T-Mobile's Ultra-Hip CEO Not So Ultra-Hip When It Comes To His Clumsy, Status Quo Opposition To Net Neutrality

from the phony-baloney dept

Ever since regulators rejected AT&T's dodgy acquisition justifications for the T-Mobile deal, T-Mobile has taken on new life, disrupting the wireless sector with a number of consumer-friendly policies that have included dismantling the traditional subsidized phone model. A big part of that consumer-friendly attitude has come in the form of CEO John Legere, whose often hilarious foul-mouthed tirades, Twitter rants and faux-punk rock attitude are a welcome change from the mindlessly-optimistic and rote recitations of most CEOs.

At the same time, more than a few people have pointed out over the last year that Legere (whose career started with a twenty-year stretch at AT&T and a notably more stodgy stint as Global Crossing's CEO) is really just performing a cartoon caricature whose revolutionary spirit only goes so far. Prime examples are not only the company's private admissions that it's loathe to compete on price, but also Legere's un-nuanced positions on net neutrality, illustrating the CEO is immeasurably more status quo than his persona would have the tech industry believe.

Earlier this year, T-Mobile announced with great fanfare they'd be exempting the most popular music services from the wireless company's usage caps. We were quick to point out that while perhaps appealing superficially to consumers, this practice violates net neutrality by giving larger, more popular services a leg up over smaller, less-known competitors. T-Mobile was also criticized by Public Knowledge for exempting speedtests from the company's caps in order to mask the company's throttling practices. At the time, Legere was "genuinely surprised" by the criticism, arguing that because nobody was paying T-Mobile to bypass the caps -- it wasn't a neutrality violation.

Fast-forward to this week, and Legere is showing again that he really doesn't understand what fundamental net neutrality is really about. Responding to the President's surprise unequivocal support of Title II reclassification, Legere went on quite a Twitter tirade about the perils of "overzealous" regulation, proclaiming that weaker, legally-dubious Section 706 rules were better than the Title II approach, because, well, "innovation!"

Don’t let the gov’t kill innovation. It has made us the fastest growing wireless company in America. #netneutrality

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) November 10, 2014

9/ I favor the 706 version, if regulated, because... did I mention how much I love innovation?!

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) November 11, 2014

In short, you've got a "pro-consumer" company that only exists because regulators prevented a duopoly from eating it -- complaining about regulatory intervention that's necessary to protect consumers from duopoly. As The Verge did an excellent job pointing out, Legere's simply engaging in "classic regulatory doublespeak" in order to protect his company's right to enact aggressive and anti-consumer pricing models sometime down the line. For examples of this ambition, you only need to look toward T-Mobile US's sister operations under Deutsche Telekom in Hungary, where T-Mobile recently started charging users more to access select content and services:

"Here’s how it works. T-Mobile offers access to areas of the Net to its users for a fixed fee per month. So for €5, for instance, a user may be able to use Spotify for the month; he or she can browse the open Internet at night for €10; and it can access DT’s IPTV for €3.20 per DAY. It looks like an a la carte cable company menu and it just breaks every possible rule and/or understanding of the way the Internet should be priced and nurtured."

While T-Mobile US's efforts are decidedly less ham-fisted than this, they're no less of an example of a carrier using arbitrary usage caps to fiddle with the user experience to its own ends. It's also a prime example of how easily people can be fooled into signing off on neutrality violations under the guise of creative pricing, and how rules need to be very clear in prohibiting this kind of behavior -- regardless of whether or not it's presented under a shiny veneer of purportedly consumer-friendly, ultra-hip paint.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, john legere, net neutrality, open internet, regulations, section 706, title ii, wireless
Companies: t-mobile

Colorado Residents Wake Up, Vote To Bypass Protectionist State Broadband Laws

from the build-it-and-they-will-come dept

As we've noticed in the past, if there's a place to start fixing U.S. broadband competition, it's the nearly two-dozen state protectionist broadband laws written and passed by the nation's incumbent ISPs. Said laws either hinder or outright ban towns and cities from building and/or improving their own broadband networks, even in cases where local private companies refuse to. In several instances, the laws even prohibit government collaboration with private companies in any way.

