FCC Does Wireless Carriers Another Favor By Reclassifying Text Messages

from the who-needs-oversight dept

The FCC this week voted yes on a new proposal the agency says will help combat the scourge of robocalls, but critics and consumer groups say opens the door to wireless carriers being able to censor text message campaigns they don't like, or SMS services that may compete with their own offerings.

In a 3-1 party line vote, the FCC approved (pdf) redefining text messages as an "information service," therefore freeing such services from FCC oversight. In its announcement, the agency was quick to insist that this was done specifically to help carriers better fight robocalls and robotexts without worrying about running afoul of government rules:

"In today’s ruling, the FCC denies requests from mass-texting companies and other parties to classify text messaging services as “telecommunications services” subject to common carrier regulation under the Communications Act—a classification that would limit wireless providers’ efforts to combat spam and scam robotexts effectively. Instead, the FCC finds that two forms of wireless messaging services, SMS and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), are "information services" under the Communications Act. With this decision, the FCC empowers wireless providers to continue taking action to protect American consumers from unwanted text messages.

Critics, however, charge that this was another example of the FCC's motives not being made entirely clear to the public at large.

As we've noted previously, this particular debate over text message classification began some time back, after Verizon decided to ban a pro-choice group named NARAL Pro-Choice America from sending text messages to Verizon Wireless customers that had opted in to receiving them. Ever since then, consumer groups, worried that cellular carriers would use their power as gatekeepers to stifle certain voices, have been urging the FCC to declare text messages a “telecommunications service," making it illegal for carriers to ban such select SMS services.

This being the Ajit Pai FCC, the agency went the complete opposite direction in a move that largely benefits wireless carriers. The fight somewhat mirrors the net neutrality battle involving whether to classify ISPs themselves as "information services" under the telecom act (freeing them from significant oversight), or "telecommunications services"--keeping them locked into oversight by the FCC. Consumer groups like Public Knowledge were quick to issue statements pointing out this had everything to do with ensuring telecom giants are less accountable, and little to nothing to do with actually combating robocalls and robotexts:

"No one should mistake today’s action as an effort to help consumers limit spam and robotexts. There is a reason why carriers are applauding while more than 20 consumer protection advocates -- along with 10 Senators -- have cried foul. This decision does nothing to curb spam, and is not needed to curb spam. It is simply the latest example of Chairman Pai’s radical agenda that puts companies ahead of consumers. We urge members of Congress to overturn this decision and ensure that wireless carriers cannot block or censor personal text messages."

Those concerns were mirrored by FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in her lone dissent:

Like net neutrality, gutting oversight of companies with decades of anti-competitive behavior under their belts (not to mention flimsy and dwindling organic free market pressure to behave) generally doesn't work out very well for end users or those looking to compete with these entrenched network operators. It's worth noting the ruling doesn't apply to the next-generation texting standard, RCS, though carriers like Verizon have already called for that to occur in future orders; something Ajit Pai is likely to approve as well.

Filed Under: blocking, censorship, fcc, information services, telecommunications services, text messages

Big Telecom Wants To Tax Netflix To Pay For Broadband Upgrades ISPs Refuse To Deploy Themselves

from the ride-my-pipes-for-free dept

Last year, FCC boss Ajit Pai repeatedly hyped the creation of a new "Broadband Deployment Advisory Council" (BDAC) purportedly tasked with coming up with creative solutions to the nation's broadband problem(s). Unfortunately, reports just as quickly began to circulate that this panel was little more than a who's who of entrenched telecom operators with a vested interest in protecting the status quo. The panel has yet to really offer up a meaningful proposal, but it has been rocked by several resignations due to cronyism, and at least one member who was arrested for fraud.

As the FCC looks to expand the council's charter for another few years, the panel itself has been pushing a plan that pretty clearly highlights the cronyism intentionally inherent in its design. More specifically, the panel has been pushing the FCC to adopt a new system that urges states to tax Netflix and Google to fund rural broadband deployment:

"A Federal Communications Commission advisory committee has proposed a new tax on Netflix, Google, Facebook, and many other businesses that require Internet access to operate. If adopted by states, the recommended tax would apply to subscription-based retail services that require Internet access, such as Netflix, and to advertising-supported services that use the Internet, such as Google and Facebook. The tax would also apply to any small- or medium-sized business that charges subscription fees for online services or uses online advertising."

