AT&T Says It Will Match Google Fiber's Speed & Pricing, But Only If You Allow AT&T To Spy On You

from the how-very-AT&T-of-you dept

To counter the PR hit from Google Fiber, AT&T has recently been proclaiming that it too is now offering 1 Gbps services under the company's "Gigapower" brand -- but pretending that Google has nothing to do with it. On the surface, it looks like AT&T is taking on Google blow for blow, and that this is a wonderful example of how competition works. And while that's true up to a point, as we've discussed previously, AT&T's offering is highly theatrical in nature. AT&T's actually been slashing its fixed-line CAPEX each quarter, but is offering 1 Gbps speeds to a few, scattered high-end developments where fiber is already in the ground.

AT&T is then dressing this deployment up as something much larger than it actually is -- something I affectionately refer to as "fiber to the press release." Fiber to the press release not only lets a company pretend to be cutting-edge while skimping on actual infrastructure upgrades, AT&T uses these barely-existent fiber deployments as a sort of carrot on a stick for regulators, threatening to pull back on these already-skimpy investments if, say, regulators try to pass net neutrality rules or don't approve its DirecTV merger plans.

But in the locations AT&T is deploying 1 Gbps services, it's actually engaged in something that -- in typical AT&T fashion -- sets an even worse precedent. On the heels of scattered Gigapower deployments in Austin, AT&T this week announced it's also offering symmetrical 1 Gbps speeds in portions of Kansas City. After the press release gets done insisting that AT&T "moved quickly to bring more competition to the Kansas City area" with a 1 Gbps offering for $70 a month, quadruple asterisked fine print explains that to actually get this $70 price point, you have to agree to opt-in to AT&T's "Gigapower Internet Preferences" program:

"U-verse High Speed Internet 1Gbps: Internet speeds up to 1Gbps for $70 per month****, includes waiver of equipment, installation and activation fees, and a three year price guarantee...**** U-verse with AT&T GigaPower Premier offer is available with agreement from customer to participate in AT&T Internet Preferences. AT&T may use Web browsing information, like the search terms entered and the Web pages visited, to provide customers with relevant offers and ads tailored to their interests."

Assuming the company's Kansas City pricing mirrors its Austin pricing, if you choose to opt-out of this particular brand of snoopvertising, you'll need to pay $100 a month. That's right: even when faced with real price competition, AT&T can't help but be AT&T -- and try to charge users a $30 premium just to opt-out of a behavioral ad program. AT&T's Internet Preferences FAQ can't be bothered to detail the technology used, though it's most likely deep packet inspection (you know, the kind of technology small companies like NebuAD and Phorm were absolutely destroyed for using).

AT&T's pretty clearly not very familiar with how this whole price competition thing works, and needless to say, most sensible Kansas City and Austin users will be taking their broadband business to Google if they want to avoid AT&T being AT&T. Not that we'll get to see this on AT&T earnings numbers; since the entire project is a bit of a show pony to begin with, the company doesn't disclose how many Gigapower customers it serves. AT&T just wants you to believe it's on the cutting edge -- even if that cutting edge predominantly involves make believe -- and forcing consumers to pay a premium for privacy.

Filed Under: deep packet inspection, fiber, gigapower, google fiber, internet preferences, kansas city, pricing, snoopvertising, spying
Companies: at&t, google

FCC's Ajit Pai: By Making Sure The Internet Is Open And Free... It Will Inspire North Korea And Cuba To Censor

from the say-what-now? dept

I should note, upfront, that I've had the chance to meet FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai a couple of times, and always found him to be interesting and knowledgeable, as well as engaged on important issues. Yet, for whatever reason, when it comes to net neutrality issues, the former Verizon lawyer (clue number 1) seems to have gone off the deep end, tossed all logic and intellectual honesty out the window, in an effort to just lash out angrily with whatever he's got. We've talked about his incoherent attack on Netflix and his sudden and newfound love of transparency (never noted before...).

But his latest move just strips whatever credibility he may have had on the subject completely away. He's insisting that the FCC's new net neutrality rules (which he opposes) will inspire North Korea and Iran to further control and censor the internet (which they already control and heavily censor). And he's not arguing this in a "they hate us for our freedom" way, but he's actively lying and claiming that this move -- a move to guarantee openness and not censorship online -- will give the North Korean and Iranian governments the political cover to censor the internet. Let's be frank, Pai's statements are complete nonsense.

