Courts (Again) Shoot Down Telecom Lobby's Attempt To Kill State-Level Net Neutrality Rules

from the this-whole-thing-isn't-going-well dept

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has put a final bullet in the telecom industry's attempt to kill state-level net neutrality laws. The ruling (pdf) again makes it clear that the Trump FCC's 2017 repeal of net neutrality didn't follow the law when they also attempted to ban states from protecting broadband consumers in the wake of federal apathy. Basically, the courts keep making it clear the FCC can't abdicate its net neutrality and consumer protection authority under the Communications Act, then turn around and tell states what they can or can't do on consumer protection:

"The court explained that the discretion to classify a communications service under federal law does not permit the FCC to impose upon the states the policy preferences underlying that definitional choice."

This was never really understood by much of the press and punditry, but the Trump FCC net neutrality repeal didn't just kill net neutrality rules. It eroded much of the FCC's overall consumer protection authority (right before a pandemic, it turns out). It then punted a lot of broadband consumer protection over to the FTC--which lacks the resources or authority to do the job (the whole point of the industry lobbying gambit). Not only that, it attempted to ban states from being able to protect broadband consumers as well, something the courts have consistently frowned upon.

In the wake of federal apathy, several states, including Washington and California, passed their own state-level net neutrality protections designed to prevent telecom monopolies from abusing their market power. That was immediately met with not only industry lawsuits, but a lawsuit by the Trump DOJ that was unsurprisingly dropped last February by the Biden administration. Undaunted, telecom giants like AT&T continued to try and claim that the FCC's net neutrality repeal (which reclassified broadband under the Communications Act in a bid to erode oversight) pre-empted any state efforts to protect broadband consumers.

But the courts continue to annoyingly inform them the law doesn't work that way.

A lot of uninformed pundits will often pop up to proclaim that because the internet didn't implode in the wake of the FCC's net neutrality repeal, the rules must not have mattered all that much. But most of these pundits (usually intentionally) ignore the fact that a major reason ISPs have tried to behave in the years since is because they didn't want to be in violation of the remaining state laws. With California's legal victory, it's fairly guaranteed that even if the Biden FCC wimps out on revisiting net neutrality on the federal level, there will at least be a patchwork of state protections to derail AT&T and Comcast's uglier impulses.

It really gets lost in the droll legalese and policy rhetoric surrounding net neutrality, but this really was a grotesque example of blatant corruption. Not only did regional telecom monopolies effectively convince federal consumer protection regulators to lobotomize themselves at industry behest, they tried to ignore the law and ban states from being able to protect consumers as well. And knowing this was hugely unpopular with Americans across the aisle, the industry also used (with the Trump FCC's tacit approval) fake and dead people to pretend they had broad support for the gambit.

Net neutrality rules were always an imperfect attempt to erect some roadblocks to prevent regional telecom monopolies from abusing their market power. Net neutrality violations, like privacy violations, high prices, and poor customer service, were just a symptom of limited competition. You wouldn't need such rules if U.S. regulators and lawmakers were willing to take on the regional monopolization that creates a lack of meaningful competition in U.S. telecom, but they simply aren't. Nor is a corrupt Congress willing to pass a meaningful net neutrality law that would create consistent federal guidelines.

So instead we get patchwork state laws and a ping pong effect at the FCC until somebody in leadership has the courage to tackle the real issue (regional telecom monopolization and the corruption that protects it) head on. And based on the zeitgeist's oddly myopic obsession with antitrust reform and the perils of monopolization only if it pertains to "big tech," that's not happening any time soon.

Filed Under: 9th circuit, broadband, california, fcc, net neutrality, preemption, states

Dumb Telecom Take Of The Week: Because The Internet Didn't Explode, Killing Net Neutrality Must Not Have Mattered

from the bad-faith-gibberish dept

Very worried about the possible restoration of net neutrality at the Biden FCC, the telecom sector has taken to using telecom industry-friendly news outlets to parrot things you may be surprised to learn aren't actually true.

This week a coalition of infotainment outlets, including Fox News, The Hill, Reason, and the Washington Examiner all pushed stories with the same underlying narrative: four years ago net neutrality was repealed and the internet didn't explode, therefore repealing net neutrality must not have mattered. The narrative also bumbled around Twitter thanks to former Ajit Pai assistant Nathan Leamer, who now works for Targeted Victory, a DC internet comms and policy shop whose members have (surprise) telecoms like AT&T as a client.

All of the coordinated stories (likely requested by AT&T and/or Comcast, then funneled through their K Street policy shops to friendly news outlets) sent some variation of the same message. Because the internet didn't grind to an absolute halt, gutting net neutrality just didn't matter:

"Democrats and the media widely denounced the move at the time, calling it an encroachment on personal freedoms and would lead to the end of the internet as we know it. But their melodramatics have proven to be little more than that in the years since."

You'll be surprised to learn that all of these hot takes not only intentionally misrepresent what net neutrality is, but what actually happened. They also intentionally try to frame net neutrality as a "partisan debate" to sow dissent, when in reality a bipartisan majority of Americans supported the rules and didn't want them repealed (that wasn't mentioned in any of the reports for obvious reasons). And while there was no shortage of hyperbole on both sides of the net neutrality debate's sprawling 19-year span (find me a tech policy debate where overheated rhetoric doesn't exist), the idea that "the internet still works therefore the repeal was a good idea" is just absolute gibberish.

For those who still don't understand, the Trump FCC repeal of net neutrality didn't just "kill net neutrality rules." It gutted much of the FCC's consumer protection authority over telecom giants, shoveling it over to the FTC that lacks the authority and resources to adequately police the sector (the entire point). Not only that, it tried to ban states from having any authority over telecom as well. AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast's goal: eliminating most meaningful state and federal oversight of one of the most monopolized and disliked industries in America.

It's downright dumb that anybody remotely familiar with U.S. broadband monopolies would celebrate any of that.