To be clear, this is extremely unlikely to come to pass, even in the most myopic of states. Still, if you're playing along at home, this is just an extension of a multi-decade effort by ISPs to force somebody else to pay for network upgrades they refuse to fund, despite having received countless billions to accomplish this goal. In fact this push to have content companies pay for ISP network upgrades is really what began the net neutrality fight back in 2003 or so, when former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre proclaimed that Google should pay him an additional troll toll just to access his network. You know, just because.

This mantra was long rooted in telecom envy of Silicon Valley online ad revenues, and a belief by telecom executives that they're somehow "owed" a cut of those revenues. Over time it evolved into endless claims by telecom sector allies, think tankers, and other cronies that companies like Google and Netflix were somehow getting a "free ride" on incumbent ISP networks, despite having invested billions into their own global transit and network operations. Over time it became a global telecom executive mantra of sorts, even if it never made coherent sense.

People forget, but it's this telecom industry attempt to "double dip" that truly launched the modern net neutrality debate just about fifteen years ago. That point has gotten lost as ISP efforts to extract unearned rents have gotten more elaborate over the years, but at its heart the fight has always been about monopoly ISPs trying to offload network construction and operation costs off to somebody else, while already earning fat revenues thanks to limited competition.

Of course AT&T, who generally drives most dubious DC telecom policy moves and would reap the lion's share of said tax, had originally tried to insist that the panel's recommendations (and the proposed tax) should apply to pretty much all traffic that touches the internet:

"An AT&T executive who is on the FCC advisory committee argued that the recommended tax should apply even more broadly, to any business that benefits financially from broadband access in any way. The committee ultimately adopted a slightly more narrow recommendation that would apply the tax to subscription services and advertising-supported services only."

The real problem here (or one of many) is that companies like AT&T and Verizon were already given billions upon billions in taxpayer dollars to fund these upgrades years ago. American history is filled with examples of these companies getting massive tax cuts or subsidies to deploy fiber, then using their lobbying prowess to wiggle out from under the obligations after the fact. Had the government ever conducted any real audit, you'd likely find American taxpayers have paid to upgrade the country with fiber several times over, yet still somehow often only have access to pricey, sluggish DSL.

That, nearly two decades later, AT&T's still running a lame variation of the same ploy is equal parts frightening and sad, but seems to be par for the course for a country that refuses to learn from history, and an FCC that has made it abundantly clear it's a glorified rubber stamp for lumbering natural monopolies and their very worst instincts.

Filed Under: broadband, capital expenditure, capital investment, fcc, fees, internet, taxes, upgrades
Companies: at&t, google, netflix, verizon

FCC Says It Will Finally Investigate Nation's Bullshit Broadband Availability Maps. Maybe.

from the rose-colored-glasses dept

For years we've noted how the FCC's broadband availability maps are just comically bad. If you'd like to confirm that take, you can just plug your home address into the agency's $350 million broadband availability map and watch as entire ISPs and speed availability are largely hallucinated. This is a problem that never gets fixed, largely because the nation's entrenched broadband providers (and the politicians paid to love them) have a vested interest in pretending that the US broadband industry isn't just an aggressive hodge-podge of broken monopolies and duopolies nickel-and-diming the hell out of captive customers.

Senators have been bitching about the maps a little more lately as states vie for FCC Mobility Fund Phase II Auction subsidies, which will dole out $4.5 billion to under-connected states over the next decade. Back in August, Montana Senator Jon Tester went so far as to suggest that said maps "stink" and that somebody should have their "ass kicked" for the terrible data the FCC uses for both subsidies and policy.

Last Friday the Sisyphean quest to stop our maps from sucking turned an interesting corner, when the FCC announced (pdf) it was finally launching an investigation into whether "one or more" mobile carriers submitted false coverage data to the FCC. The FCC appears to be responding to a complaint (pdf) filed earlier this year by the Rural Wireless Association (RWA), which stated that Verizon was "grossly overstating" the company's 4G LTE broadband coverage in its filings with the FCC.

