FCC realized the error of their ways and began showing signs of cracking down on carriers that use usage caps and zero rating as an anti-competitive weapon, Trump won the election and Ajit Pai's FCC began dismantling the rules entirely. You know, for "freedom." As the U.S. moved further away from a truly open internet, regulators in other countries (like India) moved to prohibit ISPs from using usage caps or zero rating as an anti-competitive bludgeon against smaller operators, startups and non-profits.

With the rules now on the chopping block, and ISPs successfully gutting FCC and state oversight of ISPs, zero rating is going to be the least of our problems. We're back to now worrying about things like "paid prioritization," or the ability of ISPs to give their own video content (or the content of the deepest-pocketed companies) priority treatment on the network. And ISPs that were previously against such deals are now walking back their promises at an unsurprising pace.

Throughout all of this, carriers like Sprint repeatedly professed their breathless dedication to net neutrality while they continued to implement policies that made consumer connectivity less transparent, more expensive, and less open. And speaking at the Mobile World Congress this week, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure made it clear that the company doesn't think this whole paid prioritization thing is that big of a problem, either:

"I don’t think there’s anything wrong for you to eventually charge a higher price for a faster access to your network,” Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said during a keynote discussion here at the Mobile World Congress trade show. “You have this anyway. In the United States in many roads you drive, you have a faster road and you pay more. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’re still determining what is going to be the price for 5G and how we’re going to charge you, but the economics say, consumers are willing to pay more for a better service and are willing to pay less for a different type of service."

Except net neutrality rules have always carved out massive exemptions for prioritization (medical services, high-end VOIP service, etc.). It's only the anti-competitive paid prioritization deals the rules hamstrung. ISP executives know this, they just like to conflate the two to justify their quest to turn the internet into the modern equivalent of mid nineties walled gardens like AOL. Claure proceeded to imply that past net neutrality rules didn't let the company "manage its networks," which was never the case:

"We’re big believers in the open internet,” Claure said. “I believe there needs to be some light regulation, and it needs to be very light, in order for us to manage our networks."

Added Claure: “We need to manage our networks … That’s the most important thing to us."

Again though, the FCC's net neutrality rules never stopped Sprint from "managing its networks." In fact it took years of hashing out specifics in the rules to ensure that would never be a problem. Meanwhile, you don't get to proclaim you're "big believers in the open internet," while at the same time pushing for changes that could completely tilt the whole god-damned thing on its axis by letting giant companies (often a company's own subsidiaries) pay for lower latency, higher priority, and better service -- leaving startups, non-profits and educational institutions in the dust.

Just a few years ago we were concerned that loopholes in the 2015 rules would result in caps, overage fees and zero rating being used anti-competitively (and they were and are). Now, with the FCC's rules officially slated to expire in April, most of those problems are going to appear god damned quaint in comparison with the nonsense awaiting all of us just over the horizon.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, competition, fcc, marcelo claure, net neutrality, wireless, zero rating
Companies: sprint

NRA Gives FCC Boss An Award For 'Courageously' Killing Net Neutrality, May Have Violated Ethics Rules

from the idiocy-supernova dept

The NRA last week thought it would be a good idea to give FCC boss Ajit Pai an award for killing net neutrality. More specifically, the NRA gave Pai the Charleton Heston Award for Courage at the CPAC conference for killing the popular consumer protections. The entire affair was a tone deafness supernova from beginning to end, with American Conservative Union (ACU) Executive Director Dan Schneider making it abundantly clear that he and other attendees have absolutely no coherent idea what net neutrality even is. Schneider went so far as to declare the unpopular agency boss the "most courageous, heroic person that I know":

"Pai "fought to preserve your free speech rights" as a member of the FCC's Republican minority during the Obama administration, Schneider said. Pai "fought and won against all odds, but the Obama administration had some curveballs and they implemented these regulations to take over the Internet." "As soon as President Trump came into office, President Trump asked Ajit Pai to liberate the Internet and give it back to you," Schneider added. "Ajit Pai is the most courageous, heroic person that I know."

Of course if you've been paying even a shred of attention, you should realize there's nothing courageous about ignoring the public, ignoring the experts, ignoring all objective data just to give a sloppy wet kiss to despised telecom monopolies like Comcast. Pai's repeal is widely derided as one of the worst tech policy decisions in the modern internet era, making the backlash against legislative shitshows like SOPA look like a cozy beach side picnic in comparison. And despite every effort by the telecom industry to frame net neutrality as a partisan issue, that is, and continues to be, bullshit.

While a petty and blatant attention-seeking move, the stunt may have given both the NRA and Pai a little more than they bargained for. As part of the award Pai was given an antique musket, a move former Office of Government Ethics boss Walter Shaub was quick to criticize as a violation of FCC ethics rules:

It's possible Pai can tap dance around this by claiming the musket (which the NRA said would be stored and displayed at their offices in Virginia) never formally entered Pai's legal ownership. Of course that doesn't make this effort any less idiotic and tone deaf. CPAC apparently doesn't realize that Millennials are starting to vote in greater numbers than ever before, and while CPAC leadership may have thought combining the NRA (while in the middle of a massive PR kerfuffle) with the attack on net neutrality was an "epic troll," all younger voters are going to see here is a giant neon sign blinking the words "incompetence" and "corruption" in endless repetition.

Pai wasn't alone in potentially violating ethics rules during CPAC. Under the Hatch Act, FCC Commissioners can't openly pitch for a specific political candidate, a rule Pai's fellow Commissioner Mike O'Rielly violated when he urged CPAC attendees to vote for Trump:

"O’Rielly, however, later found himself embroiled in his own controversy. His trouble started with a question about what the FCC could do to stop the constant “ping-pong” of issues, such as net neutrality, every time the party in power changes in the nation’s capital.

“I think what we can do is make sure as conservatives that we elect good people to both the House, Senate and make sure that President Trump gets reelected,” O’Rielly began.

The GOP commissioner’s plug for the president riled some ethics watchdogs. Under a set of rules known as the Hatch Act, government officials such as O’Rielly generally aren’t supposed to use their stations to advocate for election outcomes.

Remember, these are the same FCC staffers that had an epic hissy fit a few years back when they claimed the former White House "improperly" violated nonexistent ethics rules by openly advocating for tough net neutrality rules. They're now embroiled in numerous GAO inquiries, face a growing mountain of lawsuits, and now face an FCC Inspector General Inquiry for potentially being too cozy with the industries they're supposed to be holding accountable on behalf of the American Public. Keep digging that hole, gentlemen.

Filed Under: ajit pai, cpac, ethics, ethics rules, fcc, mike o'rielly, net neutrality, nra, walter shaub
Companies: nra