One reason big ISPs haven't behaved worse in the wake of the repeal isn't because the rules didn't matter, it's because of the states. The courts ruled that the FCC's attempt to block states from protecting broadband consumers was a gross over reach. In response, several states (like Washington, Maine, and California) passed replacement state level net neutrality laws ISPs weren't keen on violating. Large ISPs were also nervous about the return of net neutrality rules on the federal level (yeah, the threat of regulation can be nearly as much of a deterrent as actual regulation) so they generally tried to avoid stupid stuff that was too ham fisted: like blocking entire websites or competitors outright.

Granted the nation's biggest ISPs still engaged in net neutrality violations, they just had to be quieter and slightly more clever about it. That often involved imposing gatekeeper barriers, then trying to sell consumers and policymakers on the idea they were exciting new value propositions. Like AT&T imposing arbitrary and unnecessary broadband usage caps, then using those caps to disadvantage streaming competitors. Or CenturyLink briefly blocking internet access to sling ads. Or Verizon charging you extra to stream HD video. Or Sprint trying to charge its subscribers extra just to enjoy music, video, or games.

No, the internet didn't stop working completely (not that actual experts on this subject claimed it would), but some negative, paradigm-shifting stuff has happened. ISPs have just tried to keep in a bit reined in. Why? They don't want to violate new state laws, or provide ammunition for the return of federal rules (which the courts have stated the FCC has the authority to re-impose). Did any of the outlets above or guys like Leamer mention any of that? No? I wonder why.

Something telecom giants and their assorted policy allies would like you to not understand: the repeal of net neutrality for telecom giants like Comcast was about way more than net neutrality. It was about further weakening the FCC's authority to hold them accountable for much of anything. Net neutrality rules were an imperfect stopgap measure to try and prevent telecom monopolies from abusing their gatekeeping market power in the absence of (a) meaningful competition (especially at faster speeds) and (b) a functional Congress interested in tackling telecom monopolization and 30 years of proven bad behavior. It's obvious to anybody familiar with companies like Comcast or AT&T that U.S. telecom lacks both healthy competition and consistent, competent regulatory oversight.

This apparently needs repeating: a telecom regulator ignoring all objective data and neutering itself at the behest of the telecom lobby is a bad thing. Ignoring the public and using bogus data to eliminate popular consumer protections that took fifteen years of consensus making to craft is a bad thing. Telecom lobbyists using dead and fake people to create fake support for broadly unpopular policy is a bad thing. Putting natural monopolies with 30 years of anti-competitive behavior under their belts in charge of US telecom policy is a bad thing. If you're applauding this stuff you're either misinformed, or engaged in the misinforming.

One problem is that across its massive lifespan the net neutrality debate simply became too convoluted and boring for the general public to maintain engagement with. In the years since the repeal I've tried to simplify the argument to help the easily bored and confused: the real underlying problem with U.S. broadband is a lack of competition caused by regional monopolies, and the corrupt state and federal lawmakers who coddle those monopolies. If you had functional competition and some marginally-competent oversight, you wouldn't need net neutrality rules, because users would simply drop ISPs that behaved badly--or be protected by state or federal consumer protection watchdogs in cases where they couldn't.

Net neutrality violations, privacy violations, spotty service, high prices, slow speeds, and terrible customer service, are all just symptoms of limited broadband competition. In U.S. markets where you have neither healthy broadband competition nor competent regulatory oversight (read: most of them) you get experiences like Comcast, which everybody should be familiar with. Unfortunately, both parties (admittedly one more than the other) have a bizarre allergy to fixing, or even acknowledging the monopolization and corruption that ensures U.S. broadband continues to suck. So you either get convoluted solutions to what actually is a fairly simple problem (rare), or no solutions at all (common).

Net neutrality rules were a complicated band aid applied by the FCC in the wake of a Congress too corrupt to stand up to telecom monopolies. If you're applauding AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon's successful bid to lobotomize the FCC so they can continue ripping you off with shitty, expensive service, you've most certainly been rooting for the wrong team. Net neutrality rules certainly weren't perfect, but they were an attempt to do something within the confines of a corrupt, broken system. The general alternative has been to let giant regional monopolies like AT&T and Comcast dictate all state and federal telecom policy, and if you have a pair of eyes and a wallet you can clearly see how well that strategy has worked over the last 30 years in America.

So as the net neutrality fracas heats up in the new year, at least try to vet the sources of the claims being made, and whether they're making those claims in good faith as truly objective observers. And try to understand that the real underlying problem activists and experts are trying to fix (admittedly sometimes clumsily and with hyperbole) is telecom monopolization and the corruption that protects it. If individuals, politicians, or pundits aren't willing to take concrete steps to fix those two key problems--or can't even acknowledge they exist--they're generally not going to be a helpful part of any meaningful solution.

Filed Under: competition, fcc, internet, net neutrality

British Telecom Wants Netflix To Pay A Tax Simply Because Squid Game Is Popular

from the good-luck-with-that dept

For years telecom executives, jealous of internet services and ad revenue, have demanded that content and services companies pay them an extra toll for no reason. You saw this most pointedly during the net neutrality fracas, when AT&T routinely insisted Google should pay it additional money for no coherent reason. Telecom execs have also repeatedly claimed that Netflix should pay them more money just because. Basically, telecoms have tried to use their gatekeeper and political power to offload network investment costs to somebody else, and have spent literally the last twenty years using a range of incoherent arguments to try and justify it with varying degrees of success.

While these efforts quieted down for a few years, they've popped back up recently thanks to, of all things, Netflix's Squid Game. In South Korea, ISPs have demanded that Netflix pay them more money because of the streaming demand the popular show places on their networks. As we noted then this makes no coherent sense, given ISPs build their networks to handle peak capacity load; what specific type of traffic causes that load doesn't particularly matter. It's just not how network engineering or common sense work.