FCC boss Ajit Pai likes to talk a lot about how he's "closing the digital divide," despite the fact his policies (like killing net neutrality or weakening the very definition of the word "competition") generally tend to make problems of broadband availability and affordability worse. But the pressure coming from states as they clamor for their chunk of subsidies appears to have finally forced Pai (whose post-FCC political aspirations are fairly obvious) to take action:

"My top priority is bridging the digital divide and ensuring that Americans have access to digital opportunity regardless of where they live, and the FCC’s Mobility Fund Phase II program can play a key role in extending high-speed Internet access to rural areas across America,” said Chairman Pai. “In order to reach those areas, it’s critical that we know where access is and where it is not. A preliminary review of speed test data submitted through the challenge process suggested significant violations of the Commission’s rules. That’s why I’ve ordered an investigation into these matters. We must ensure that the data is accurate before we can proceed."

Those concerns were mirrored by Pai's fellow Commissioner Brendan Carr:

"It is deeply concerning that FCC staff's preliminary analysis of the challenge data shows that one or more major carriers potentially violated the Commission's MF-II mapping rules and submitted incorrect maps. Today's announcement aligns with concerns I shared with Chairman Pai, and I look forward to working with him and our able staff to complete this investigation."

A big part of the Mobility Fund Phase II subsidy process involves incumbent carriers like Verizon providing accurate broadband availability maps to determine which areas are in most dire need of subsidized help. But because companies like Verizon don't want to both advertise their network shortcomings or help drive funds to would-be competitors, they tend to overstate coverage of both mobile and fixed-line networks. Last August, Verizon denied to Ars Technica that its broadband availability data was inaccurate after the data was called a "sham" by the RWA.

This rose-colored glasses approach to broadband mapping is decades old, so any surprise you're hearing from government probably isn't all that authentic. As such, any applause should be held until actual action is taken and the companies involved are adequately punished (especially given Verizon used to be Pai's employer). Still, it's great to see Pai and the FCC at least pay some attention to a problem that has plagued the telecom sector for years, allowing it to paint an inaccurate picture of broadband availability and competition, thereby hampering any efforts to actually do something about it.

Filed Under: accurate data, broadband, broadband maps, competition, fcc

Big Telecom Claims Oversight & Accountability Violates Its First Amendment Rights

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

The Ajit Pai FCC's attacks on net neutrality have received ample attention. Less talked about is the fact that the attack on net neutrality was just one part of a much broader effort to eliminate what was already pretty tepid oversight of one of the least liked and least competitive tech sectors in America.

The Pai FCC's Orwellian-named "Restoring Internet Freedom" order not only killed net neutrality rules, it dramatically rolled back FCC authority over big ISPs like Comcast, shoveling any remaining authority to an FTC ISP lobbyists know full well lacks the authority or attention span for telecom oversight. In addition to that, the FCC (again at big telecom's behest) has set about trying to claim states can't protect consumers either. With neither competition nor state or federal oversight keeping natural monopolies in line, it shouldn't take a degree in genetics to ferret out the potential pitfalls.

One of the key arguments underpinning most of the telecom sector's lobbying shenanigans of late involves one central claim: that state or federal efforts to hold giant ISPs accountable somehow violates Comcast and other ISPs' First Amendment rights. You'll recall ISPs tried to claim that net neutrality somehow violated ISPs' free speech rights, despite the fact that as simple conduits they don't engage in "editorial" decisions, making the argument rather silly.

The courts didn't agree with broadband providers then, but in his dissenting opinion during those earlier court battles new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh did. Susan Crawford over at Wired offers up a solid piece explaining why, with Kavanaugh now positioned in the highest court of the land, ISPs are very eager to start pushing this argument more forcefully in the months and years to come:

"The addition of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court roster gives the industry a significant boost. In a 2017 DC Circuit dissenting opinion, Justice Kavanaugh made it clear that he supports giving internet access providers "speaker" privileges, saying that "the First Amendment bars the Government from restricting the editorial discretion of Internet service providers."