The laws are usually passed under the pretense of protecting communities from their own financial missteps, with assorted industry mouthpieces like Marsha Blackburn playing up the failures of a few select municipal broadband projects. Of course, like any business plan, these ventures can be built on solid or rotten frames, and several have been quite successful. In contrast, these protectionist laws take local choice away entirely, replacing it with mechanisms that do little more than insulate the nation's lumbering broadband mono/duopoly from competition of any kind.

Fortunately, in the last year or so, these laws have started to see some renewed public attention as projects like Google Fiber have people clamoring for faster, cheaper broadband service.

Colorado's 2005 state law hindering community broadband bills was pushed for by local incumbents CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) and Comcast, which, like AT&T, have a long and quite sleazy history of passing awful laws, trying to sue such operations out of existence, or engaging in misleading disinformation campaigns (like telling locals their taxpayer money will go toward subsidizing porn). In Colorado's case, the 2005 law fortunately included provisions allowing locals to build networks if they call for an election. Last week, Boulder and six other communities voted to move forward with the idea of building their own networks.

Comcast is busy in Washington trying to maintain a clean facade in order to get regulatory approval of its $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, so it didn't challenge the efforts, something that helps explain the campaign's success:

"How were they able to secure such a big victory? There might be some factors at work that are bigger than even Colorado. Comcast, the state's largest cable provider, did not fight the referendum, perhaps because it is focused on getting its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable approved in Washington. (Comcast declined to comment for this report.)"

Like so many technology issues (net neutrality springs to mind), this issue of community broadband has somehow been caught in the partisan politics team cheerleading wormhole, even though letting a giant corporation write your state laws and erode local authority simply to protect its mono/duopoly revenues isn't something either Conservatives or Progressives would support in a sane world. Refreshingly, a lot of the community revolt against these laws currently occurring in places like Colorado, North Carolina and Tennessee is being championed by Republicans and Democrats alike, who collectively (though belatedly) seem to have realized that better, cheaper broadband ultimately benefits everybody.

Earlier this year, FCC boss Tom Wheeler stated he'd be using the FCC's authority to ensure "timely" broadband deployment to dismantle portions of some of these laws, though the net neutrality debate appears to have put the issue on the back burner. That's a shame, since we've long pointed out that net neutrality issues are only a symptom of the deeper issue: a lack of competition. Dismantling idiotic laws purchased by ISPs to maintain that status quo is the very first place we need to look if that problem is ever going to be seriously addressed.

Filed Under: broadband, colorado, community broadband, competition, muni-broadband, protectionism, votes
Companies: comcast

Anti Net Neutrality Crowd Reaches Deep For The Craziest Possible Response To President Obama's Call For Real Net Neutrality Rules

from the and-the-competition-is-on dept

Well, we already wrote about President Obama's somewhat surprising decision to come out strongly in favor of Title II reclassification for broadband (with strong forbearance) to setup some real net neutrality rules. We also covered the unhappy response from the big broadband players who are just repeating the same talking points from the past year, claiming that they'll suddenly stop investing in broadband and how this will kill the internet (ignoring that they already rely on Title II for a number of things, including internet infrastructure).