That's not stopping telecom executives around the world, of course. Across the pond, British Telecom Chief Executive Marc Allera has trotted out the same argument there, claiming that a surge in usage (during a pandemic, imagine that) is somehow Netflix's problem:

"Every Tbps (terabit-per-second) of data consumed over and above current levels costs about £50m,” says Marc Allera, the chief executive of BT’s consumer division. “In the last year alone we’ve seen 4Tbps of extra usage and the cost to keep up with that growth is huge.”

An overwhelming majority of day-to-day usage, up to 80%, is accounted for by only a handful of companies such as YouTube, Facebook, Netflix and the games company Activision Blizzard."

But again that's not how any of this works. ISPs build out network infrastructure based on managing peak demand. It doesn't matter whether that demand originates from Squid Game or video gaming. As an ISP it's your responsibility to meet consumer and enterprise demand, since that's what they already pay you an arm and a leg for. Consumers and businesses alike already pay ISPs for bandwidth and transit; often accompanied by a steady array of consistent price hikes. ISPs are effectively asking for yet another additional troll toll, you know, just because.

Whether talking about Netflix or Google, one core component of this telecom executive argument is always that tech companies are "getting a free ride":

"A lot of the principles of net neutrality are incredibly valuable, we are not trying to stop or marginalise players but there has to be more effective coordination of demand than there is today,” he says. “When the rules were created 25 years ago I don’t think anyone would have envisioned four or five companies would be driving 80% of the traffic on the world’s internet. They aren’t making a contribution to the services they are being carried on; that doesn’t feel right."

But nobody gets a "free ride" in telecom. Consumers and companies alike pay increasingly more money for bandwidth. And in the case of companies like Google and Netflix, they pay billions of dollars for expedited transit, undersea cable routes, CDNs (which Netflix provides ISPs for free), and even (in Google's case) their own residential ISPs. Netflix also has a long history of providing users different tools to limit streaming so it doesn't run afoul of user broadband caps.

Suggesting they somehow get a free ride and should pay another troll toll just because makes absolutely no sense. It's a dusty old talking point that originated with AT&T nearly twenty years ago that began the net neutrality debates. Its origins are simply greed. Telecom execs are simply trying to offload the costs of network investment (their job) to somebody else to make investors happy. This somehow gets dressed up into something far more elaborate than it actually is.

Filed Under: bandwidth, free ride, internet, marc allera, net neutrality, squid game
Companies: bt, netflix

Axios Parrots A Lot Of Dumb, Debunked Nonsense About Net Neutrality

from the learning-nothing-from-history dept

I've talked a lot about how the Trump net neutrality repeal was a massive con. It effectively gutted the FCC's consumer protection oversight at telecom monopoly behest, then tried to ban states from being able to protect US consumers as well. Worse, it was based on a bunch of absolute bullshit about how doing this would spur network investment, create jobs, and result in amazing new innovation. All propped up by bad data and fake and dead people hired by the telecom industry. It was a massive ploy to further obliterate meaningful oversight of predatory, widely disliked regional telecom monopolies under the guise of progress.

And it worked flawlessly. None of the promised benefits materialized, but the industry got everything it wanted, namely: regulators too enfeebled to do much about US telecom market failure, high prices, and limited competition. Worse perhaps, the dumb gambit was all propped up by a select number of experts and press outlets that appear to have learned absolutely nothing from the experience.

Like Axios, for example. As we recently noted, Biden's executive order prods the FCC to restore net neutrality and the agency's Title II authority over broadband providers. The FCC can't do this until the Biden administration gets around to actually staffing the FCC. The simple act of appointing and seating a new agency boss alone could take much of this year, so any real action on more contentious issues like net neutrality likely won't happen for some time.

But the telecom industry is getting a running start undermining such efforts by trotting out the same nonsensical talking points they've been using for fifteen years. And they're getting the inadvertent (?) help of outlets like Axios, which this week parroted a long list of false industry claims verbatim without even bothering to fact check them. Such as the idea that Trump regulators engaged in "light touch" regulation (aka: letting AT&T do whatever the fuck it wants), which frames doing anything other than that as something heavy handed.

Then there's this utterly false Axios claim from unnamed "industry leaders" that net neutrality harms network investment:

"Industry leaders fear net neutrality rules will pave the way for the government to set broadband prices and have argued that the rules deter investment in the sector."

First, the US government is terrified of seriously regulating broadband prices. It's treated as the most radical policy proposal possible by the majority of both campaign-cash slathered parties. I doubt even under the most progressive of potential Biden appointments would the FCC seriously regulate broadband rates. Even when the agency has expanded consumer protection rules (like net neutrality), they've gone to comical lengths to avoid treating broadband like a utility or regulating prices (see: the forbearance language in the 2015 net neutrality order). The threat of this happening has been used by industry for scare-mongering purposes for 25 years, yet it never materializes, even if treating broadband more like a utility might make sense given broadband's essential nature (see: Covid).

Second, it takes about sixty seconds of research to find that the claim that "net neutrality hurt broadband investment" was never actually true. Yes, AT&T, Comcast, and friends claimed that net neutrality rules hampered investment, but there are several different studies now showing how that claim was absolutely false. And ample earnings reports, SEC filings, and other data showcasing how AT&T and others cut network investment in the wake of the repeal. There's even a long list of industry CEOs on the public record making it very clear net neutrality didn't impact investment.

If you're a reporter and you you feel the need to give an industry lobbyist ample room to make various claims, you should at least point out where that lobbyist might not be telling the truth so your readers have some vague idea where the truth actually is. But Axios doesn't do that. Instead, it lets former FCC boss turned top cable lobbyist Mike Powell make all kinds of unsubstantiated claims about what net neutrality is (or isn't): :

"Net neutrality has become an expensive, time-wasting exercise that has little real world effect," Michael Powell, president of cable trade group NCTA, said in a statement. "The drama detracts from focusing on genuine broadband issues, most critically our collective effort to get broadband to communities that lack service."