“If in the United States we adopt regulations that assert more government control over how the Internet operates ... it becomes a lot more difficult for us to go on the international stage and tell governments: ‘Look, we want you to keep your hands off the internet,’” he said.

“Even if the ideas aren’t completely identical, you can appreciate the optical difficult in trying to make that case," he added.

Except, uh, the "rules" being described are ones that just say "the internet needs to be open and free from interference, censorship and discrimination." I don't see how anyone could legitimately claim this will somehow undermine a message of internet freedom. But watch Pai work himself up into a moral panic over a complete misrepresentation of what's happening:

In the background, meanwhile, countries such as North Korea and Cuba are trying to exact more control of the Internet through an arm of the United Nations called the International Telecommunication Union, he warned.

Nations such as Turkey and China are also enacting new controls in their own countries and “testing the waters to see how much they can get away with,” Pai said.

“I think the U.S.-based system of Internet governance has served us very well and I hope we don’t do anything to jeopardize that in the near future.”

He's right that there are questions about internet governance -- and we've covered the various discussions on that for a while now. But the FCC's rules to protect an open and free internet is not about "internet governance" or Cuba or North Korea censoring the internet at all. It takes a special kind of desperation to try to argue that preserving an open and free internet is actually about telling oppressive authoritarian regimes that it's okay to censor and lock down the internet. No one believes it at all, and it just takes away whatever credibility Pai may have had on the subject.

Filed Under: ajit pai, china, cuba, fcc, internet governance, net neutrality, north korea, title ii

Net Neutrality Opponents Ignore History In Pretending FCC's Decision Breaks Some Made Up Rules

from the partisan-patty-cake dept

Desperate to stop the FCC's passage of meaningful Title II-based net neutrality rules later this month, ISPs and their loyal friends in Congress have taken a multi-pronged approach. First, ISPs encouraged Senator John Thune and Representative Fred Upton to table an incredibly feeble set of net neutrality rules that are actually worse than the ones Verizon sued to overturn back in 2010. The plan is to offer a particularly-awful set of rules, compromise a tiny bit, then offer up the final, still-historically-pathetic rules as a "bipartisan" solution to net neutrality that makes Title II unnecessary. The effort is (despite what some in the tech press believe and for lack of a more technical term) garbage and is going nowhere.

The second wing of the attack on Title II rules appears to be the launching of simultaneous House and Senate investigations into whether the White House "improperly" pressured FCC boss Tom Wheeler into adopting Title II rules. Because the President voiced support for Title II rules back in November, and FCC boss Tom Wheeler declared he would be supporting Title II rules last week, neutrality opponents insist there's a cabal of the highest order afoot. As such, they're demanding records of all correspondence between the White House and the FCC because they're so very concerned about transparency and the fact that the FCC potentially violated rules dictating it be an independent agency:

"Republicans are citing a succession of events, including Obama’s statement, that they say shows the White House may have thwarted the FCC’s regular process. The letter asks for information about communications between the FCC and the executive branch relating to the proposal, which would ban Internet-service providers from blocking, slowing down, or speeding up websites in exchange for payment

"Since the FCC is an independent agency that derives its authority from Congress and not the White House, it is highly concerning that the White House would seek to take on this level of involvement in the regulatory process of the FCC, or attempt to supplant completely the agency’s decision-making apparatus," Johnson wrote in the letter, which demands documents by Feb. 23."

It's important to note that however shifty the White House can be on a litany of issues, it didn't do anything out of the ordinary here in providing a little political cover for a controversial decision, and nobody spearheading these investigations can cite any specific examples of rules being broken. As Public Knowledge is quick to point out, the White House commenting on FCC policy is pretty standard operating procedure for both parties and perfectly legal:

"...every President in the last 30 years has weighed in publicly with the FCC on issues of national importance. It did not violate the FCC’s independence when President George W. Bush publicly called for Chairman Michael Powell to vote on deregulating media ownership, or when President Bill Clinton wrote a public letter to Chairman Reed Hundt to ban hard liquor advertising on television. It also did not violate the FCC’s independence when President Ronald Reagan asked Chairman Mark Fowler to drop his proposal to rescind the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules. Similarly, President Obama has not violated the independence of the FCC by making his support for strong net neutrality rules under Title II public."

