Facebook, Google Wake Up From Their Coma On The Subject, Join Wednesday's Massive Net Neutrality Protest

from the nice-to-see-you-could-show-up dept

So if you hadn't heard, Wednesday will bear witness to a major protest (both online and off) against the FCC's plan to kill popular net neutrality protections here in the States. Spearheaded by consumer advocacy group Fight for the Future, the "day of action" is an effort to bring attention to the attack on net neutrality, to drive more people to the FCC's comment proceeding, and to generate a wave of backlash supporters hope will mirror the SOPA/PIPA uprising. Countless small companies, consumer groups, and many large companies (including Amazon, Reddit, and Netflix) will be participating in the protests.

But also joining the proceedings are several Silicon Valley giants that, in recent years, have not just been apathetic to genuine net neutrality, but in many instances have actively worked to undermine the concept. While they didn't make a formal announcement (that would have been too bold), both Google and Facebook reps are quietly telling news outlets they'll be participating in the protests. The depth of their involvement isn't clear, but managers of the campaign say they're obviously happy with the support all the same:

"We have not heard directly from either Facebook or Google, but we’re glad to hear that these companies are listening to their employees and Internet users and will speak out for net neutrality with the rest of the Internet on July 12," Evan Greer, campaign director at Fight for the Future and an organizer for the event, said in a statement.

"In previous years these companies have often been on the sidelines of these fights, so we hope that they plan to do something meaningful in the spirit of the protest and educate their users about what’s at stake if we lose net neutrality protections that protect our online free speech, and give them opportunities to take action."

Saying that Google and Facebook have been "on the sidelines" of the net neutrality fight is understandably polite on Greer's part. Both have been working hard to broaden their lobbying focus under the Trump administration, and both have been more than happy to sacrifice some integrity (and the health of the internet) in the process. They've not only been mute as the FCC has taken aim at the rules, but historically they've taken actions to directly undermine the entire concept of network neutrality -- here and abroad.

You'll recall Facebook faced a massive backlash in India after it tried to corner the ad market with a free, AOL-esque service that critics say gave Facebook far too much influence over what content consumers would see. Criticism only grew after the "zero rated" service initially went so far as to prohibit the use of encryption. India ultimately banned the practice after critics like Mozilla pointed out that if you want to bring internet access to the poor -- you should actually bring real internet access to the poor, not a curated walled garden that only thinly disguises your international ad ambitions.

While consistently still portrayed by some press outlets as a net neutrality ally, Google has also effectively been AWOL from the discussion since 2010, when it actively worked to make the FCC's initial rules as flimsy as possible. Working hand in hand with AT&T and Verizon, Google played a big part in ensuring the original rules didn't even cover wireless networks. When efforts emerged in 2015 to craft the notably tougher rules we currently have (for now), Google was nowhere to be found -- and has lobbied pretty consistently against net neutrality protections for consumers overseas.

So yes, while it should be applauded that both companies are participating in Wednesday's proceedings, the depth of their participation is far from clear, and their efforts to undermine net neutrality in recent years should not be forgotten by those working to keep the internet a relatively open and healthy platform for competition and free speech.

Filed Under: day of action, fcc, net neutrality
Companies: facebook, google

50 Million US Homes Can't Get 25 Mbps From More Than One ISP

from the who-needs-competition? dept

We've talked for a while how while there has been a lot of hype placed upon the nation's scattered but modest deployment of gigabit networks, broadband in countless parts of the country is actually getting significantly-less competitive. That's thanks in large part to the nation's phone companies, which have increasingly refused to pony up the necessary costs to upgrade their aging DSL networks at any scale. Instead, many have shifted their focus either to enterprise services, or as in the case of Verizon, into trying to peddle ads to Millennials after gobbling up AOL and Yahoo.

As a result, cable has established a growing monopoly over broadband across massive swaths of the country. This reduced competition has resulted in rampant price hikes (usually in the form of hidden surcharges or arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps and overage fees). But it also has eliminated any real incentive to keep rates low or repair what's statistically some of the worst customer service in any industry in America.