Again, the "real world effect" was that the FCC was left largely powerless to protect consumers right before a pandemic struck and gave everybody a painful crash course on the importance of broadband. The "real world effect" was that the repeal left federal and state regulators less prepared to rein in billing fraud (like bogus fees) and other harms of mindless monopolization (aka limited competition). And the "real world effect" was that with neither competition nor regulatory oversight to constrain them, regional telecom monopolies doubled down on shitty behavior, price hikes, and layoffs just as most folks predicted.

Axios proceeds to quote a Powell claim (again unchallenged) that doing anything other than letting AT&T dictate all federal telecom policy is doomed to failure:

"Of course, we can all suit up to play another game of ping pong, with yet another administration, but the inevitable years-long regulatory proceeding, exhaustive court challenges and likely trip to the U.S. Supreme Court some three or four years from now serves no one."

Yes, ideally you'd want Congress passing a net neutrality law to prevent the wobbling back and forth of the FCC as it shifts between parties. But because the US Congress is a corrupt mess in thrall to telecom monopolies, that's not happening anytime soon. And yes, the FCC restoring its consumer protection authority might run face-first into a rightward-lurching Supreme Court, but your alternative is to simply not try to do anything to fix this corrupt dysfunction, which is certainly AT&T and Comcast's preferred endgame.

Again, the net neutrality repeal didn't just kill "net neutrality rules," it gutted the FCC's consumer protection authority and tried to ban states from filling the consumer protection void. And again, the repeal involved a whole lot of dodgy data and outright fraud on the part of the telecom lobby. A reader walks away from the Axios piece understanding exactly none of that. The entire piece is a perfect example of the problem with "view from nowhere" or "he said, she said" journalism, where the truth gets lost somewhere amidst efforts to create the kind of bland, illusory balance that won't offend sources or advertisers.

You'd like to think the press learned a little something from the net neutrality repeal and the last four years of Trumpism, but as the net neutrality (read: basic oversight for regional telecom monopolies) debate heats up once again, there's already ample evidence that's simply not the case.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, net neutrality, regulation

NY AG Proves Broadband Industry Funded Phony Public Support For Attack On Net Neutrality

from the the-best-fake-arguments-money-can-buy dept

This week New York Attorney General Leticia James unveiled a new report (also see accompanying statement) proving what most people already knew: the broadband industry was behind the use of fake and dead people to generate bogus support for the FCC's controversial 2017 repeal of net neutrality.

The short version: the AG found the broadband industry used a non-profit lobbying organization, Broadband For America, to pay three different marketing firms about $4.2 million to generate artificial support for a plan that was opposed by a bipartisan majority of Americans. That artificial support included flooding the FCC comment system with millions of comments from fake and even dead people supporting the effective lobotomization of the FCC.

According to the NY AG, the firms lured consumers in with promises of sweepstakes prizes and gift cards in exchange for providing their personal information, which was then used without their consent to flood the FCC with fake support for its unpopular proposal:

"Instead of actually looking for real responses from the American people, marketing companies are luring vulnerable individuals to their websites with freebies, co-opting their identities, and fabricating responses that giant corporations are then using to influence the polices and laws that govern our lives. But, today, we are taking action to root out this fraud and the impersonation that has been corrupting the process for far too long. From net neutrality rules to laws affecting criminal justice reform, health care, and more, these fake comments have simply been generated to influence too many government policies, which is why we are cracking down on this illegal and deceptive behavior. My office will continue to shine a spotlight on abuses and disinformation and ensure those who break the law are held accountable."

While the three companies involved in this effort will face penalties of up to $4 million, the NY AG isn't yet punishing (or even naming) the giant broadband providers that actively funded and supported the effort behind the scenes. The NY AG also didn't even mention several of the K-Street lobbying/PR firms already tied to these fake comments by public records and previous reporting. Whether this is because the NY AG is pulling its punches...or is still engaged in ongoing investigations...isn't yet clear and they didn't respond to numerous requests for comment.

All told, the AG's office found that roughly 18 million of the more than 22 million comments the FCC received during the agency's public comment period were fake. About 8.5 million of those comments were sent by people who simply didn’t exist, and many others used hijacked identities including my own and even several Senators.

It's worth repeating that the Trump FCC 2017 repeal of net neutrality didn't just "kill net neutrality rules." It actively hamstrung the FCC's consumer protection authority, and even attempted to ban states from being able to fill the consumer protection void. In short, telecom giants AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Charter convinced the FCC to effectively lobotomize itself. But because the public overwhelmingly opposed that policy proposal, they used marketing firms to create a sound wall of entirely artificial support. You know your arguments are sound when you have to use fake and dead people to make them for you.

It's also worth reminding folks that former FCC boss Ajit Pai actively blocked law enforcement inquiries into who was behind the fake comments, according to NY's previous AG. So not only did Pai repeatedly parrot fake data points provided by industry to support his unpopular repeal, he made sure that law enforcement couldn't adequately investigate the use of fake and dead people to provide illusory support for the plan. Anybody who still thinks that the repeal was a good faith effort to improve the industry, aid consumers, or boost investment is living in an alternate reality of their own creation.

As we've noted previously this is a problem that isn't just limited to the FCC and net neutrality. Numerous policy efforts, across numerous agencies, have been subject to similar disinformation campaigns aimed at generating fake opposition to policies that attempt to rein in US corporations. In fact the AG's office found that these same three firms had been used in 100 such campaigns across numerous policy proposals. And while the marketing companies are facing a little heat, it's extremely rare to see the companies behind the efforts held accountable in any meaningful way.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fake comments, fcc, leticia james, lying, net neutrality
Companies: broadband for america

The GOP Is Using Veterans As Props To Demonize Net Neutrality

from the lying-liars-and-the-liars-that-love-them dept

Earlier this year net neutrality opponents (read: US telecom monopolies and those who love them) used veterans as a cheap prop to unfairly demonize California's shiny new net neutrality law. California's net neutrality law bans "zero rating," or the act of imposing bullshit, arbitrary usage caps, then exempting an ISP's own content (or the content of any individual organization or company) from them. The reason for the ban? Caps are artificial constructs, and exempting select content from them tilts the internet playing field in favor of an ISP or deep-pocketed companies.

