Ajit Pai Gloats As House Fails To Restore Net Neutrality

from the pendulum-always-swings-back-around dept

While a long shot, we've previously discussed how the outgoing House and Senate could have voted to reverse the FCC's repeal of net neutrality using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). And while the Senate voted 52 to 47 to approve the move last May, efforts to get the 218 votes needed in the House had been stuck in neutral as House Representatives remained blindly loyal to their real constituents: AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.

As a result the clock ran out, and that route for restoration of the rules has died a whimpering demise. As is his tendency, FCC boss Ajit Pai couldn't just savor the "win." He felt compelled to issue a public statement (pdf) in which he not only gloats over the failure, but packs a large number of false statements into a relatively short paragraph:

"I’m pleased that a strong bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives declined to reinstate heavy-handed Internet regulation. They did the right thing—especially considering the positive results for American consumers since the adoption of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. Over the past year, the Internet has remained free and open. Broadband speeds are up, with download speeds in the United States increasing more than 35% in 2018, according to a recent report from Ookla. Internet access is also expanding, and the digital divide is closing. For example, a recent report by the Fiber Broadband Association found that fiber was made available to more new homes in 2018 than in any previous year. In short, the FCC’s light-touch approach is working. In 2019, we’ll continue to pursue our forward-looking agenda to bring digital opportunity to all Americans."

Oh, goody.

One, the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules weren't "heavy handed." By international standards (Japan, Canada, The Netherlands) they were relatively weak, and were, in reality, pretty much the very least the US government could do to try and rein in natural telecom monopolies in the absence of real competition. Two, while Pai applauds a "strong bipartisan majority" in the House, that majority actively ignored the bipartisan majority of their constituents who support net neutrality and wanted the rules left intact in the first place.

Pai also felt oddly compelled to take credit for fairly marginal speed increases he had little to do with. Broadband speeds being up 35% has more to do with natural evolution (largely relatively cheap DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades on cable networks) than anything else. And at least a healthy portion of that speed increase is thanks to community fiber networks Pai actively opposes. Claiming any of this had anything to do with net neutrality is patently false.

Of course there's plenty of realities Pai would rather not talk about. Like that time Verizon throttled the mobile connections of California firefighters (while they were fighting a wildfire) and Pai did nothing. Or when CenturyLink blocked user internet access until users clicked on an ad, and the FCC said absolutely nothing. Or last week when AT&T quietly began violating net neutrality by only applying broadband usage limits if you use a competitor's streaming service. Not a word from the FCC about any of it, despite ample claims that the perils of non-neutrality are utterly hallucinated.

Nor does Pai much want to talk about the fact that as US telcos refuse to upgrade aging DSL lines, it's letting cable giants like Spectrum and Comcast nab a greater monopoly over fixed-line broadband, resulting in some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world. Or how anybody with an IQ over 70 can see natural monopolies and media conglomerates like AT&T and Comcast hope to use their massive size and leverage to tilt the playing field and harm smaller streaming competitors in the online video wars to come.

Granted, restoring net neutrality via the CRA was always a long shot. Even if net neutrality advocates had managed to nab the needed House votes, the proposal would have needed to avoid a Trump veto. Still, consumer group efforts to get lawmakers to clearly demonstrate their position on this issue (you can find a breakdown here) served two valuable purposes: it helped illustrate which politicians clearly have no regard for their constituents (who, again, overwhelmingly oppose what Pai's been up to), while also applying pressure for the inevitable legislative battles to come.