If you've been reading the profiles on Wheeler's mindset shift, you'll also notice he appears to be the kind of guy who actually bases his decisions on careful consideration of the facts, and in very un-partisan political fashion appears willing to change his position if consistently contradicted by said facts (strange and unfamiliar, I know). Wheeler was told by more than a few telecom lawyers that his attempt to use the "commercial reasonableness" standard under Section 706 of the Telecom Act to police ISP behavior would be legally untenable and abused by ISPs, so he's decided to go Title II. He was also, on at least one occasion, called a dingo.

The White House gave political cover, but there's nothing new or seedy about that. There's also nothing new about broadband ISPs using politicians like marionettes, or partisan politicians pretending to be outraged when the other party does something that's fairly standard operating procedure. Similarly, there's nothing new about politicians pretending to adore certain values that are nowhere to be found when they're the ones in power.

For example, former Verizon regulatory lawyer turned FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai spent the week whining about the fact that the FCC's neutrality plans haven't been made public ahead of the February 26 vote. Pai, a walking personification of revolving door regulators, absolutely is correct that we should all be able to read the net neutrality rules right now. Still, FCC rules prohibiting publication of proposals ahead of a vote have been in place for years, impact both parties, and have been the bane of telecom beat reporters for years. Of course, you'd have to ignore the fact that Pai is the same gentleman who denies that the broadband market is uncompetitive, and has absolutely no problem with ISPs non-transparently writing state laws that keep things that way. As such, you wonder just how far this sudden breathless interest in transparency goes, and whether or not it will choose to stick around should the FCC bear witness to a 2016 party shift.

It's worth reiterating for the thousandth time, however, that despite this kind of partisan histrionics, net neutrality isn't a partisan issue, and it's a concept strongly supported by Progressives and Conservatives alike. It has only devolved into a droll, Democrat/Republican feud because companies find partisan politics to be a useful form of distracting idiocy. It has been especially useful the last ten years as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast coordinate round after round of partisan pattycake to deflect attention from the real problem: their anti-competitive stranglehold over the broadband last mile, and the abysmal customer service and awful pricing that Democrats, Republicans and Independents all get to enjoy as a result.

Filed Under: ajit pai, congress, fcc, independent agency, investigation, net neutrality, president obama, tom wheeler, transparency

Wall Street Knows Darn Well That FCC's Net Neutrality Rules Won't Harm Broadband: Stocks Went Up

from the in-case-you-were-wondering dept

For all the hubbub from the big broadband players about how having the FCC regulate broadband connections under Title II would kill off investment and harm their ability to innovate, Wall Street has always known that's hogwash. While saying scary things to the press, all the big broadband companies were quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) telling investors that Title II wouldn't really change anything. In the last couple months, I've seen a few different Wall Street analyst reports all basically saying that they don't think the FCC's rules will really have any impact at all on the bottom line for broadband players.

And, indeed, it appears the stock market acted accordingly. Following Tom Wheeler's official announcement that the FCC would move to reclassify under Title II, all the key broadband players saw their stocks jump up, not down. If it was really that bad, you would have seen the opposite.

Now, you could argue that the market was already pretty sure what the FCC was going to do and had priced that into the stock prices -- and it's a fair argument as many of the stocks did see some decline at the beginning of the year as the likely rules became clear. But the idea that this was going to create some sort of bloodbath for investment and the internet doesn't seem to be supported by the folks investing in those companies.

Filed Under: fcc, investment, net neutrality, title ii, wall street
Companies: at&t, comcast, time warner cable, verizon

Verizon Tries To Blame Net Neutrality For Huge Fixed-Line Broadband Asset Sale They Were Planning Anyway

from the nobody-believes-you-any-more dept

As we've been noting for some time, despite a lot of lip service to expanding broadband availability, AT&T and Verizon have been backing away from unwanted fixed-line broadband customers for years, either offloading them to smaller phone companies packaged with oodles of outstanding debt, or willfully neglecting to upgrade (or in some cases even repair) these users in the hopes they'll flee to wireless (or cable, where they'll be pitched wireless service anyway). Both companies clearly want to focus on wireless services, where caps and per gigabyte overages are far more profitable.