The prohibition is a good thing, in that it thwarts companies like AT&T or Comcast from exempting their own streaming content from caps, while still penalizing customers of competing streaming services (something AT&T has been doing for several years). It also prohibits letting a company like ESPN pay AT&T to exempt its own content from caps and obnoxious overage fees, ensuring they only apply to smaller sports media startups or competitors. It's an issue of fair competition.

Last month, the telecom industry clearly leaked a letter to Politico sent by two anonymous broadband providers (I believe to be T-Mobile and Verizon) to the VA, warning them that California's net neutrality law might ban veteran access to a healthcare app dubbed VA Video Connect. The issue: VA Video Connect is exempted from wireless and fixed broadband usage caps, providing veterans with a little financial relief for using it. So it technically violates the California law (not that California enforcers would actually act on it), and the VA was simply asking questions about what happens next.

But here's the thing: usage caps are bullshit constructs in the first place. They serve no technical function, and aren't helpful in managing network load or congestion. They're created by ISPs as a way to not only nickel-and-dime consumers and competing businesses, but to put themselves in an unwarranted position of control. As such, the whole model of exempting some content from such arbitrary restrictions is equally bullshit. And while the VA agreement does violate California's law, the workaround is simple: simply give veterans a discount off their entire mobile bill. Problem solved.

But because this is difficult for Luddites to understand, the GOP and its political operatives quickly pounced on the issue to exploit it, falsely claiming that "veterans were being cut off from essential healthcare." That message soon popped up everywhere in GOP-friendly news outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, among telecom backed think tanks, and in the mouths of FCC Commissioners like Brendan Carr. As somebody who's covered telecom for longer than I'd like, it's clear the entire thing was coordinated by industry lobbyists/policy wonks from the start.

This week, GOP lawmakers sent a letter to FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel again using this non-issue to try and warn the FCC away from restoring net neutrality:

"Almost immediately after California enforced this law, two Internet providers reportedly told the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that the law could force them to end arrangements with U.S. wireless carriers that enable veterans to access a free, mobile telehealth app called VA Video Connect...We cannot risk losing lifesaving programs like VA Video Connect by imposing heavy handed regulations under Title II of the Communications Act."

Again, vets aren't losing access to anything. The app in question will just no longer be zero rated because zero rating is ISP-crafted bullshit. And the VA and providers could simply give veterans a discount off their entire bill. It's not an problem, and using veterans as a political prop to try and stall some basic regulatory oversight of widely disliked telecom monopolies is just grotesque.

But the GOP literally has a fifteen year track record of simply lying about what net neutrality is or what it does, most notably the bogus claim that net neutrality somehow harmed industry investment. And despite this claim of "net neutrality is hurting veterans!" being total nonsense, it will be repeated for months and years to come as the gospel reality, parroted by all of the GOP loyal news outlets and lawmakers, until it lodges in the brains of people (and some reporters!) who don't know any better.

Filed Under: california, fcc, net neutrality, va, veterans, zero rating

Telecom Using Veterans As Props To Demonize California's New Net Neutrality Law

from the scare-mongering-incorporated dept

Efforts by industry and captured regulators to demonize California's net neutrality law have begun in earnest.

Last week, AT&T lied that it had been forced to stop giving its customers "free data" nationwide because of the new law. Of course, that's not true. In reality, the law (slightly tougher than the FCC rules AT&T lobbied to kill) prevents AT&T from abusing its bullshit monthly usage caps. Under the law, AT&T can no longer abuse usage caps to give its own streaming services an unfair advantage over competitors like Netflix (which it had been doing for several years), nor can it let deep-pocketed companies buy an unfair advantage on AT&T's network (something AT&T called "sponsored data").

Despite the industry's attempts to frame this so-called "zero rating" as akin to "free data," that's not accurate, and numerous experts say blocking such efforts is a good thing for consumers and competitors alike (for many reasons). And it's not that AT&T was forced to stop offering "free data," so much as the law stops AT&T from erecting artificial network limits, then exploiting those pointless restrictions to give itself (and deep-pocketed competitors) an unfair advantage in online competition.

Because the broadband industry's gamesmanship with zero rating is hard for non-technical (or outright dumb) people to understand, it's easy to confuse folks. Enter FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who this week falsely tried to claim California's new net neutrality law would soon be "cutting off free health services" from veterans nationwide:

Would you be surprised to learn that absolutely nothing Carr claims here is true? Nobody is pulling video health care from veterans. It will never happen. Nobody's even "sounding the alarm," really. The VA is just doing competent due diligence to make sure they're in compliance with a new law.

Carr was riffing off a story in Politico noting that the VA is simply asking if their existing telehealth services will run afoul of California's net neutrality restrictions. The VA's correspondence was leaked by an anonymous party (wink!) Politico wouldn't reveal:

"POLITICO received a copy of the correspondence on the condition that it not identify the parties involved in the communication."

Of concern is the VA's Video Connect App, which provides veterans with access to video health services. The service is technically "zero rated" (doesn't count against a user's wireless caps), and while that's technically against the law, nobody in California is going to come along and sever veteran access to the app. Any claim to the contrary is scare mongering. Everybody involved here will find an easy workaround (more on that later) that makes everybody happy, because nobody wants to harm veterans.

I should note I'll be pretty surprised if the "most progressive state in the nation" even bothers to enforce the state's new net neutrality law on any consistent basis when it comes to actual harms. So the idea that California's going to suddenly start kicking veterans around as one of its first acts under this law (in the process giving ammunition to industry) is fairly laughable. Also: the claim this would occur nationally is just outright false. There's nothing stopping ISPs from zero rating this service in every state but California, given there's no federal restrictions on the practice due to relentless telecom industry lobbying.

Way more importantly to note, this is a non-issue with a simple solution. As Stanford Professor Barbara Van Schewick points out in a blog post, usage caps are bullshit constructs in the first place. If you understand that usage caps are pointless cash grabs by industry that serve no real technical purpose, you should also understand that exempting a service from those arbitrary caps is rather meaningless.