That said, it's pretty telling that Pai couldn't just quietly enjoy the policy "win" here. Like the man who appointed him, he felt compelled to troll his opponents, gloat over a victory he had little to do with, and issue a statement packed with numerous falsehoods and distortions in the belief that that now passes for leadership. Unfortunately for Pai, the real battle is only just beginning thanks to next month's looming net neutrality court fight, where his agency's historically-bizarre behaviors (from making up a DDOS attack to turning a blind eye to identity theft and fraud) won't be left quite so open to "creative" interpretation.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, competition, cra, fcc, net neutrality, speeds

AT&T Lets Users Avoid Broadband Caps...If They Use AT&T's Own Streaming Service

from the net-neutrali-wha? dept

So we've long noted how broadband usage caps on fixed-line broadband connections are bullshit. While ISPs used to insist that such limits were necessary to manage "congestion," they've long since been forced to back off those justifications after analysis and their own internal documents showed this wasn't true. For giants like AT&T and Comcast, monthly broadband caps serve two purposes: one, they provide flimsy cover allowing ISPs to further raise rates on what are already some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world. Two, they can be used anti-competitively to give themselves an unfair advantage.

Case in point: ISPs will often exempt their own services from these limits while still penalizing competitors like Netflix, something the former Wheeler FCC was just starting to crack down on as an anti-competitive practice before Trump and Ajit Pai rose to power. And this week, AT&T took another step toward using usage caps as a weapon when it began informing its broadband customers that they won't face usage caps -- if they're willing to subscribe to AT&T's own streaming services:

"[AT&T] is emailing their broadband customers to alert them they now qualify for unlimited internet access because they also happen to subscribe to DirecTV Now, AT&T’s streaming service targeting cord cutters...AT&T normally charges customers an extra $30 a month to remove their 1,000 GB data cap.

In other words, use Netflix's service? Get penalized and pay more. Use our own? Avoid any penalties. It's ironic, given I'd just written a piece over at The Verge this week highlighting most of the dirty tricks AT&T was likely to use as it slowly takes advantage of the death of net neutrality rules and the general lack of adult oversight at the FCC. Users in several online forums have confirmed the move. AT&T confirmed to me that this was a new policy, but wouldn't speak publicly on the record about it for what should probably be obvious reasons.

To clarify, AT&T applies a terabyte cap on most of its fixed-line broadband connections. Users can then pay AT&T an additional $30 per month to avoid this unnecessary limit. Previously, AT&T removed this cap if you bundled the company's traditional TV services. Now, it's removing the caps for free if you bundle AT&T's own streaming service, giving AT&T a pretty obvious leg up on competitors like Amazon, Netflix, or smaller streaming operators. And while many argue that a terabyte is generous, that ignores the fact these limits are unnecessary in the first place, or that these limits will start to feel tight once 4K streaming truly takes off.

Since there's limited competition in broadband, consumers who don't like these kinds of arbitrary limits and anti-competitive gamesmanship usually have no alternative ISPs to choose from. And of course that's always been the whole point: ISPs want to abuse a lack of competition to use their role as network operators to drive up rates and hamstring competitors. This agenda has always been painfully obvious; part of the reason informed consumers found the Ajit Pai FCC's attacks on net neutrality rules so myopic and obnoxious.

Given the FCC's landmark net neutrality vote just passed its one-year anniversary, I've seen more than a few dumb hot takes suggesting that because the internet didn't completely fall apart in the last year, the rules must not have meant much. But that (usually intentionally) ignores that most ISPs are trying hard to behave given next February's looming court challenge. It also ignores the fact that violations of net neutrality have always been a "death by a thousand cuts" sort of affair, where we increasingly say yes to tighter and tighter restrictions and idiotic anti-competitive caveats, only realizing what we've given up once it's too late.

Picture yourself, the consumer, as the frog in the boiling frog fable.

First the public gets used to unnecessary usage caps and overage fees. Then, the public gets used to usage caps only applying to ISP competitors. From there, you accept additional unnecessary restrictions like HD video not working properly on your "unlimited" data plan unless you pony up more cash. Individually it's pretty easy to dismiss these moves one at a time (and many clearly do), but it shouldn't be hard to see that eventually, you wind up with a decidedly tilted playing field, made worse by an Ajit Pai FCC whose interests pretty clearly exclusively rests with helping these entrenched mono/duopolies make more money, not consumer welfare, sustaining competition, or protecting the health of the internet.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, competition, data caps, directv, fees, streaming, zero rating
Companies: at&t, directv, netflix

Telecom's Top Lobbying Arm Oddly Keeps Undermining The Industry's Own Claims About Net Neutrality

from the ill-communication dept

The telecom industry (and by proxy Ajit Pai's) primary justification for killing net neutrality -- and FCC authority over ISPs in general -- was that sector oversight was stunting network investment. Of course repeated analysis of the data shows that simply isn't true, but that hasn't stopped telecom lobbyists and the lawmakers who love them from repeating those claims in the hopes that repetition forges reality.