But the real fun is coming from the politicians and the pundits who seem to be trying to out-crazy each other in coming up with the most ridiculous analogy/description of what Title II means for the internet and the world. The one getting the most attention has to be Senator Ted Cruz who declared net neutrality "Obamacare for the internet." It's not, of course. Not even close. Matthew Inman, over at TheOatmeal has penned a fantastic response to Cruz, explaining the basics of what net neutrality is really about, and why it's just ridiculous to claim it's "Obamacare for the internet." You should read the whole thing, because it's much funnier than just this snippet (and you'll also understand the crab taco reference), but here's a snippet: But, honestly, the "Obamacare" line was just one of many crazy comparisons. Here's Fox legal analyst Andrew Napolitano calling it "Orwellian" (I'd embed the video, but apparently MediaMatters still doesn't realize how to use SSL, so we can't) to refer to it as "net neutrality" saying that it's really about taking "the choice of buyers and sellers out of the market." And that's in response to Fox's Stuart Varney claiming (incorrectly) that the President's proposal is "one speed for all, one price for all." Neither of those statements are even close to true. There is nothing in the proposal that involves "one price for all" or "one speed for all." It's just about setting up a system where a broadband provider cannot discriminate and favor their own services over another's. It's the kind of thing you'd think the guys at Fox would appreciate, given that one of their main competitors, MSNBC, is owned by Comcast.

How do you think Fox's Napolitano and Varney would feel about Comcast slowing down access to Fox's videos and websites while pushing those visitors to visit MSNBC instead?

And if that wasn't crazy enough, let's take it up another notch. We got an unsolicited "statement of Roslyn Layton" in response to President Obama's proposal. I have no idea who "Roslyn Layton" is and, and frankly, have no interest in doing the Google search to find out, but I know plenty from the fact that she's actually claiming that this new plan to make sure that the internet is open and free from unfair blocking for all is somehow a victory for the Russians, Chinese and Iranians:

During President Obama’s official visit to China today, the White House issued a statement of support of government regulation of the Internet with the classification of broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act from 1934. The symbolism of this statement appearing while President Obama is in China could not be more Orwellian. The Chinese internet is everything that we don’t want in the US: state ownership of the enterprises that comprises the Internet, its infrastructure, content, and connectivity; top-down regulation of every aspect of the Internet experience; and government collusion with industry to create Internet companies. Should the US take the route of reclassifying broadband under Title II as Obama suggests, it would bring the the US dangerously closer to the Chinese model where the internet is “government allowed”.

Title II is not only bad news for the US, but for the rest of world. Indeed foreign authoritarian governments have been looking for justification to monitor networks and users under the guise of net neutrality and the “Open Internet”. Obama’s announcement could not be a better present to the leaders of China, Iran, and Russia.

Except that's the opposite of fact. A plan that specifically calls for "no blocking, no throttling, increased transparency and no paid prioritization." Does that really sound like a plan from China, Iran and Russia? Does Layton think anyone thinks that statement is even within the same area code as the truth? While some others are making similar statements, they at least admit that those countries will use "any action" by the US government as a supposed defense for seeking to regulate the internet.

But that includes any rules that would be put forth, including the rules under Section 706. So the fact that Russia, China and Iran would lie and totally misrepresent what rules under Title II mean doesn't magically mean that Title II would give them any extra cover.

And that's because it's simply wrong that Title II is "regulating the internet." As we've explained many times, there are legitimate concerns about using Title II -- but these complaints above are hysterical and simply wrong. And by being so hyperbolic and apoplectic, they're actually doing their side a disservice. Anyone who actually knows what's going on knows for a fact that rules under Title II aren't anywhere near as problematic as all of these claims are making it out to be.

Taking clear rules that are designed to keep the internet more accessible and more open and less susceptible to interference shouldn't be seen as a partisan issue (a la Cruz) or "regulating the internet." It's not. It's about defining the rules under which underlying infrastructure must agree to operate -- to keep the internet itself free from dangerous interference by gatekeepers who have a long history of interfering. It's certainly not about supporting totalitarian censorship-happy regimes, but the exact opposite. It's about making sure that everyone can get their message or service out there, and not worrying about having a giant broadband player block access over its last mile monopoly.

To take an issue that is about keeping the internet open and free, and pretending it's going to lead to a censored and "Orwellian" internet is just ridiculous and wrong.

Reacting like this just makes everyone making such claims look really, really silly.

Filed Under: andrew napolitano, net neutrality, roslyn layton, stuart varney, ted cruz, title ii