You should also understand there's any number of simple alternatives to help veterans get discounted access to this app that don't involve mucking about with monthly usage caps, confusing overage fees, or zero rating. Including, but not limited to offering a subsidy off of a veteran's overall bandwidth bill, or simply not charging so much money in the first place:

"Carriers can also lower the cost of unlimited plans for everyone so people can use the internet in the way that’s best for them. That’s the real solution, not allowing ISPs to pick and choose what apps and what segment of the population gets relief from low data caps.

Congress understands that, which is why it recently passed the Emergency Broadband Benefit that provides $50 a month to households with low incomes so they can do all the things they need to do online."

The broadband industry and Brendan Carr know this. They know California regulators won't bring the hammer down on the VA. They also know there's ample workarounds that can be struck so this will never become an actual problem (from what I hear that's already underway). But the telecom industry is on the hunt to try and find ways to demonize popular, pro-consumer, pro-competition rules of the road. So "somebody" (read: telecom companies or any one of their policy tendrils) leaked the VA's questions to Politico, Carr hops on board with a helpful quote designed to mislead, and Politico runs with it. Without providing any context by actual subject experts like Van Schewick who would have quickly explained that this was all an easily-remedied non-issue.

It of course didn't take long for the bogus claim to pop up at other industry-friendly outlets like Fox, which quickly jumped on board to amplify the false claims further under the pretense it was a "scoop":

The Fox story on this whole manufactured controversy is particularly amusing. In part because it provides absolutely no context informing readers that this is a non-issue with a trivial workaround. Nor do the reporters even try to contact actual subject experts. Instead, they just lazily quote former Ajit Pai "advisor" Nathan Leamer (now doing K street PR work for the GOP and industry) as some kind of objective expert. Leamer in turn is allowed to just spread falsehoods about how the Biden DOJ's decision to drop its dumb lawsuit against California somehow creates "regulatory uncertainty":

"Last month, the Department of Justice dropped a case against California that prevented the state from implementing net neutrality. The DOJ's decision to drop the case surprised many telecom insiders.

“This is another example of the regulatory uncertainty for wireless and tech industries as a whole,” Nathan Leamer, vice president at Targeted Victory, a public affairs firm, told FOX Business. “There was a lot of frustration that Biden’s DOJ dropped the suit in a heel turn."

This entire quote is nonsense. Biden's move surprised absolutely nobody, anywhere (and if you were surprised, you're not a "telecom insider"). And the only people "frustrated" that the DOJ backed away from Trump and Bill Barr's dumb lawsuit against California (simply for trying to protect broadband consumers) are telecom giants. Also, I'd be curious if A. "Targeted Victory" (also employed by Facebook) has telecom giants as clients, and if B. work for those clients ever involves working with captured regulators and allied media outlets to generate bogus controversies to attack policies and laws the industry doesn't like.

As the telecom sector and guys like Leamer and Carr were busy pushing this bogus claim at favorable news outlets, other telecom-backed think tanks were busy spreading the same message:

From there, it wasn't long before the bullshit claim, pushed heavily again by Carr, pops up in the mouths of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, showcasing how this whole thing was coordinated from the start:

See how this all works yet? It's not as hard to manufacture a controversy as you might think. Especially when the US press is eager to help.

Filed Under: brendan carr, california, net neutrality, va, veterans, zero rating
Companies: at&t

AT&T Whines That California Net Neutrality Rules Are Forcing It To Behave

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

Giant US ISPs have long (ab)used the lack of competition in the broadband market by imposing completely arbitrary and unnecessary monthly usage caps and overage fees. They've also taken to exempting their own content from these arbitrary limits while still penalizing competitors -- allowing them to tilt the playing field in their favor (or the favor of other deep pocketed giants). For example, an AT&T broadband customer who uses AT&T's own streaming services (like HBO Max) faces no bandwidth penalties or fees. If that same customer uses Netflix or a competitor they're socked with surcharges.

When the FCC passed net neutrality rules in 2015, it failed to recognize how this "zero rating" could be abused anticompetitively. They were just starting to figure this out and shift policy positions when Donald Trump was elected and net neutrality rules were killed. However, in the wake of net neutrality's federal repeal, states like California (much like the EU) passed their own net neutrality rules that genuinely prohibit zero rating.

More specifically, California's rules prohibited a company like AT&T from taking money from, say, ESPN, to exempt just ESPN content from caps. Why? One, again, caps are bogus artificial constructs that serve no technical function. And two, if a deep-pocketed giant like ESPN can afford to bypass your pointless cellular restrictions, and smaller online sports website can't, ESPN just gained an unfair competitive advantage (once AT&T gets its slice of the pie, of course).

AT&T, as you might expect, doesn't like this loss of revenue and power (the only two things this has ever been about for them). As such, the company took to their policy blog this week to whine incessantly about how unfair this all is. The company says that as a result of the rules it's backing off its "sponsored data" zero rating plan not just in California, but in other states. It will also no longer let companies buy cap-exempt, "zero rated" status. That's a good thing for internet competition, startups, innovation, and consumers. But this being AT&T, of course the company claims the exact opposite:

"Since it began, our sponsored data service, and competing offers from other wireless providers, have delivered significant benefits and saved consumers money. Consumers also have enjoyed an explosion of video streaming services."

Again though, you're not providing "significant benefits" by creating entirely arbitrary restrictions then letting the wealthiest companies pay you more to bypass them. You're creating a new business paradigm where you inject telecom giants into the mix to determine who can or can't be the most successful. Caps aren't based on any technical necessity, and they don't really help manage network congestion.

Here in the States, large ISPs have done a great job confusing the press and public by claiming that zero rating is the bits and bytes equivalent of a 1-800 number for data or free shipping. Customers who don't understand that usage caps are arbitrary nonsense from the get go often buy into this idea that they're getting something for free. Industry loyal regulators like Ajit Pai intentionally compound this confusion by claiming that this model is somehow of immense benefit to low income communities.