She goes on to explain how the perils of embracing this argument opens the door to a future where little to nothing constricts Comcast's worst impulses:

"Treating the transmission of data as "speech" will make it virtually impossible for the government to say anything at all about internet access. If the government tries to regulate someday, you can be confident that the industry will make a lot of noise in the form of lawsuits focused on cable's First Amendment rights to carry out its "editorial discretion," in hopes that Justice Kavanaugh will get a chance to lock in the industry's status as a member of the press. The "speech" of a handful of giant companies will be privileged over the ability of all Americans—including all other American businesses—to communicate."

Again, the lower courts so far haven't much agreed with ISP arguments on this front. The claim was shot down during several court rulings and appeals during the net neutrality fight, and shot down again recently when Charter tried to wiggle out of allegations of racially-motivated treatment of a minority-owned broadcast channel Charter booted from its cable lineup. Charter (aka Spectrum) has also flirted with the argument unsuccessfully in its ongoing battle with New York State over years of poor service and violated merger obligations.

Again, ISPs are simply conduits to information, not acting as editors, making the whole thing a rather stupid argument. But it's a stupid argument being made in an era when stupidity is decidedly en vogue; and ISPs' very much hope to use it as a blunt weapon should any of these fights stumble their way to the Supreme Court over the next few years.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, ajit pai, broadband, fcc, net neutrality, oversight, regulations
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon

The FBI Is Now Looking Into Those Bogus Net Neutrality Comments

from the ill-communication dept

So we already knew numerous reporters, the GAO, and the New York State AG's office are already looking into who was behind the millions of bogus comments that plagued the FCC's net neutrality repeal. And we've already noted how the Ajit Pai FCC has been trying its very best to hinder those inquiries, whether we're talking about the way that it has been blocking and stalling on journalist FOIA requests, or actively ignoring numerous, previous inquiries from law enforcement.

The FCC's efforts to obfuscate the culprit by refusing to share data on this subject may have just become more... complicated. Over the weekend, Daily Beast reporter Kevin Collier noted that two additional AG's offices (Massachusetts and Washington, DC) -- and the FBI -- have also started digging into those fake comments as well:

"The Justice Department is investigating whether crimes were committed when potentially millions of people’s identities were posted to the FCC’s website without their permission, falsely attributing to them opinions about net neutrality rules, BuzzFeed News has learned. Two organizations told BuzzFeed News, each on condition that they not be named, that the FBI delivered subpoenas to them related to the comments."

New York's AG began its investigation last year, but stated in a public letter a year ago that the FCC had actively blocked all efforts by the AG to obtain server, API, and other data that could help identify who was behind the fraudulent comments, some of them mysteriously made by dead people. The AG's office stated Pai's office ignored nine inquiries over a period of five months for more details:

"We made our request for logs and other records at least 9 times over 5 months: in June, July, August, September, October (three times), and November.

We reached out for assistance to multiple top FCC officials, including you, three successive acting FCC General Counsels, and the FCC’s Inspector General. We offered to keep the requested records confidential, as we had done when my office and the FCC shared information and documents as part of past investigative work.

Yet we have received no substantive response to our investigative requests. None."

According to the NY AG's office, about 9.5 million of the more than 22 million comments filed with the FCC during the repeal's open comment period were filed using peoples' names without their consent (including my own and those of two Senators). Last October, the New York AG announced they had expanded their probe, issuing subpoenas to both numerous ISP-linked lobbying and policy organizations (like the industry's dubious Broadband for America policy vessel) as well as a few pro net neutrality consumer groups.

Last week, numerous outlets falsely reported that "Russia" was behind these comments. There's no actual evidence of that (500,000 Russian email addresses were used, but that doesn't mean Russia itself was involved). As we've seen during the similar bogus comments plaguing other US government proceedings in recent years, the usual culprit is almost always the companies that stand to benefit from the regulatory efforts in question, since there's several DC policy shops that apparently sell these kinds of services (read: bogus support for terrible policies) as a value added service.