The problem is that in many markets this is going to wind up giving cable broadband a stronger monopoly over fixed-line broadband than ever before, resulting in even higher prices and worse service than those customers currently "enjoy." Meanwhile, the companies that Verizon and AT&T sell these assets to usually struggle under debt load and lack the resources or competitive incentive to upgrade user lines to next-generation broadband. Most will spend much of the next five to ten years struggling to get close to the FCC's new 25 Mbps broadband standard.

After selling off huge chunks of its fixed line networks to Frontier and Fairpoint years ago, Verizon has now announced it's actually selling all of its fixed-line broadband customers in Texas, California and Florida to Frontier Communications in a deal worth around $10.5 billion. The move's a great one for Verizon, which again gets to offload customers it never wanted alongside packaged debt, regulatory obligations and union woes. Investors don't think it's a great move for Frontier, which appears to be acquiring these quickly deflating copper assets simply for the sake of growing larger.

Anyway, point being, this is something Verizon's been working on for years now, and it's got nothing to do with net neutrality. Former CEO Ivan Seidenberg was bullish on fixed-line broadband, thus the $24 billion FiOS investment. New CEO Lowell McAdam lacks the patience for the slower ROI of fixed broadband, and has been planning Verizon's exit from fixed-line services since he was named the new CEO four years ago. So it's funny to see Verizon last week feebly trying to blame Title II and net neutrality for the company's decision to focus solely on wireless:

"The agency’s efforts to re-regulate the Internet have created uncertainty in the telecoms industry," McAdam said. He warned against the new proposed rules, also alluding to AT&T's recent acquisitions of two carriers in Mexico. "Washington should be very thoughtful how they go forward here," he said. "This uncertainty is not good for investment, and it's not good for jobs here in America."

There are a number of things wrong with that statement. One, as already noted, Verizon was already making this shift and it had nothing to do with net neutrality. Two, AT&T's entering Mexico because wireless is profitable -- they're not running to Mexico to hide from the FCC, which is just a stupid argument. Three, if Title II is so bad, why is the company acquiring these assets telling everyone Title II is no big deal?

"(Frontier CEO Maggie) Wilderotter said she was quite comfortable with what’s called “Title 2” regulation because Frontier already operates under those rules in many areas, and she noted that the proposed rules didn’t impose fixed broadband rates."

Four, it's worth reiterating for what feels like the fiftieth time that the regulatory "uncertainty" surrounding neutrality was actually caused by Verizon when it sued to overturn the FCC's original, flimsy rules the rest of the broadband industry was ok with. It's almost as if Verizon wants to add insult to injury lately by not only fighting net neutrality, but doing it using the flimsiest arguments humanly possible.

Filed Under: fixed line, net neutrality, selloff, wireless
Companies: frontier, verizon

Anti-Net Neutrality Propaganda Reaches Insane Levels With Bad Actors And Porn Parody

from the doesn't-even-make-sense dept

There's been plenty of propaganda concerning the net neutrality fight, but with FCC boss Tom Wheeler finally making it official that the FCC is going to move to reclassify broadband, it's kicked into high gear of ridiculousness. An astroturfing front group that's anti-net neutrality is trying to make a "viral" anti-net neutrality video, and it did so in the most bizarre way, by making an attempted parody porno video, based on the classic "cable guy" porno trope. The video is sorta SFW, since the "joke" is that "the government" stops the homeowner from getting naked with the cable guy, but people at work might still question what the hell you're watching: The video makes no sense at all. You get the sense that some not particularly internet savvy (or, really, clever at all) telco wonks got together and said "how do we make a viral video -- I know, let's pretend it's a porn film!" And then tried to shoehorn in some sort of message. But the "message" appears to be that whoever put together the video doesn't know anything about what net neutrality is.