Except that's not true. In fact data has shown zero rating drives up consumer costs where it's heavily adopted:

"AT&T and industry-friendly regulators like Ajit Pai have also tried to claim that “zero rating” helps make broadband more affordable. But van Schewick said data has clearly shown that consumers pay notably more for broadband access in countries that embrace the practice.

“For example, in the European Union, ISPs that don’t zero-rate video give subscribers 8 times more data for the same price than ISPs that zero-rate video,” van Schewick said. “In announcing this shutdown, AT&T is trying to score political points against state net neutrality protections by lying to the public about the law and its effects."

Meanwhile, AT&T also continues to complain about how a "patchwork" of net neutrality rules is "totally unworkable," despite the fact this is the direct result of their successful fifteen year lobbying quest to not only kill net neutrality, but lobotomize the FCC:

"A state-by-state approach to “net neutrality” is unworkable. A patchwork of state regulations, many of them overly restrictive, creates roadblocks to creative and pro-consumer solutions. We have long been committed to the principles of an open Internet."

It takes a fair amount of hubris to repeatedly whine about a problem your lobbyists created. AT&T also continues to proclaim that this is an issue that should be settled by Congress passing a net neutrality law, hoping you'll ignore that it pays US lawmakers oodles of money to not do this. Yeah, AT&T wants a federal net neutrality law, but it wants one its lawyers write. One that's filled with loopholes and, most importantly, pre-empts tougher, better state or federal consensus driven solutions that might actually have some teeth.

Filed Under: broadband, california, competition, data caps, net neutrality, overage fees, zero rating
Companies: at&t

The New York Times (Falsely) Informs Its 7 Million Readers Net Neutrality Is 'Pointless'

from the maybe-do-some-research-first dept

Let's be clear about something: the net neutrality fight has always really been about monopolization and a lack of broadband competition. Net neutrality violations, whether it's wireless carriers blocking competing mobile payment services or an ISP blocking competing voice services, are just symptoms of a lack of competition. If we had meaningful competition in broadband, we wouldn't need net neutrality rules because consumers would vote with their wallets and leave an ISP that behaved like an asshole.

But American broadband is dominated by just a handful of very politically powerful telecom giants fused to our national security infrastructure. Because of this, lawmakers and regulators routinely don't try very hard to fix the problem lest they upset a trusted partner of the FBI/NSA/CIA, or lose out on campaign contributions. As a result, US broadband is heavily monopolized, and in turn, mediocre in nearly every major metric that matters. US ISPs routinely, repeatedly engage in dodgy behavior that sees zero real penalty from our utterly captured regulators.

The net neutrality fight has always really been a proxy fight about whether we want functional government oversight of these monopolies. The monopolies, it should be said, would prefer it if there were absolutely none. It's why for the last 20 years or so they've been on a relentless tear to strip away all state and federal regulatory oversight of their broken business sector, culminating in 2018's repeal of net neutrality -- which not only (and this part is important) killed net neutrality rules, but gutted the FCC's consumer protection authority (right before a pandemic, as it turned out).

The repeal even attempted to ban states from being able to protect consumers from things like billing fraud, an effort the courts haven't looked kindly upon so far. But again, the goal here is clear: zero meaningful oversight of telecom monopolies.

So with that as background, imagine my surprise when New York Times columnist Shira Ovide, whose tech coverage is usually quite insightful, informed the paper's 7.5 million subscribers that this entire several decade quest to thwart corruption and monopolization is "pointless":

"People may scream at me for saying this, but net neutrality is one of America’s longest and now most pointless fights over technology."

Yeah I'm not going to scream (too worn out), but I will politely note that the paper of record has absolutely no idea what it's talking about.

Again, the net neutrality repeal didn't just kill net neutrality! It effectively gutted the FCC's consumer protection authority, shoveling any remaining authority to an FTC the broadband industry knew lacked the resources, authority, or staff to do a good job. That was the entire point. The repeal also tried to ban states from being able to stand up to companies like AT&T and Comcast. The goal: little to no real oversight of one of the more broken, monopolized markets in America. During a pandemic in which broadband is being showcased as essential to survival, healthcare, education, and employment. Anybody calling a fight on this subject "pointless" hasn't taken the time to understand what's actually at stake.

The whole story paints the effort to have some modest oversight of telecom monopolies as droll and pointless. At one point, the story (which is really just the New York Times interviewing itself) even oddly implies the debate over what to do about "big telecom" is irrelevant and that "big tech" is all we really need to worry about:

"However, the debate feels much less urgent now that we’re talking about threats of online disinformation about vaccine deployment and elections. The net neutrality debate focused on internet service providers as powerful gatekeepers of internet information. That term now seems better applied to Facebook, Google and Amazon."

This idea that "big tech" is the root of all of our problems, and that "big telecom" is not worth worrying about is a message AT&T and Comcast have been sending out for the better part of the last several years. Given how often I see this concept parroted by the press and lawmakers, it's been fairly effective. It's certainly been effective on GOP mainstays like Josh Hawley, who performatively insists he's an anti-monopolist, but has never had a single bad word to say about the nation's most obvious monopolistic market (telecom). This isn't some errant coincidence.

But here's the thing: the US is dominated by monopolies. They're everywhere (banking, airlines, telecom, advertising). Here's the crazy part: we can tackle the monopolization impacting numerous industries simultaneously. It's not some either-or proposition where you forget about telecom monopolization because Amazon or Google are also behaving badly. You can make sure the FCC has the authority and resources it needs to police telecom and focus on how to loosen Facebook and Google's dominance over the advertising market.

There are several other instances where the Times demonstrates it really doesn't understand the subject it's covering. Like here, where Ovide suggests that having net neutrality rules are pointless because... Google has undersea cables?:

"When Google has its own undersea internet cables, isn’t the reality that some internet services reach us faster no matter what the law says?"