A new study by several consultants for the broadband industry offers a little more insight into the real-world result of the sector's ongoing competition problem. According to the report by Economists Incorporated and CMA Strategy Consulting, there's a fairly staggering number of broadband consumers that don't see any real competition whatsoever, especially at the FCC's standard definition of broadband (25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up):

"More than 10.6 million US households have no access to wired Internet service with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, and an additional 46.1 million households live in areas with just one provider offering those speeds, a new analysis has found. That adds up to more than 56 million households lacking any high-speed broadband choice over wired connections. Even when counting access to fixed wireless connections, there are still nearly 50 million households with one 25Mbps provider or none at all."

So it should be noted here that these estimates are likely optimistic. FCC data has previously suggested that this number is even higher, former FCC boss Tom Wheeler stating that around 80% of homes can't get access to the agency's standard definition of broadband. It's notably worse in rural or tribal areas. But even this week's new, toned down report by industry consultants doesn't paint a particularly pretty picture. Even at slower broadband speeds, you'd be hard pressed to identify anything close to reasonable competition:

"There were 31.1 million households with exactly one wireline provider offering speeds of at least 10Mbps, and another 6.9 million households with zero providers offering such speeds over wired connections. At the paltry level of 3Mbps download speeds, 19.3 million households had access to one wireline ISP and 4.9 million households had no access at all."

It should be noted that one of the co-authors of the report, Hal Singer, has a bit of a history creatively-massaging data at the industry's behest -- especially when it comes to trying to vilify net neutrality (which the 45-page report seems to avoid talking about). So while Singer's ability to candidly acknowledge a lack of competition is a little surprising (even though the report does try to scale back previous FCC estimates on this front), less surprising is the authors' proposed solution to the broadband industry's broadband deployment and competition shortcomings: the magical wand that is telecom sector deregulation.

So again, the report is quick to avoid the debate over the current administration's decision to kill consumer privacy protections and gut net neutrality, despite Singer being a major player in trying to make the latter happen. And while it pays some lip service to competition, it fails to acknowledge how cable's growing monopoly and outright telco apathy are making competition problems worse. The report however does try to claim that several, less talked about FCC initiatives are going to expand fiber and competition to an additional 26.7 million homes:

"In two recent Notices of Proposed Rulemakings (“NPRMs”), the FCC has outlined a range of potential actions to make it faster and less costly to deploy next-generation networks. It is expected that these proposals will lower pole-attachment costs, reduce the time and cost of make-ready, reduce barriers to copper retirement, accelerate legacy time-division multiplexing (“TDM”) product discontinuance, and reduce barriers to locating and deploying wireless infrastructure.

The telecom industry has insisted for decades that if you remove all regulatory oversight, competition and connectivity will magically spring forth from the sidewalks, bathing us uniformly in dirt-cheap, ultra-fast connectivity. Of course that never happens because reality is notably more complicated, and each piece of regulation (especially in an industry where incumbent legacy giants are usually quite-literally writing the laws) needs to be weighed on its actual merits. When you just blindly "deregulate" a sector that suffers from both regulatory capture and limited competition, history tells us you don't get a miracle -- you get Comcast.

What most people also don't seem to understand is that when the telecom industry pushes for "deregulation," what it actually means is passing regulation it writes. And, historically, that regulation unsurprisingly makes life easier for wealthy, entrenched duopolists, but makes life substantially harder on the smaller competitive upstarts that lack the same lobbying and campaign-contribution firepower. It's generally how they get partisans who adore the concept of killing burdensome regulations (because yes, there is plenty of that) into cheering against their own best self interests. And it has been a smashing success for decades. Your Comcast bill surely agrees.

So while the report is correct that things like utility pole attachment reform is important for fiber deployment, it fails to mention that cities that have attempted to do so have been sued by Comcast, Charter and AT&T to try and slow competitive threats. Similarly, while the report is quick to emphasize the importance of "reducing barriers to copper retirement," it fails to mention that AT&T and Verizon's version of this involves severing the taxpayer-subsizied DSL connections of millions of users (many elderly), and just shoving them toward notably-more expensive wireless (assuming it's even available).