Next up, we've got a not quite as bad, but still cringe-worthy attempt by CTIA, the lobbying arm of the mobile operators, which has been arguing that mobile broadband shouldn't be covered by the new net neutrality rules (a fight it appears it has lost), posting a ridiculously poorly acted "shill in the street interview" video, in which really bad actors pretend to be average people answering questions about their mobile service. It's clearly scripted, given the overexaggerated reactions and stilted dialog. The funniest bit comes in the first "interview" where this bad actor (who looks like a DC lobbyist) in a DC lobbyist video claims, "Well, Washington isn't actually known for its next-gen thinking, now is it?" No, "real person," it's not. There's also the second interview, with the woman who shows up pre-shocked, and proceeds to "complain" about the totally fake "new taxes" that are not actually going to show up because of Title II reclassification. And then there's the third guy, who, when prompted to take off his earbuds when the "interviewer" sits next to him and asks what he's listening to, says: "Pandora.... it's free." Because, yes, that's how every "real person" describes what they're listening to. By the price of it. And then, again, unprompted, he explains how great it is that his mobile operator doesn't make him pay for data when listening to Pandora (leaving out the fact that this is because his operator has set in place artificially low data caps). The video concludes with the "regular guy" interviewer saying, "There you have it, the vast majority of Americans are against stagnation, against higher fees and against fewer choices."

Of course, the video doesn't show that at all. And of course, putting wireless under Title II doesn't mean any of those things. In fact, it could mean more choices and lower fees. But who needs details when you have "real" shills in the street?

Finally, we've got an infographic from another front group, called "Mobile Future," whose staffers just happen to include former CTIA and US Telecom Association employees (coincidence, I'm sure). The infographic pretends to show how startups will be hindered by Title II, because now companies can (they claim) take your startup to the FCC to have your service declared unlawful, and you'll have to hire telecom lawyers, and no VC will fund you. Here's a snippet: This is, of course, complete hogwash. Why not take it from a real venture capitalist, like Fred Wilson (early money into Twitter, Tumblr, Soundcloud, Kickstarter, Etsy and many more). He pointed out the real story of what would happen in a world without these net neutrality rules, where it would make life nearly impossible for startups, because they wouldn't be able to afford to pay the big ISPs to get equal treatment to the major players. Who do you trust? A bunch of DC insiders who have never worked in the startup or venture investing world (their staff appears to include entirely DC-based folks who have either worked in the government or lobbying organizations) or one of the most famous venture capitalists around?

The simple fact is that net neutrality rules help startups. Startups aren't going to have to hire a lawyer to go to the FCC because these are rules for broadband providers, not the services built on top of the broadband. The infographic is pure FUD from an astroturf group acting like sore losers.

I imagine we'll continue to see more of this kind of propaganda, but the laughably bad quality of it all just goes to show how incredibly desperate they've become.

Filed Under: astroturf, net neutrality, parody, propaganda
Companies: ctia

Stop Saying That The FCC Is 'Treating Internet As A Utility' -- It's Not

from the mythbusting dept

Now that FCC boss Tom Wheeler has made it official that he's going to present rules to reclassify broadband under Title II for the purpose of implementing stronger net neutrality rules (details still to come...), the opponents to this effort have come out of the woodwork to insist, over and over again, that reclassifying is "treating the internet as a utility." The cable industry's main lobbyists, NCTA, decried "Wheeler's proposal to impose the heavy burden of Title II public utility regulation...." and AT&T screamed about how "these regulations that we're talking about are public-utility-style regulations..." Former Congressman Rick Boucher, who is now lobbying for AT&T whined that "subjecting broadband to public utility regulation under Title II is unnecessary."

Hell, even those who are merely reporting on the issue are calling it "treating internet as a utility." Here's the Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNET, Engadget and the Associated Press all claiming that the new rules "treat" or "regulate" the "internet as a public utility."

And they're all wrong. While there are some "utility" like aspects in Title II, Wheeler actually made it pretty clear he's not using those sections in the net neutrality rules that he's putting together (though, again, the details here will matter, and we haven't seen them yet). What he's doing here is just using Title II to be able to designate broadband as a common carrier, but just being a "common carrier" is not the same as being a "public utility" -- a point that John Bergmeyer at Public Knowledge makes nicely, by highlighting that there are lots of common carriers that aren't utilities:

Similarly, despite nearly-universal misapprehension on this point, net neutrality is not utility regulation. Net neutrality says that ISPs must, in part, act like common carriers--they must carry traffic in a reasonable and nondiscriminatory way. In some important ways net neutrality falls short of full common carriage, but for these purposes we can concede that net neutrality is common carrier regulation, because even full common carrier regulation is not identical to utility regulation. Lots of things are common carriers--buses, taxis, and delivery services, among other things. While the specifics vary, these services are required to operate in reasonable and nondiscriminatory ways. But no one suggests that the fact that because UPS is a common carrier, it is therefore a utility. Even net neutrality plus a number of the other things mentioned above (universal service, privacy, etc) do not add up to utility regulation.