And while telecom lobbying organizations like US Telecom continue to cling tight to this false narrative, the "science" they've been shoveling out in recent months to try and "prove" these claims leaves a little something to be desired. Last October, for example, US Telecom released a study it claimed somehow proved that the Ajit Pai's attacks on net neutrality had boosted broadband investment:

"Broadband investment rebounded in 2017, as a series of positive consumer and innovation policies and a pro-growth regulatory approach helped reverse the industry’s previous spending pullback, according to new research released today by USTelecom."

The problem: net neutrality wasn't actually repealed until June of 2018.

This week, US Telecom released another study crowing about what's some fairly modest recent broadband deployment growth. As part of the report, the industry highlights how US fiber deployment jumped from 21 to 29% of US homes between 2015 to 2017, a period when the FCC's classification of ISPs as Title II common carriers (purportedly an investment killer) was in effect:

"In just a year and a half, from the end of 2015 to mid-2017, U.S. fiber deployment grew from 21 percent to 29 percent of homes and competitive availability of wired broadband at 25 megabits per second (mbps) download and 3 mbps upload increased from 31 percent to 55 percent. At lower speed tiers, and if fixed wireless is included, competitive availability is even greater: 77 percent at 10 mbps download and 1 mbps upload; and 91 percent at any speed. By mid-2017, broadband at 100 mbps download was available to 89 percent of Americans, compared to 10 percent in 2010. Moreover, fiber deployment and competitive availability of broadband at higher speeds continue to grow rapidly today, driven by competitive upgrades."

So one, it should be noted that this growth is solid but not spectacular by any means; it would likely be significantly higher if one of US Telecom's top missions wasn't to try and stifle meaningful sector competition at every conceivable opportunity. Still, this period -- from 2015 (when the FCC created its latest net neutrality rules) to 2017 -- was the exact period in which the industry keeps telling us it suffered from "unprecedented" and "heavy handed regulation" like net neutrality that stifled industry investment. And yet here US Telecom is insisting that the exact period exhibited "rapid" growth "driven by competitive upgrades." Why it's almost as if the telecom sector's top lobbyists aren't ideologically or ethically consistent.

Of course the firm then proceeds to proclaim that if we want this growth (that wasn't supposed to exist) to continue, we need to double down on policies that embrace an "investment-friendly environment" that will allow this growth to continue. Oh, and more subsidies for US Telecom's client companies who've already received billions, of course:

"Therefore, it will remain imperative for policymakers to maintain an investment-friendly environment for broadband deployment, including providing additional financial support in areas that need it. Governments should target support to specific areas where the economics do not support deployment or upgrades, and funding must be dedicated and direct, using a mechanism like the Connect America Fund."

As we've been noting, said "investment-friendly environment" includes effectively neutering the FCC's ability to police bad behavior in telecom, then shoveling all remaining responsibility to an FTC that lacks the authority, willpower, or desire to actually police giant ISPs like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast (the entire point). Said "investment-friendly environment" also currently involves trying to ban states from protecting broadband consumers from false advertising and fraud.