And while it's pretty clear that the Ajit Pai FCC doesn't want anybody knowing which firm tried to stuff the ballot box and who was funding the initiative, the involvement of the DOJ and several additional AG offices means hiding the truth just got immeasurably more difficult. And depending what investigators find, that could seriously complicate next February's opening arguments in the net neutrality lawsuit against the FCC, which, if the FCC and its ISP allies lose, could end with the restoration of the FCC's 2015 rules, bringing us fill circle.

If it turns out the broadband industry or some proxy organization paid a DC lobbying firm to stuff the ballot box (which has always seemed the most likely explanation given historical precedent), such a self-inflicted wound would be utterly legendary.

Filed Under: ajit pai, bogus comments, comments, doj, fbi, fcc, net neutrality, new york

Contrary To Media Claims, There's No Evidence Russia Was Behind Fake Net Neutrality Comments

from the a-game-of-telephone dept

Earlier this week we noted how the Ajit Pai FCC again shot down journalist FOIA attempts to find out who was behind the millions of bogus comments that plagued the agency's net neutrality repeal. The move prompted one of the agency's commissioners, Jessica Rosenworcel, to accuse her own agency of a coverup--since Pai refuses to work with either journalists or law enforcement investigations trying to uncover the truth of who was behind the comment fraud.

In an uncharacteristically snarky statement (pdf) issued the same day, Pai attempted to dismiss the criticisms as purely partisan attacks. But he also acknowledged something we already knew...that 500,000 or so of the email addresses used in the FCC's comment form came from users purportedly on Russian ISPs. From his statement:

"...one finds the now-standard overheated rhetoric about “net neutrality” (omitting, as usual, the fact that the half-million comments submitted from Russian e-mail addresses and the nearly eight million comments filed by e-mail addresses from e-mail domains associated with FakeMailGenerator.com supported her position on the issue!)."

So this is nothing new. Media reports had noted previously how 444,938 of the millions of bogus comments happened to have Russian email addresses. The New York Times' FOIA-focused lawsuit against the FCC also specifically highlights these addresses (many of which actually supported retaining net neutrality), likely in the hopes this would lend a little extra gravitas to court consideration.

Yet in the modern news media cycle, which can often resemble a game of telephone, numerous media outlets somehow rushed to the conclusion that Pai had "confirmed" that Russia must have been behind the efforts to stuff the ballot box at the FCC. Just a smattering of examples from this week:

That's fairly remarkable, given that's not what Pai said, nor is there any proof that "Russia" itself interfered with the net neutrality public comment period.

While many of these stories were more nuanced than the headlines (which writers often don't get to pick), the reality is the headlines are all a pretty large majority of people read. The Daily Dot report in particular was a huge hit on Reddit, upvoted more than 66,000 times and circulated far and wide. Not too surprisingly, the media's collective headline errors quickly drove many on Twitter to accuse Pai of being a Russian agent himself in dire need of prosecution:

Even Tim Wu, the Columbia law professor who coined the term net neutrality, circulated one of the headlines claiming Russia itself had been "linked" to the comment fraud:

Here's the problem: while these 500,000 email addresses used in the FCC's form appear to be Russian, that may not mean all that much.

Whoever stuffed the FCC comment section with farmed support (and in some cases opposition) for the repeal used all kinds of tricks to generate the bogus identities, including a bot that pulled names alphabetically from a hacked database of some kind. Many of the names used were dead people. Anybody could have plugged Russian email addresses into some of these form-generated responses, without actually representing the Russian government or even Russian people, thanks largely to an FCC website that didn't even remotely try to ferret out spam or bullshit.

Putin's adoration of hacking and disinformation is a legitimate problem, even if many may disagree on the breadth of the impact the Russian leader's digital dick waving has had on the real world and elections. And while it's certainly possible that Russia's attempts to pour gasoline on our already napalm-esque levels of dysfunction extended to the net neutrality fight, there's simply no evidence actually supporting that claim right now. Nor did Pai state that there was.

In similar cases, the evidence that inevitably appears usually points to a more obvious culprit: industry. These kinds of fake comments have been plaguing multiple US government agencies and proceedings in the states over the last few years, from proceedings at the Labor Department trying to rein in financial fraud, to efforts at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aimed at thwarting payday loan fraud.

