California Agrees To Delay Net Neutrality Law Pending Outcome Of Federal Lawsuit

from the round-and-round-we-go dept

California has agreed to pause the state's shiny new net neutrality law pending the outcome of a looming federal lawsuit against the FCC. After some early gamesmanship courtesy of AT&T, California passed one of the toughest net neutrality laws in the nation (which isn't saying much) back in September. The law effectively mirrors the discarded 2015 FCC net neutrality rules, though the law goes a little further to ensure that ISPs can't abuse things like zero rating (exempting a partner or an ISP's own content but not others) and usage caps.

In a not entirely-unexpected move, the state late last week struck a deal with government and industry lawyers, agreeing to delay its implementation until a lawsuit against the FCC can be settled. That federal lawsuit, filed by Mozilla and 23 State Attorneys General, isn't expected to hear opening arguments until February. If the FCC and industry lose, the 2015 rules would be restored. If the FCC and industry win, the legal fight shifts to whether states will be allowed to implement their own rules, potentially, eventually, coming down to new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Given the looming federal lawsuit, the decision to pause California's effort is largely just about legal efficiency. But Ajit Pai being Ajit Pai, the FCC boss, in a statement, was quick to declare the agreement as a one-sided victory; namely his:

"I am pleased that California has agreed not to enforce its onerous Internet regulations. This substantial concession reflects the strength of the case made by the United States earlier this month. It also demonstrates, contrary to the claims of the law’s supporters, that there is no urgent problem that these regulations are needed to address. Indeed, California’s agreement not to enforce these regulations will allow Californians to continue to enjoy free-data plans that have proven to be popular among consumers."

Granted things have been pretty quiet in the wake of the repeal not because the rules aren't necessary, but because ISPs don't want to add any ammunition to the looming federal lawsuits against the FCC. Should they win that lawsuit, you can be absolutely certain you won't miss their efforts to nickel-and-dime consumers. Regardless, the bill's author, Scott Weiner, didn't think much of Pai's victory lap:

In perfect operational symmetry (since we're not even operating under the pretense that lobbyists aren't dictating federal policy anymore) both the broadband industry and the Department of Justice sued to block Califormia's law, claiming that the FCC's net neutrality repeal pre-empts (bans) states from trying to protect consumers. Most lawyers I've spoken to have stated the FCC's attempts to thwart state consumer protections aren't legally sound, and the best the industry (and its BFFs at the FCC) can do is delay, not kill, state net neutrality rules.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, california, fcc, net neutrality, scott weiner

Big Telecom Resorts To Lying To Senior Citizens To Scuttle Net Neutrality In California

from the disinformation-nation dept

With the bipartisan majority of Americans supporting net neutrality, the broadband industry often has to resort to outright falsehoods to try and make its case that we don't need net neutrality rules (or any meaningful oversight of natural telecom monopolies). From paying civil rights groups to parrot industry positions to hiring fake journalists to deny the obvious, the broadband industry has a long, proud, multi-decade history of using outright bullshit to scare the public, press and regulators away from the idea of net neutrality.

The latest case in point: after AT&T lobbyists successfully sabotaged initial efforts to pass new net neutrality rules in California, the state this week revisited the effort with a new vote on the state assembly floor. In a bid to try and scuttle the effort, an AT&T-linked group by the name of Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) has been robocalling senior citizens in the state, informing them that their cell phone bill will jump $30 if the new rules pass. California State Senator Scott Wiener, the author of California's bill, wasn't particularly impressed:

The group is informing seniors that should California pass net neutrality rules, they'll not only see a $30 hike in their cellular phone bills, but their data will be "slowed down":

"Your Assembly member will be voting on a proposal by San Francisco politicians that could increase your cellphone bill by $30 a month and slow down your data. We can't afford higher cell phone bills. We can't afford slower data. We can't afford Senate Bill 822."

Of course the bill in question, SB822, does nothing of the sort. Like most net neutrality bills, it prohibits AT&T from throttling or slowing down your cellular data connections anti-competitively, and if anything will likely save California consumers money by preventing AT&T from nickel and diming them (via zero rating, interconnection shenanigans, charging you more just to watch HD video as intended, or countless other creative abuses of the largely-uncompetitive broadband market). The information conveyed by the robocall is patently false.

Knowing the bill is likely to pass in some form, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast lobbyists have spent the last few months trying to strip away most of the integral parts of the bill. With those efforts struggling in activist-heavy California, apparently the broadband industry thought the next best move would be to lie to senior citizens, which speaks volumes of the quality and integrity of its arguments.

Filed Under: california, lobbying, net neutrality, scott weiner
Companies: at&t, civil justice association

AT&T Successfully Derails California's Tough New Net Neutrality Law

from the AT&T-wins-again dept

This truly is, as they say, why we can't have nice things.