So yes, some of these efforts -- in an ideal world -- could speed up deployment. But because we've let industry giants quite literally infect government (including surveillance) on a bone-marrow level, actually implementing any regulatory or deregulatory policies that improve competition simply doesn't happen -- because it would reduce sector revenues. Consultants predominantly paid by the industry aren't likely to admit this, but as somebody having spent the better part of a lifetime tracking this sector I can assure you: none of the competition, coverage and service problems in telecom are going to be fixed until we somehow lessen Comcast, AT&T, Charter and Verizon's influence over state and federal politics.

Filed Under: access, broadband, competition, fcc

ISPs Are No Longer Even Bothering To Provide Bogus Excuses For Their Expanding Use Of Bullshit Usage Caps

from the pay-more-money-for-the-same-exact-service dept

A few years ago, large ISPs began taking advantage of a lack of competition in the broadband market by imposing arbitrary, unnecessary and confusing usage caps and overage fees. Initially, these companies tried to claim that this was necessary to manage congestion on their networks. As data emerged indicating that this claim was bullshit, large ISPs were ultimately forced to acknowledge as much and back away from the claim.

Shortly after that, ISPs instead began claiming that these glorified price hikes were necessary as a simple matter of "fairness," and the industry narrative-du-jour became that it only made sense that heavier users should pay more money for broadband.

This excuse was bullshit too; Americans already pay some of the highest prices for broadband of any developed nation under the flat-rate pricing model, which any large ISP earnings report will show you is perfectly profitable. And if "excessive consumption" really was a problem, it was a problem caused solely by a small number of users that could easily be shoved toward business-class tiers. It didn't require saddling everyone with confusing and expensive surcharges.

These days, after being hammered for years for bogus justifications, large ISPs no longer even provide a reason for these rate hikes. Take Cox Communications for example. The company has quietly announced it would be expanding usage caps into several new markets, charging users $10 per each additional 50 GB of data users consumed over a one terabyte limit. The e-mail being sent to users, which is getting widespread attention on Reddit, doesn't even really bother to offer a justification for the price hike:

Several news outlets and reporters (including myself) tried to get Cox to explain its reasoning for the hikes, and the company simply refused. Of course there's a simple reason ISPs no longer try to justify this behavior: they don't have to.

Consumers in captive markets can't vote with their wallets, and cable providers are slowly but quietly enjoying a growing monopoly over next-gen broadband as telcos refuse to keep pace and upgrade their DSL networks. The end result is the ability for these companies to impose massive new rate hikes that not only result in users paying more money for the same-exact service, but help incumbent ISPs penalize the use of would-be streaming competitors. Zero rating an ISPs own services -- while still penalizing competitors like Netflix -- adds another layer of anti-competitive adventure to the proceedings.

But fear not! Cox did tell some news outlets that the company would soon be letting users avoid the caps and subscribe to an unmetered connection, for an added, unspecified cost. In other words: if you don't want to pay us more money for the exact same service, please pay us more money for the exact same service. Why? Because we can, and regulators couldn't care less.

Whenever the conversation about broadband caps pops up, many people quickly get bogged down in debate over whether or not a terabyte is fair, losing sight of the fact that these limits are utterly unnecessary, and we wouldn't be seeing them at all in a healthy, competitive market. What's deemed "fair" today won't necessarily be fair in the multi-user 4K streaming households of tomorrow. And without competitive pressure, there's nothing ensuring these caps scale with use. In fact, ISPs are incentivized to tighten the noose further once you've agreed to have your usage metered.

And with the current Ajit Pai-led FCC clearly intent to turn a blind eye to both a lack of competition and the predatory behavior that results from it (be it violations in privacy or net neutrality), there's plenty more anti-competitive shenanigans and feebly-justified nonsense waiting in the wings.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, competition, fcc
Companies: cox

Comcast, Charter May Soon Get Even Larger With Joint Acquisition Of Sprint

from the merge-ALL-the-things!!! dept

With the telecom sector seeing the Trump administration as somewhat of a blank check, the industry is busy considering all manner of mergers and acquisitions that would have been blocked under any number of previous administrations for being competition-killers. Verizon has made an offer to buy Charter (Spectrum), Sprint has been trying to merge with T-Mobile, AT&T's pushing for approval of its acquisition of Time Warner, Altice USA is gobbling up smaller providers hand over foot, and the industry is consolidating at a faster rate than ever.

While obviously not all M&As are bad by default, ignored in this rush is that several recent high-profile telecom deals have been utter shitshows for the American consumer.