More often than not it's the companies that benefit from the shenanigans that are found to be behind gamesmanship like this, since more than a few DC policy shops now offer this kind of greasy bullshit as an added value service for clients hoping to shape or influence public perception and government policy. The goal is usually to not just to create bogus support for bad policy, but to help undermine trust in the public comment process--often the only chance many Americans have to voice their thoughts on these decisions. Using Russian email addresses in bulk certainly would go a long way toward achieving that goal.

In the case of net neutrality, whoever was behind the fake comments was obviously keen on trying to downplay and discredit the millions of bipartisan Americans pissed off by the FCC's blatant handout to giant ISPs like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter (Spectrum). Numerous investigations (at the GAO and NY AG, for example) and next February's net neutrality court battle are likely to, sooner or later, shed light on who carried out this operation, who funded it, and why Pai's FCC is trying so hard to keep most of these investigations from getting to the truth.

Filed Under: ajit pai, bad reporting, comments, fake comments, fcc, net neutrality, russia

FCC Tries to Bury Report Showing Many Broadband Users Still Don't Get The Speeds They Pay For

from the hiding-it-won't-make-it-go-away dept

So every year like clockwork since 2011 the FCC has released a report naming and shaming ISPs that fail to deliver advertised broadband speeds. The Measuring American Broadband program, which the FCC runs in conjunction with UK firm SamKnows, uses custom-firmware embedded routers in subscriber homes to collect data on real-world speeds (an improvement from years past when the FCC would just take ISPs' at their word).

In the years since, the program has been an effective way to name and shame ISPs that fail to deliver speeds promised to consumers. For example, in the first report, the FCC announced that some ISPs, like New York's Cablevision, had delivered just 50% of advertised speeds during peak hours. By the next report Cablevision had moved to fix its under-provisioning issues, and the FCC found that the company was now offering more bandwidth than advertised at peak hours. In the absence of more competition, simply using real data was a useful way to motivate apathetic regional monopolies to try a little harder.

Of course last year that all changed under Ajit Pai, when the FCC boss refused to release the report at all. After being pressured by telecom beat reporters to explain why, the FCC this week finally released some of the data... buried in the appendix of a much larger report (pdf) few will actually read. The data again showcases how many broadband providers -- mostly telcos selling aging, slow and pricey DSL -- routinely fail to deliver speeds consumers are paying for:

In the years since the program launched, many cable providers have been successfully nudged toward over-provisioning their lines to remain on the FCC's good side (though it should be noted that one cable provider, Charter Spectrum, was busted by the NY AG contemplating ways to game the system). This wasn't particularly hard; DOCSIS 3.1 cable upgrades are relatively inexpensive anyway, and have helped the cable sector deliver gigabit speeds (at least downstream).

The problem is that cable is slowly but surely securing a monopoly over these next-gen speeds because the nation's phone companies no longer really want to be in the fixed-line broadband business. AT&T and Verizon have shifted their focus to wireless, video, and ads, and providers like CenturyLink have shifted their focus to enterprise. As a result, millions of customers are stuck on aging, expensive, (and often unnecessarily usage capped) DSL lines nobody really wants to upgrade because the return on investment is too slow for Wall Street's liking.

The result: less competition, higher prices, slower speeds, and worse customer service as cable secures a monopoly over high speeds. And no, 5G wireless is not going to magically fix these problems, as we've explored previously.

Of course because the Measuring American Broadband program highlighted these issues via a very clear stand alone report, it seems fairly likely that broadband providers didn't much like this. Like so much Pai does (like killing net neutrality rules), burying the report was framed by the FCC head as a noble effort to simply improve agency efficiency. But in a statement to Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin, Pai's fellow Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel seemed unsold on that explanation:

"We're all frustrated when our broadband speed doesn't live up to what was promised," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC's only Democrat, said in a statement to Ars today. "So it's downright unacceptable that the FCC—which has been collecting data on broadband speeds nationwide—is slow to make this information public and, when it does so, buries it in the appendices to a larger report. This is essential data for every consumer in the digital age. The public deserves better."