Granted, nobody actually reads reports by groups like US Telecom outside of a few execs, consumer groups, and beat reporters, but the "science" they shovel forth does often tend to cement itself into the base layers of more policy conversations than you'd prefer. Still, after the last few months of exceptionally flawed efforts at "science," perhaps US Telecom should spend less time accidentally emailing us their talking points, and more time pursuing something vaguely resembling intellectual consistency.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, fiber deployment, net neutrality
Companies: ustelecom

Nice Work EU: You've Given Google An Excuse To Offer A Censored Search Engine In China

from the handing-authoritarian-states-easy-victories dept

We've already explained why we think Google is making exactly the wrong move in experimenting with a government-approved censored search engine in China, called Dragonfly. However, the company continues to move forward with this idea. CEO Sundar Pichai gave an interview with the NY Times, in which he defends this move by... arguing it's the equivalent of the "Right to Be Forgotten" in the EU, with which Google is required to comply:

One of the things that’s not well understood, I think, is that we operate in many countries where there is censorship. When we follow “right to be forgotten” laws, we are censoring search results because we’re complying with the law. I’m committed to serving users in China. Whatever form it takes, I actually don’t know the answer. It’s not even clear to me that search in China is the product we need to do today.

A few people, who I respect, have tried to argue that this analogy is unfair. Mathew Ingram has a story at the Columbia Journalism Review that rightly points out the differences between deleting content because the subject of that content complains vs. when the government wants things disappeared. Former Facebook Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos argued that the comparison is "amoral and mendacious." He too agrees that there are problems with the RTBF in the EU, but China's censorship is to a different degree:

The "right to be forgotten" is a form of censorship that has been abused by many individuals and it's application extra-territorially should be resisted. However, China's censorship regime is a tool to maintain the absolute control of the party-state and is in no way comparable.

I both agree and disagree with this statement. What China is doing is to a different degree. But the mechanisms and the concepts behind them are the same. Indeed, we've pointed out for years that any move towards internet censorship in the Western World is almost immediately seized upon by China to justify that country's much more aggressive and egregious political censorship. Remember, back when the US was considering SOPA/PIPA, which would have censored whole websites on the basis of claims of copyright infringement, the Chinese government gleefully pointed out that the US was copying China's approach to the internet, and pushing for a "Great Firewall" for "harmful" information. It's just that, in the US's case, that "harmful information" was infringing information that hurt the bottom line of a few entertainment companies, while in China, they saw it as anything that might lead to political unrest. But, as they made clear, it was the same thing: you guys want to keep "harmful" information offline, and so do we.

That push for SOPA/PIPA gave the Chinese cover to continue to censor the internet -- and now the EU and its silly Right to be Forgotten is doing the same thing. So, yes, the style and degree of the censorship is not the same -- but the nature of what it is and how it's done continues to give massive cover to China in dismissing any complaints about its widespread censorship regime.

That said, it is reasonable to point out that Sundar Pichai should not be helping out the Chinese in furthering this argument on the pages of the NY Times... and I'd agree with you. But at least some of the blame must fall on the EU and other governments which have increasingly moved towards internet censorship regimes. Even if they're done for a different purpose, authoritarian regimes will always seize on them to excuse their own such behavior.

Filed Under: censorship, china, dragonfly, eu, right to be forgotten, sundar pichai
Companies: google

Oh Look, Wireless Sector Investment Is Declining Despite Tax Cuts, Repeal Of Net Neutrality

from the ill-communication dept

You'll recall that one of the top reasons for killing popular net neutrality rules was that it had somehow killed broadband industry investment. Of course, a wide array of publicly-available data easily disproves this claim, but that didn't stop FCC boss Ajit Pai and ISPs from repeating it (and in some cases lying before Congress about it) anyway. We were told, more times that we could count, that with net neutrality dead, sector investment would spike.

You'll be shocked to learn this purported boon in investment isn't happening.

A few weeks ago, Verizon made it clear its CAPEX would be declining, and the company's deployment would see no impact despite billions in tax cuts and regulatory favors by the Trump FCC. Trump's "tax reform" alone netted Verizon an estimated $3.5 billion to $4 billion. A recent FCC policy order, purporting to speed up 5G wireless deployment (in part by eliminating local authority over negotiations with carriers), netted Verizon another estimated $2 billion. And that's before you even get to the potential revenue boost thanks to the repeal of net neutrality and elimination of broadband privacy rules.