People who don't understand net neutrality often over-simplify it down to something about how the rules "prevented ISPs from offering faster speeds for some services." But that's never been true. The rules only really care about if an ISP uses network management to harm competitors. The rules also had components that required ISPs be transparent about what kind of broadband connection you're buying so consumers could avoid getting ripped off with connections that promise 30 Mbps but come with all manner of hidden restrictions, throttling, or caveats.

There's one part the Times gets (sort of) right, and it's here:

"There probably isn’t much of a middle ground. There are either net neutrality rules or there aren’t. And the internet service providers see net neutrality as a slippery slope that leads to broader regulation of high-speed internet services or government-imposed limits on prices they can charge. They will fight any regulation. And that’s true, too, of the lobbyists who are hired to argue against anything."

The reason we can't find a middle ground is because the broadband industry refuses to meet anyone even a quarter of the way onto the playing field. When the FCC, in 2010, passed some utterly flimsy, loophole-filled net neutrality rules that didn't even cover wireless, Verizon sued anyway (Google, falsely cited as an advocate of net neutrality by many, even lent a hand, if you recall). Meanwhile the reason Congress can't pass even a modest net neutrality law isn't because there's no desire for a "middle ground," it's because lawmakers are utterly awash in AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Centurylink, Charter, and T-Mobile campaign contributions.

In reality, the broadband industry wants no state or federal oversight of its businesses. Particularly not any oversight that could meaningfully harm their regional monopolies, drive competition to market, and lower consumer rates. And while there are some free market policy folk who still like to pretend that removing regulation of natural monopolies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T somehow results in Utopia (a line they've been feeding the American public for 35 straight years now), that's not the case. When you kill oversight of natural monopolies, while simultaneously refusing to adopt pro-competition policies that seriously challenge them, they only double down on the same bad behaviors. It's a lesson the US seems bizarrely unwilling to learn.

Let's also be clear about something. To feebly justify this handout to industry (something surveys showed an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans opposed), the broadband sector used completely fabricated data. It hired firms that had to resort to using dead and fake people to pretend their policy proposal was a good idea. All to effectively lobotomize the nation's top telecom regulator, leaving it incapable of meaningfully holding telecom giants responsible for fraud and anticompetitive behavior right before a pandemic.

Imagine, for just a second, thinking that the quest for accountability, justice, and common sense on this subject is "pointless."

Filed Under: broadband, competition, net neutrality

Facebook's Australian News Ban Did Demonstrate The Evil Of Zero Rating

from the a-massive-problem dept

People have been very angry at me for pointing out that Facebook's decision to ban links to news down under actually made sense -- even though Facebook has now cut a deal to return the links. The move was in response to an incredibly poorly thought out law to force Facebook and Google to pay giant news organizations, just because those news organizations couldn't figure out how to innovate online. One key point: I said that even if Facebook is the worst representative of the "open web," this move is the right one for the open web. That's because the alternative is much worse. Since the Australian law would force Google and Facebook to pay for the crime of linking to news, it would set up the incredibly anti-open web concept that you could be forced to pay to link.

Again, as we've already explained, this is idiotic. The links give websites free web traffic. Most news organizations, including those down in Australia, employ SEO and social media managers to try to get more links and more traffic from these websites because the links themselves are valuable. And thus, this entire bill is bizarre. It's saying that not only do you have to give us valuable traffic for free... you also have to pay us. I still can't think of any reasonable analog, the situation is so insane.

But -- some people argue back -- Facebook is no champion of the open web. Indeed. I've never argued otherwise. It's not. But this move was important to protect the open internet (and it's now disappointing that the company has caved). But, of course, this move also has demonstrated why Facebook has, historically, been a danger to the open web as well. And that's because when it blocked access to news links in Australia, it also did the same for many Pacific islands. And while we've mocked Australians who don't seem to realize they can just go to the websites of news organizations, for some of these Pacific islands, that's not actually the case. Because of Facebook's other attacks on the open web.

For years, we've pointed out the evil that is Facebook's "Free Basics" program. This is a form of "zero rating," in which Facebook would subsidize (or even make free) access in remote parts of the world... but only to Facebook. Facebook, of course, framed this as a way of "connecting the poor" and helping to get affordable internet access to places that didn't have it. But that's not true. It only gave them access to Facebook. As many people have pointed out over the years, if Facebook really wanted to subsidize internet access in these parts of the world, it should have have subsidized real access to the wider internet, not just Facebook.

So, now, these two things have collided in the South Pacific. Facebook's anti-open internet policies with zero rating, and Facebook's pro-open internet decision to not link if it requires payment. And those who bought into the false prophet of Free Basics, are now suffering:

Across the Pacific, thousands of people are on pre-paid data phone plans which include cheap access to Facebook. Those on limited incomes can get news through the social network, but cannot go to original source websites without using more data, and spending more money.

The region’s largest telco provider, Digicel, with a presence in Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, offers affordable mobile data plans with free or cheap access to Facebook.

In Australia, news from Pacific sites also appeared to be blocked, a significant impediment for diaspora communities and seasonal workers.

And this, in turn, is creating disinformation risks:

Articles reposted from Australian news sources are often used in the Pacific to rebut misinformation being spread on Facebook, Watson and Howarth said.

“One very popular page in PNG seems to attract more than its fair share of long-longs [an ill-informed person in pidgin] opposing vaccination as the Covid pandemic quietly spreads daily,” Howarth said.

It's not clear why Facebook cut off news to those Pacific islands in addition to Australia, but it might just be because they cut up the map by regions and lumped the south Pacific islands in with Australia. And, even if it wasn't that, since Facebook is blocking all links to news sources from Australia to the rest of the world, the Australian news sources that many of the small islands rely on are cut off for users on Facebook's zero rated plan.

So, yes, of course Facebook itself is no great friend of the open internet. And these two moves have combined to mess up news in the South Pacific. If Facebook actually wanted to support the open internet, it should keep banning news links where governments demand payments, but it should drop the silly "Facebook only" limitation of its zero rating program.

Filed Under: free basics, islands, link tax, news tax, south pacific, zero rating
Companies: facebook