The attempt to bury belated data in a study appendix nobody will read is just another example of Pai's largely blind fealty to the industry he's supposed to be holding accountable. From the attacks on net neutrality and FCC oversight to his efforts to literally weaken the very definition of competition, Pai continues to be the very best friend any lumbering telecom monopoly could ask for. After all, if you can manipulate or obscure data showing just how broken the US broadband industry is, it's far easier to justify your complete and total apathy toward actually doing anything about it.

Filed Under: advertised speeds, ajit pai, broadband, broadband speeds, fcc, hiding data, measuring american broadband
Companies: samknows

FCC Commissioner Accuses Her Own Agency Of A Net Neutrality Cover Up

from the ill-communication dept

We've long discussed how the Pai FCC's net neutrality repeal was plagued with millions of fraudulent comments, many of which were submitted by a bot pulling names from a hacked database of some kind. Millions of ordinary folks (like myself) had their identities used to support Pai's unpopular plan, as did several Senators. Numerous journalists have submitted FOIA requests for more data (server logs, IP addresses, API data, anything) that might indicate who was behind the fraudulent comments, who may have bankrolled them, and what the Pai FCC knew about it.

But the Pai FCC has repeatedly tried to tap dance around FOIA requests, leading to several journalists (including those at the New York Times and Buzzfeed) suing the FCC. Despite the Times' lawyers best efforts to work with the FCC to tailor the nature of their requests over a period of months, the agency continues to hide behind FOIA exemptions that don't really apply here: namely FOIA exemption 6 (related to protecting privacy) and 7E (related to protecting agency security and law enforcement activity).

And while the Times and Buzzfeed had appealed the FCC's ruling, the FCC this week released a memorandum and order formally denying those requests. In it, the FCC doubles down on the claims that it's simply blocking the release of this data because it's super worried about the privacy of FCC commenters (though again, if you actually read the Times lawsuit, you'll note the FCC was utterly inflexible in terms of narrowing down the scope of requests).

FCC lawyers also try to make the amusing claim that the press really doesn't need this data because there's other investigations (including one at the GAO) trying to get to the bottom of the scandal:

"Confessore proffers a putative public interest in understanding the integrity of the Commission’s comment process. This question, however, is being or has already been examined by other press outlets,51 Commission staff, and the Government Accountability Office, among others. Confessore has not provided us with any reason to believe that his review of this data would significantly advance any public interest beyond the investigations that are already underway."

Of course this is the same FCC that has also actively blocked law enforcement efforts to get to the bottom of the scandal, refusing nine inquiries from the NY AG over a period of five months for additional data. So while the Pai FCC breathlessly claims it's all about transparency and integrity, their actions on this subject (and that whole fake DDOS attack they concocted in a weird bid to downplay public backlash) tend to undermine these claims.

Meanwhile, Pai's fellow Commissioner, Jessica Rosenworcel, has certainly taken off the gloves in recent weeks. She hit Twitter and issued a statement that effectively accused her own agency of engaging in a cover up of fraudulent activity:

Her full statement (pdf) is also worth a read, and doesn't pull any punches:

"Instead of providing news organizations with the information requested, in this decision the FCC decides to hide behind Freedom of Information Act exemptions and thwart investigative journalism. In doing so, the agency asserts an overbroad claim about the security of its public commenting system that sounds no more credible than its earlier and disproven claim that the system was the subject of distributed denial of service attack. It appears this agency is trying to prevent anyone from looking too closely at the mess it made of net neutrality. It is hiding what it knows about the fraud in our record and it is preventing an honest account of its many problems from seeing the light of day.

Pai's justification for the FOIA blockade tries very heavily to insist this is all just unfair partisan gamesmanship. But at this juncture his FCC's record when it comes to transparency, blatant telecom sector cronyism, and bizarre scandals has pretty much been established. This is an agency that not only used bullshit telecom lobbyist data to undermine policies that had broad, bipartisan public support, it has been rocked by scandal after scandal, fought tooth and nail against real transparency on numerous fronts, and has refused to give any real weight to the will of the tech-savvy public.