In the wake of the FCC's ham-fisted net neutrality repeal, more than half the states in the country are now exploring their own, state-level net neutrality protections. California's proposal, Senator Scott Weiner's SB 822, was seen as particularly promising in that it went even farther on some important issues than the 2015 FCC rules it was intended to replace. The EFF went so far as to call California's proposal the "gold standard" for state-level net neutrality laws, noting it did a better job policing many of the problem areas where modern anti-competitive behavior occurs, such as zero rating or interconnection.

You probably saw that AT&T just got done spending $86 billion to acquire Time Warner. The company harbors dreams of using its combined dominance over broadband and media content to anti-competitive advantage, something that's undeniable if you've watched AT&T do business for any particular length of time.

Since California's law would have severely hampered AT&T's dreams of dominating the streaming video and ad wars to come, the company got right to work derailing California's legislative push in its usually-underhanded way. The company managed to convince California Assemblyman Miguel Santiago to introduce a series of last-minute secretive Tuesday night amendments that were then voted on without debate during a Wednesday morning hearing:

"The committee, lead by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, issued amendments to the bill late Tuesday night. Among its recommendations were to permit a controversial internet service provider practice called “zero rating,” where some websites and apps don’t count against a consumer’s data allotment. Opponents view zero rating as a backdoor way of discriminating against online services that don’t strike free-data deals with broadband and wireless companies."

In the early days of net neutrality, ISPs like AT&T engaged in more ham-fisted and non-transparent abuse of their broadband monopolies. Like the time AT&T blocked Facetime from working unless users upgraded to more expensive data plans, or the time Comcast throttled all upstream BitTorrent traffic then repeatedly lied about it.

As people got smarter to what ISPs were up to, ISPs began getting more nefariously clever. Like the time ISPs let their peering and interconnection points intentionally congest to kill settlement-free peering and drive up costs for companies like Netflix, slowing down Netflix streams for everyone until the company paid up. Or the way that ISPs now impose arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps, then exclude their own streaming services from them while still penalizing competitors (aka zero rating), something it took years for the last FCC to finally realize was just as anti-competitive.

Fast forward to this week. To convince lawmakers to back off the restrictions on zero rating, AT&T first employed the use of a group dubbed CALinnovates, one of numerous groups AT&T covertly funds to pee in the discourse pool. CALinnovates then circulated an incredibly misleading study among lawmakers falsely claiming that AT&T's anti-competitive use of usage caps is a huge boon to the state's minority populations (err, false). AT&T then got state lawmakers to approve of a list of major amendments Tuesday evening that would cripple the most important parts of the bill.

Specifically, AT&T (and likely Comcast and Verizon) convinced Santiago to strip away all rules governing zero rating, all guidance preventing interconnection shenanigans, as well as a rule that would have prevented ISPs from charging other companies "access fees" if they want to reach AT&T customers. Santiago's office refused any and all contact from reporters (myself included) on Tuesday night, then quickly rushed those amendments through the voting process before they could even be debated. Disgusted by the railroading, Weiner ultimately pulled his bill entirely, arguing that it no longer adequately protected consumers:

"It is no longer a net neutrality bill,” a visibly frustrated Wiener said after the vote. In an unusual move, the committee voted on the bill before Wiener was given a chance to testify. “I will state for the record ... I think it was fundamentally unfair,” he said.

Net neutrality activism groups like Fight for the Future were notably less subtle in their own statements:

"The level of corruption we just witnessed literally makes me sick to my stomach,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group with more than 350,000 members in California. "These California democrats will go down in history as among the worst corporate shills that have ever held elected office.Californians should rise up and demand that at their Assembly members represent them. The actions of this committee today are an attack not just on net neutrality, but on our democracy."

If you've watched AT&T do business, the fact that it was able to scuttle this bill in such a "progressive" state shouldn't be surprising. AT&T's political power over many state legislatures is often downright comical, to the point where AT&T lawyers are quite literally the ones writing terrible state law. That's particularly true in states like Tennessee, though in ignoring the undeniable will of the public on this subject, California has proven itself no better.

All told it has been a great year and a greater few weeks if your name is AT&T. Net neutrality formally died on June 11, the company's latest megamerger was approved thanks to a comically narrow understanding of the markets by a Federal Judge, and it managed to scuttle state-level net neutrality in California, purportedly a stronghold for net neutrality activism. This on the heels of successful efforts to neuter FCC oversight of historically unpopular and anti-competitive incumbent ISPs. What could possibly go wrong?

Filed Under: california, miguel santiago, net neutrality, scott weiner, zero rating
Companies: at&t