While the Obama administration did block both AT&T and Sprint's attempted acquisitions of T-Mobile (which wound up being a very good thing for competition and consumers), its approval of Frontier's acquisition of Verizon's unwanted DSL customers in Florida, California and Texas resulted in endless outages and problems courtesy of a bungled integration. The Obama administration also approved Charter's $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House, resulting in not only much higher prices for consumers, but (somehow) even worse customer service for already one of the least-liked companies in America.

Undaunted by any potential history lessons, now Trump-era merger mania rolls on with the news that Charter and Comcast are considering either a joint acquisition of Sprint, or a minority ownership stake in exchange for a more lucrative network sharing deal for both companies' wireless services:

U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Corp is in talks with Charter Communications Inc and Comcast Corp about a partnership to boost the two U.S. cable companies' wireless offerings, according to sources familiar with the matter. Sprint, controlled by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp, has entered into a two-month period of exclusive negotiations with Charter and Comcast that has put its merger talks with U.S. wireless peer T-Mobile US Inc on hold till the end of July, the sources said on Monday.

Said deal could involve an outright acquisition of Sprint by the two cable giants, though one source suggests that's unlikely at first. More likely is a joint minority investment by both companies in exchange for a discount network sharing arrangement to help fuel both cable companies' attempts to get into the wireless sector. Comcast has already launched a WiFi-centric wireless voice service that uses the Verizon Wireless network for backup, and Charter is planning a similar service for 2018. That would, depending on how it went, likely evolve into a full acquisition of Sprint down the road.

Both companies had already struck a deal to partner on handset contracts, including a promise not to acquire a wireless carrier without first informing the other company. That deal was criticized on some fronts as a way for the two cable companies to avoid having to directly compete as they pushed their respective services to market.

How all of this shakes out (and whether it's good for anybody not named Sprint, Comcast or Charter) remains unclear. The deal could be an improvement over a Sprint acquisition of T-Mobile as it would not only keep the four major wireless competitors intact, but would bolster Sprint's historically rocky balance sheet ensuring it remains a somewhat viable competitor. That said, Charter and Comcast are no strangers to anti-competitive behavior, and adding another entire service segment to this well-documented dysfunction could prove disastrous for what's already some of the worst customer service in any industry in America.

Filed Under: acquisition, antitrust, broadband, competition, fcc, mergers, mobile
Companies: charter, comcast, sprint

AT&T Promises A Cornucopia Of Broadband Investment...But Only If Trump Gives It A Giant Tax Cut & A Shiny New Merger

from the Charlie-Brown-and-the-football dept

For decades now, AT&T has promised that an incredible boon in broadband investment is waiting just around the corner -- but only if AT&T gets what it wants from the government. Whether it's gunning for tax cuts and subsidies, or looking for approval of its latest megamerger, AT&T's an absolute master of the regulatory carrot and a stick game. Even if the carrot is entirely hallucinated, as we saw when AT&T threatened to curtail already minimal fiber optic deployment unless net neutrality was killed.

Of course because AT&T doesn't face meaningful competition in most markets, and few members of either party of government are truly interested in doing much of anything about this problem, this investment explosion never really materializes one way or the other. That's why millions upon millions of AT&T customers still pay an arm and a leg for last-generation DSL speeds, AT&T's consistently under fire for failing to upgrade many cities, and most of the company's network can't offer speeds remotely close to the gigabit-speeds now being offered by cable.

Yet somehow, each and every time AT&T comes stumbling toward government with its hand outstretched, we oddly and mysteriously ignore this history lesson and provide AT&T with absolutely every benefit of the doubt. Case in point: with AT&T looking for Trump administration approval of its $85 billion Time Warner deal, the company last week trotted out its latest promise: a massive wave of broadband investment if the company sees some major tax cuts and has its latest merger approved; a narrative the press was happy to reiterate without qualification:

Ahead of the tech meeting, Stephenson told "Squawk Box" the company will increase its capital investments if Trump delivers on tax reform by the end of the year.

"I don't think we're unique. I think you would see this happen across all industries, and with every player in our industry," he said.