Ironically, Verizon's dip in CAPEX came right on the heels of the wireless industry and Ajit Pai, in perfectly coordinated unison, trying to claim that a CAPEX rise in 2017 was directly due to the repeal of net neutrality. They ignored an important point however: net neutrality wasn't even repealed until June of this year. If this endless roster of favors was to impact network investment, accelerate network deployment, and unleash a magical wave of "innovation," that should all be happening right now. And yet, the opposite is happening. And of course it's not just Verizon. AT&T and Sprint are also reducing overall CAPEX:

"Sprint, Verizon and AT&T have all reduced their overall capex numbers for 2018. The operators cite a variety of reasons, from timing issues to more efficient network technologies. But the ultimate result is the same: Where there was once excitement, now there’s a decided sense of pragmatism."

Now there's a number of different reasons for this, including some cost savings in moving from legacy hardware to more efficient virtualization technologies. But again, a decline is not what was promised ahead of the sales pitches for the tax cuts and the attack on net neutrality. The nation was, time and time again, promised unrivaled "innovation and investment boosts" if the nation's companies received a multi-billion-dollar tax cut, and net neutrality and other "regulatory underbrush" was cleared out of the way. That didn't happen.

Instead of investing all these tax breaks, perks, and savings back into the network, they were pocketed by investors and executives. Which, for anybody with half of a functional brain stem was the entire point of having a former Verizon lawyer running the FCC in the first place. This is a longstanding trend in telecom: promise the public the world if they get tax cuts, subsidies, and blind deregulation, then avoid doing pretty much all of those things while pocketing the savings. Perhaps someday America will actually learn some kind of lesson from the experience.

Filed Under: ajit pai, capex, fcc, investment, net neutrality, wireless
Companies: at&t, sprint, t-mobile, verizon

Supreme Court Rejects Telecom Industry Calls To Hear Net Neutrality Case... For Now

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

Before Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and friends convinced the Trump FCC to ignore the public and kill net neutrality, they attempted to dismantle the rules legally. That effort didn't go very well, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upholding the FCC's Open Internet Order in June of 2016, and ISPs losing a subsequent en banc appeal. More specifically, the courts found that the former Wheeler-run FCC was well within its legal right to reclassify ISPs as common carriers under the Telecom Act.

But, last August, lawyers for the FCC and Department of Justice (at direct telecom industry behest) filed a brief (pdf) with the Supreme Court, urging it to vacate the 2016 court ruling that upheld the Wheeler-era net neutrality rules. The move was necessary, FCC lawyers claimed, because the FCC's comically-named "Restoring Internet Freedom" proposal had somehow "repudiated those factual and legal judgments." If you watched as the FCC repealed net neutrality using little more than lobbyist fluff and nonsense, it should be fairly obvious to you that wasn't true.

So what was the telecom industry and its BFFs in the Trump administration trying to do? They know their repeal of net neutrality was so filled with procedural missteps and outright fraud that they're worried it will be overturned by next year's net neutrality lawsuits, opening arguments for which begin in February. As such, they were hoping to undermine the established legal precedent supporting the 2015 rules in a bid to ensure they couldn't and wouldn't be restored.

That gambit hasn't worked. The Supreme Court this week stated it wouldn't be hearing the case (pdf). While the announcement states that Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have taken up the case, the Washington Post notes that John Roberts and newly-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh were required to recuse themselves because of conflicts of interest, leaving the telecom industry without enough court backing to move forward:

Three of the Court’s justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil M. Gorsuch — would have voted to take up the case, according to the Court’s announcement, and overturn a lower court’s decision backing the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules, which were originally passed in 2015. But there were not enough justices for a majority, after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh recused themselves. (Roberts' financial disclosures show that he owns stock in Time Warner, which is now owned by AT&T under the name WarnerMedia, while Kavanaugh took part in the case as a judge in the lower court.)

As we've noted in the past, Kavanaugh was more than eager to support the telecom industry argument that net neutrality violated their First Amendment rights, despite the fact that's obviously not true. While Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T lawyers claimed that blocking content and services amounts to an "editorial decision," in reality, ISPs aren't editors; they're simply connecting people to services. Still, "net neutrality violated ISPs' First Amendment rights" was an argument ISP lawyers basically threw at a wall to see if it would stick, and Kavanaugh was more than happy to agree.