This misapprehension comes about because the most prominent telecommunications common carriage service of the past--telephone service--also was regulated as a utility. But utility regulation typically carries with it a number of features not present in any current proposals for broadband--most notably, thorough price regulation and detailed local regulation of service quality, customer service responsiveness, and so forth. Public utilities are either publicly-owned, or private companies subject to such public oversight that the distinction between public and private is blurred.

The only reporter I've seen who has actually correctly made this distinction (though there could be others that I haven't seen) is Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica, who actually read what details the FCC did put up and noted that it's pretty damn clear that these are not "utility-style" regulations. Update: And Sam Gustin over at Vice Motherboard also made this point.

Yes, there are parts of Title II that can be used to regulate things as a utility, but Wheeler has made it clear that his plan is to avoid those. The court ruling from last year that tossed out the old net neutrality rules was pretty clear that if you wanted to treat broadband as a common carrier, you have to do so under Title II, but that doesn't mean that broadband becomes a utility in any sense of the word.

So, please, stop buying into the FUD (even from some supporters) that these new rules "treat broadband as a utility." It's not even close to true.

Filed Under: broadband, common carrier, fcc, internet, net neutrality, public utility, regulation, title ii, utility

Verizon's Last Tiny Shred Of Credibility On Net Neutrality Just Died

from the can-you-actually-hear-yourself? dept

You'll of course recall that the FCC's original 2010 net neutrality rules didn't do much of anything and exempted wireless networks completely, in large part because they were written by Verizon and Google. As such, companies like AT&T and Comcast actually really liked the rules, because, from their perspective, they effectively "settled the conversation," but in the process didn't even cover the biggest emerging technology in the history of the Internet (wireless), and generally allowed all manner of shenanigans provided ISPs were just clever enough with the presentation (or blamed the network congestion bogeyman).

But Verizon couldn't help itself and sued the FCC anyway, much to the chagrin of AT&T and Comcast. Verizon had hoped to strike a killing blow to FCC authority for years to come, but instead is almost single-handedly responsible for the agency's emboldened decision to now go the Title II route. Not just for its lawsuit, but thanks to a long history of anti-competitive Verizon behavior (remember their attempts to block GPS? Bluetooth? Tethering? Google Wallet?) repeatedly highlighting that the Internet and consumers really do need some form of codified protection from big red's relentless but clumsy ambition.

So it's more than a little amusing to see Verizon pout over at the company's policy blog about the FCC's decision to pursue tougher Title II-based rules when it's largely thanks to Verizon's actions:

"Heavily regulating the Internet for the first time is unnecessary and counterproductive. It is unnecessary because all participants in the Internet ecosystem support an open Internet, and the FCC can address any harmful behavior without taking this radical step."

Except the FCC tried to do that, and Verizon responded by suing them. Like AT&T and Comcast, Verizon makes it clear it would really prefer it if the public supported the net neutrality rules being proposed by Senator John Thune and Representative Fred Upton, in large part because the broadband industry wrote them to ensure they don't do anything useful. Verizon hopes you'll believe it when the company says it really just want to settle the issue "once and for all":

"Moreover, Congress is working on legislation that would codify open Internet rules once and for all. It is counterproductive because heavy regulation of the Internet will create uncertainty and chill investment among the many players -- not just Internet service providers -- that now will need to consider FCC rules before launching new services."

So basically Verizon sued to overturn weak neutrality rules that most on the ISP side of the aisle were happy with. Now Verizon really wants everybody to support the same kind of flimsy rules it originally sued to destroy, or the company will sue. Verizon's position on the issue has veered well past good humor and into a sort of painful surrealism.

Filed Under: fcc, net neutrality, open internet
Companies: verizon