You'll recall that Trump originally threatened to block AT&T's planned acquisition of Time Warner on the campaign trail, claiming it was "too much concentration of power in the hands of too few." But Trump has since given every indication that he intends to approve the deal, and his recently hired antitrust boss at the DOJ is on record saying he thinks the deal should be approved.

Consumer advocates worry an even larger AT&T will use its expanded broadcaster power to hamstring licensing access to streaming competitors. They're also concerned AT&T will use usage caps, overage fees and "zero rating" to give its own content an unfair advantage. But because there's about 100 AT&T lobbyists at any one moment lobbying DC lawmakers to approve the deal, most analysts now think it should sail through with modest, if any, conditions.

It will be just the latest victory for a company that has recently convinced government to kill consumer broadband privacy protections, dismantle net neutrality, end an effort to bring competition to the cable box, and is now pushing government to further hamstring regulatory oversight of one of the least competitive markets in America. Last week, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and Trump spent much of a full day lavishing praise upon one another, including this bit of heady telecom sector analysis from Donald:

"With Stephenson seated to his right, Trump said AT&T was "like two companies" — "you started, then it was made different by government and now here you are again." The president added that such a reinvention over the years was "not easy to do."

Of course AT&T didn't "re-invent" itself as-so-much as it got blown up by government for being a predatory monopoly, after which it slowly but surely re-assembled itself via a wave of brand acquisitions (SBC, Ameritech, Bellsouth and ultimately the AT&T brand itself). It then lobbied state and federal governments to not only ignore the lack of competition in the broadband market, but to pass laws protecting it from competition. So yes, while that's impressive in and of itself, the end result has been a company with an indisputably vicious history of anti-consumer policies, anti-competitive behavior and outright fraud.

And while AT&T has been caught repeatedly lying about the job and broadband investment benefits of blind deregulation and M&As, that never gets factored in to assessing the credibility of whatever AT&T's pushing today. And it's clearly not going to be a problem for a Trump administration that has already been taking credit for telecom sector jobs it had absolutely nothing to do with. AT&T's merger pitches are always rife with bullshit and bravado on the job creation and broadband expansion front, but with Trump's help, you can expect AT&T to take things to an entirely new level once the deal is formally approved later this year.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, doj, donald trump, fcc, investment, mergers, tax cuts
Companies: at&t

Cable Industry Quietly Shelves Its Bogus Plan To Make Cable Boxes Cheaper, More Competitive

from the misbehaving-without-a-baby-sitter dept

Last year, the cable industry quietly launched one of the most misleading and successful lobbying efforts in the industry's history. The target? A plan concocted by the former FCC that would have let customers watch cable programming without having to rent a cable box or use a CableCARD. Given the industry makes $21 billion annually in rental fees off of this entrenched hardware monopoly, the industry got right to work with an absolute wave of disinformation, claiming that the FCC's plan would confuse customers, increase piracy, and was (with a little help from Jesse Jackson) somehow even racist (seriously).

At one point, the industry even managed to grab the help of the US Copyright Office, which falsely claimed that more cable box competition would somehow violate copyright. Of course the plan had nothing to do with copyright, and everything to do with control, exemplifying once again that for the US Copyright Office, public welfare is often a distant afterthought.

As part of this stage show, the cable industry also created a group specifically tasked with attacking the proposal. Dubbed the Future of TV Coalition, the group set forth to not only attack the FCC's plan, but to propose its own counter proposal it claimed made any cable box reform efforts at the FCC unnecessary. Dubbed the "ditch the box" proposal, the cable industry and the Future of TV Coalition breathlessly stated the industry (pdf) was already cooking up ways to help consumers avoid rental fees have greater choice, and that these efforts were already well underway:

"This new “Ditch the Box” approach calls for binding, enforceable obligations for major TV providers to allow customers to ditch their set-top boxes and access live and on demand programming via boxless apps compatible with a wide range of retail devices, including smart TVs, game consoles, streaming devices, laptops, tablets, phones, and more...Providers will have two years to fully implement the new requirements – and many are already racing to do so sooner."