Of course while the Supreme Court has refused to hear this case, they could be hearing future cases depending on how next year's net neutrality lawsuits (filed by 23 State AGs and Mozilla) go. ISP lawyers have routinely claimed at this point that any state or federal attempt to hold them accountable for poor service or fraud is a violation of their First Amendment rights, and Kavanaugh's sure to play an un-recused, starring role in many of these cases, one way or another.

Filed Under: fcc, net neutrality, supreme court

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Texas, Arkansas, & Nebraska AGs Are Now Aiding The Broadband Industry's Assault On Net Neutrality

from the investment-apocalypse dept

Back in January, 23 state attorneys general sued the FCC over its net neutrality repeal, claiming it ignored the public, ignored the experts, and was little more than a glorified handout to uncompetitive, predatory telecom monopolies. That trial will also determined whether the FCC ignored rules like the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires you, oh, actually have data to support a major, wholesale reversal of such a major policy (if you're just tuning in, they didn't). The suit, which is also backed by a few companies (including Mozilla), could result in the FCC's repeal being overturned and the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules being restored.

This week three additional state AGs (Texas, Arkansas, and Nebraska) decided to take the opposite tack, and filed a brief (pdf) last Friday in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, insisting that judges reject the lawsuit against the FCC. Not too surprisingly, the brief is filled with the kind of arguments net neutrality opponents have been trying to make for years, including the repeatedly, and clearly debunked claim that net neutrality simply had to be repealed because it was killing broadband industry network investment:

"The policy being repealed, in place since 2015, offered threats to investment and creative problem solving within the ISP community; those rules had also sought to regulate private business activity as a public utility."

Except again, neither of those claims are true. While industry lobbyists like to cherry pick data to suggest net neutrality caused an investment apocalypse, SEC filings, earnings reports, and even the public statements of countless broadband CEOs clearly show that's not the case. As for the effort to "regulate ISPs as utilities" we've also repeatedly noted how that's not true, as the former FCC went well out of its way to ensure some of the heavier, utility-style aspects of the Telecom Act (like rate regulation) wouldn't apply to broadband ISPs.

A cornerstone of the argument by the Texas, Arkansas, and Nebraska AGs is the FCC didn't violate the Administrative Procedure Act because precedent dictates that two agencies are allowed to look at the same exact data and have differing opinions, provided they justify their arguments:

"Accordingly, undoing or reversing agency action is permissible so long as the agency demonstrates awareness of the change and offers a satisfactory reason for it."

The problem for Ajit Pai and ISPs is they didn't offer anything close to a "satisfactory reason." ISPs make up justifications out of whole cloth, and the Ajit Pai just mindlessly repeats them. It got so bad, that at one point the FCC was literally just directing reporters who had questions to AT&T-funded lobbying organizations. Yes, lobbyists dictating government behavior using bogus data is nothing new, but usually there's at least a pretense that's not actually happening. The Pai attack on net neutrality is about as blatant an example of cronyism and corruption (given overwhelming public and expert opposition) as you're going to find.

In this age of hyper-partisanship and court stacking it's perfectly possible the industry gets a friendly judge willing to ignore reality and rule in their favor, but the facts continue to not be on their side. Especially in the full context of the FCC getting busted making up a DDOS attack, and ignoring identity theft and comment fraud in a bizarre effort to try and downplay massive public backlash to their decision to kill the rules.

When the court case kicks off next February, the outcome remains anything but clear. And even if the broadband industry wins, it still has to fend off state efforts to protect consumers (which the FCC repeal attempts to block, but the three AGs had no comment on). They also have to prevent any future FCC or Congress from passing tough net neutrality rules, which is why the broadband industry has attempted to convinced its most loyal supporters to pass flimsy net neutrality legislation in name only attempting to pre-empt any meaningful efforts to actually protect end users from largely-unaccountable telecom monopolies.