Pai comes off as an unwavering ideologue who truly seems to believe he's doing an incredible job of "unleashing innovation" despite every shred of evidence to the contrary (not unlike the man who appointed him to the position). Unfortunately for Pai, whose post-FCC political ambitions couldn't be any more obvious, his legacy will likely be the giant middle finger he's given to tech-savvy Millennials. As for the fake comments specifically, they're likely to play a starring role in next February's net neutrality lawsuits, which will look to prove the agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act by ignoring the will of the public as it rushed to give AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast a sloppy kiss for the ages.

Filed Under: ajit pai, comments, fake comments, fcc, foia, jessica rosenworcel, net neutrality, public records, transparency

Senators Continue To Point Out Our Broadband Maps Suck

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

For a country that likes to talk about "being number one" a lot, that's sure not reflected in the United States' broadband networks, or the broadband maps we use to determine which areas lack adequate broadband or commpetition (resulting in high prices and poor service). Our terrible broadband maps are of course a feature not a bug; ISPs have routinely lobbied to kill any efforts to improve data collection and analysis, lest somebody actually realize the telecom market is a broken mono/duopoly whose dysfunction reaches into every aspect of tech.

If you want to see our terrible broadband maps at work, you need only go visit the FCC's $300+ million broadband availability map, which is based on the Form 477 data collected from ISPs. If you plug in your address, you'll find that not only does the FCC not include prices (at industry behest), the map hallucinates speed and ISP availability at most U.S. addresses. Part of the problem is that the FCC declares an entire region "served" with broadband if just one home in a census tract has service. Again, ISPs fight efforts to reform this in a bid to protect the status quo.

Only when states are jockeying for broadband subsidies is this problem even brought up in DC, so as states vie for $4.7 million in wireless broadband subsidies via the FCC's Mobility Fund Phase II, the problem has been seeing renewed attention.

Back in August, Montana Senator Jon Tester took these criticisms to a new level, bluntly insisting the FCC's maps "stink" and that we really have "got to kick somebody's ass" to get the problem fixed. Like Tester, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin also isn't impressed and has been trying to challenge the FCC's historically terrible coverage maps. This week Manchin again pointed out that our US broadband maps are terrible, while noting he was the only member of Congress to actually formally challenge them:

"Manchin argued the map does not accurately show broadband coverage in West Virginia, leaving some out of receiving reliable and affordable broadband. Rural areas were getting screwed, and all of West Virginia was getting screwed because these big-time carriers were showing, ‘Oh, this is our area. We’ve got it taken care of, don’t worry. They’re only going to go into areas where they know that they’re going to have a return on an investment. It’s no different than electricity back in the 1930s."

Therein lies the problem. Incumbent ISPs see no reason to deploy broadband into countless areas (rural and urban) country wide because they either don't see a good return on the investment, or the unyielding need for quarterly improvements mean they don't see a return quickly enough for Wall Street's liking. And while that's certainly understandable, at the same time incumbent ISPs do everything in their power to prevent cities from wiring themselves either, most notably via the 21 protectionist laws ISPs have quite literally written and purchased that ban towns and cities from exploring more creative solutions.

That's particularly true in Manchin's West Virginia, which we've long noted is the poster child for US broadband corruption and dysfunction, thanks in large part to regional incumbent telco Frontier Communications.

Last year, the ISP fired a seven year employee because, at his part-time job as West Virginia senate leader (note how nobody in the state thought that was a conflict of interest), he voted for a new law that would actually help improve broadband penetration and competition in the state. Frontier has also been under fire for the better part of the last decade over allegations that the ISP routinely rips off taxpayers and has wasted millions in past subsidies by intentionally misrepresenting how that money was spent.

So while it's great that Manchin is the only Senator that actually cares about the country's broadband maps, terrible broadband maps are just a symptom of a much broader problem Manchin tap dances around: corruption and cronyism. Even the most well-intentioned US lawmakers routinely let some of the least popular, monopolistic companies in America dictate both federal and state telecom policy, then stand around with an idiotic look on their faces as they wonder what could have possibly gone wrong.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband map, competition, fcc, joe manchin