That was then, this is now. Shortly after Trump's election win, the new Ajit Pai led FCC quickly moved to scuttle the plan. And not too surprisingly, the cable industry's counter plan to make lives better for consumers never actually materialized, and appears to have been mothballed:

"The Future of TV Coalition has gone silent — it last tweeted Nov. 28 — the cable industry’s trade group NCTA hasn’t had much to say about it either. NCTA spokesman Brian Dietz wrote in an e-mail that Ditch the Box was pitched as “an “alternative” to the Wheeler’s original proposal. Without the FCC’s acceptance of Ditch the Box, that plan got ditched."

So without somebody actively pressuring an uncompetitive sector to stop being uncompetitive, they continue to be uncompetitive. Who could have possibly predicted that? Of course the cable industry continues to pay empty lip service to the idea of choice and freedom, all the while continuing efforts to make actual consumer choice on this front as difficult and expensive as ever (see Comcast's decision to charge users a completely unnecessary fee just to use a Roku as a cable box, or cross-industry efforts to use unnecessary broadband usage caps and overage fees to drive up the cost of streaming via their competitors).

The cable industry falsely believes this is all an ingenious plan to keep its traditional cable TV cash cow alive indefinitely. But as the continued and accelerating rate of TV cord cutting illustrates, the cable sector isn't going to be nearly as impervious to market evolution as it likes to believe.

Filed Under: cable box, cable card, cable tv, competition, ditch the box, fcc, lies, set top boxes, unlock the box
Companies: ncta

AT&T May Soon Return To Charging Broadband Subscribers More For Privacy

from the privacy-is-now-a-luxury-option dept

Last year, you might recall that AT&T came up with an ingenious idea: to charge broadband customers significantly more if they actually wanted to protect their own privacy. It basically worked like this: users ordering AT&T's broadband service could get the service for, say, $70 a month. But if that user wanted to opt out of AT&T's Internet Preferences snoopvertising program (which used deep packet inspection to study your movement around the Internet down to the second) users were forced to pay upwards of $800 more each year. With its decision, AT&T effectively made user privacy a premium service.

AT&T backed off this idea after massive backlash, in part because the former, Wheeler-run FCC had started raising a stink about the practice, but also because it wanted regulatory approval for its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner.

But after successfully lobbying the GOP to kill FCC broadband consumer privacy protections (which would have let the FCC crack down on these kinds of practices on a case-by-case basis), AT&T is apparently considering bringing the program back.

Speaking last week on C-SPAN's The Communicators program, AT&T Senior Vice President Bob Quinn acknowledged that AT&T's first attempt to charge more for privacy didn't go over all that well:

Quinn suggested that the company may try again to roll out that type of pricing structure. "We got an enormous amount of criticism from privacy advocates when we rolled out, in Austin, Texas, an ad-supported Internet service... Privacy advocates screamed about that," Quinn said.

But that was then, and this is now. With FCC privacy protections dead, AT&T lobbyists have shifted their gaze toward killing net neutrality, and shoveling all regulatory oversight of broadband duopolies to an over-extended and ill-equipped FTC. An FTC, we should reiterate, AT&T lawyers have been making very clear they believe has no real authority over AT&T's businesses.

With pesky regulatory oversight now likely out of the way, Quinn makes it clear in the interview he'd like to now revisit the idea of a privacy surcharge, which he claims would somehow provide users with more control over their privacy:

"He added, however, that he believes attitudes will change in the future. "As the privacy revolution evolves, I think people are going to want more control, and maybe that's the pricing model that's ultimately what consumers want."

Right, except again, consumers have made it repeatedly clear they don't want this. AT&T has consistently tried to claim that this is all just "ad-supported internet service" and that charging users more money to protect their privacy was somehow a "discount," since users who were opted in to snoopvertising by default ultimately paid less than consumers that didn't. But as people noted at the time, finding the option to opt out was obnoxiously cumbersome, and the fact you'd pay $800 just to not be tracked was heavily obfuscated by the company.

Yes, many consumers would likely happily pay less money for broadband if ISPs offered a genuine discount for being tracked and monetized. But that's never been what AT&T offered, and since it faces limited competition in many markets -- it has minimal incentive to actually offer it. What AT&T is effectively doing here is making privacy protection a luxury option. And with every indication that AT&T's about to face weaker regulatory oversight than ever -- there's zero incentive for AT&T to offer any program that truly provides consumer benefits. It should, however, be amusing to watch AT&T try and pretend otherwise.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, premium service, privacy
Companies: at&t