Filed Under: arkansas, fcc, nebraska, net neutrality, state attorneys general, texas

Ajit Pai, Telecom Lobbyists Are Now Coordinating Their Lies In Perfect Symmetry

from the ill-communication dept

So we've made it pretty clear by now that the FCC's entire justification for repealing net neutrality was based entirely on fluff and lobbyist nonsense. But because the Administrative Procedure Act requires that regulators actually provide hard data to justify massive reversals in policy, both the Ajit Pai FCC and his BFFs at Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T have clung tightly to one, completely false claim: that net neutrality harmed network investment. But as we've stated countless times, that's simply not true.

That's not an opinion, it's based on SEC filings, earnings reports, and the on-the-record statements of nearly a dozen telecom industry CEOs.

That undeniable fact hasn't really bothered the folks at US Telecom, the telecom industry's biggest lobbying and policy organization. The group last week penned a blog post with an accompanying graph proudly proclaiming that telecom network investment was on a sharp upward trajectory after the repeal of net neutrality. From the missive:

"Broadband investment rebounded in 2017, as a series of positive consumer and innovation policies and a pro-growth regulatory approach helped reverse the industry’s previous spending pullback, according to new research released today by USTelecom."

"Lobbying organization's skewed research confirms lobbying group's claims! News at 11." To "prove" their point, US Telecom released this handy graph showing the spike in 2017 investment:

One obvious problem: net neutrality wasn't officially repealed until June of 2018, making any claim that the 2017 CAPEX spike was due to its repeal utterly laughable. And again, it's worth noting that even the 2015 dip US Telecom leans so heavily on has been hotly contested. CAPEX dips in 2015 for AT&T, for example, came because the company ended a wave of U-Verse broadband upgrades, not because of net neutrality. Similar CAPEX dips at Charter occurred because the company ended the deployment of digital cable adapters. Other ISPs saw CAPEX spikes during that same period.

CAPEX and network investment fluctuations can occur due to a myriad of things, from a company ending its planned roll out of a new set top box, to the routine deployment of standard security improvements. ISPs routinely hire economists who are willing to fiddle with the math and cherry pick very specific windows of CAPEX to suggest net neutrality is to blame. But massaged data funded by telecom lobbyists isn't science, it's theater.

Meanwhile, defining the health of the industry based on CAPEX and investment alone is a fool's errand, and if you want to truly judge said health, you'd need to look at the level of competition, consumer prices, and all of the obvious, ugly metrics you can be damn sure a telecom lobbying firm primarily bankrolled by AT&T isn't going to want to talk much about.

Of course none of this stopped FCC head Ajit Pai from quickly issuing a statement (pdf) of his own, mirroring the industry's false claims that his extremely-unpopular attacks on consumer protections were somehow directly responsible for the 2017 spike:

"Since my first day on the job, this agency has been focused on cutting through the regulatory red tape and increasing broadband investment, most importantly in rural America where the digital divide remains all too real. Today’s report confirms that the FCC’s policies to promote broadband deployment are working. After Internet service providers reduced new investments in 2015 and 2016 under the prior Administration’s regulatory approach, broadband investment increased in 2017 by $1.5 billion over the previous year. That’s real progress for American consumers, and another step toward better, faster, and cheaper broadband for all Americans."

Can we again stop to appreciate the U.S. government parroting lobbyist talking points and filing lawsuits in perfect unison without absolutely ZERO concern for the ethics or optics? One yearns for the day when we used to at least pretend that lobbyists weren't directly dictating tech policy, leaving genuine consumer welfare a distant afterthought.

Again, like so many other aspects of the Trump era, the hope is that if you repeat a lie frequently and often enough, it becomes truth in the minds of Americans (or at least in the minds of your partisan supporters). But as John Adams once declared, facts are stubborn things, and no matter how many press releases he issues, the facts aren't on Ajit Pai's side.

Filed Under: ajit pai, capex, competition, fcc, net neutrality, telecom investment
Companies: ustelecom