fcc

FCC is still the privacy police, even without common carrier rules

9 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Ajit Pai steered away from discussing the plans, or at least the intent, he has to roll back the Federal Communications Commission’s classification of broadband as a common carrier service during his first congressional appearance as chairman yesterday. But he did indicate that the FCC might not be washing its hands of all responsibility for regulating what Internet service providers do with private customer information.

His appearance in front of the U.S. senate’s commerce, science, and transportation committee came two days after he met with Donald Trump and a day after the news broke that the president had re-appointed him to another five year term on the commission.… More

Love or hate his agenda, but Pai makes good on transparency pledge

7 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Less than six weeks into his term as chairman, Ajit Pai is making significant, and welcome, reforms to the way the Federal Communications Commission does business. There’s plenty of room to take issue with the substance of some of the decisions that the new republican FCC majority has made, or plans to make, but the way it’s going about doing it is far more transparent than past practices were, including particularly those of recently departed chairman Tom Wheeler.… More

Rosenworcel loses FCC nomination, again

4 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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For the second time, Jessica Rosenworcel is out of the running for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission. Donald Trump withdrew her nomination, which was re-submitted to congress by Barack Obama in the final days of his administration. It doesn’t appear to be personal. Her name was on a long list of last minute appointments made by Obama to various jobs throughout the federal government that Trump reversed in a batch – a common move when a new president takes office.… More

FCC scraps consumer privacy rules for ISPs

3 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Internet service providers won’t be held to a higher privacy standard. In a two to one party line vote, the Federal Communications Commission put consumer privacy rules it adopted in October on indefinite hold, and passed the buck over to the Federal Trade Commission. The new rules would have, for example, required ISPs to get affirmative, opt-in permission from customers before selling sensitive personal data, such as web browsing history.

In a joint statement, FCC chair Ajit Pai and (temporary) FTC chair Maureen Ohlhausen said consumer protection rules shouldn’t be in the FCC’s domain…

We still believe that jurisdiction over broadband providers’ privacy and data security practices should be returned to the FTC, the nation’s expert agency with respect to these important subjects.

… More

FCC dismantles itself along with common carrier broadband rules

27 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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The common carrier rules imposed on Internet service providers in 2015 are now being peeled back a slice at a time by a very different Federal Communications Commission. On Thursday, the FCC voted on party lines to exempt ISPs with 250,000 or fewer subscribers from consumer transparency rules, and on Friday chairman Ajit Pai said that consumer privacy rules would be either put on hold or scrapped by the end of this week. Both the privacy and the transparency rules are descended from the 2015 common carrier decision.… More

The worse your broadband, the harder price hikes hit, FCC data says

16 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Broadband service is getting more expensive, particularly if you’re on the slow side of the digital divide. The Federal Communications Commission just published its 2017 urban benchmark rate survey, which it uses to set prices and data caps for subsidised rural service – via the Connect America Fund, for example – as well as standards for lifeline service.

In 2016 (which is the benchmark year for 2017 rates), urban customers subscribing to packages with download speeds of 10 Mbps, upload speeds of 1 Mbps per second and a data cap of 100 gigabytes per month – in other words, the slowest and lowest service – paid $76.49 per month.… More

No common carrier rules, but draft bill leaves room for net neutrality

14 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Say goodbye.

A republican-backed bill introduced in congress in 2015 might be the best clue we have regarding where broadband regulation is headed at the federal level. Shortly before the Federal Communications Commission redefined broadband as a common carrier service, and then used that authority to establish a code of conduct for Internet service providers – the network neutrality rules – senator John Thune (R – South Dakota) and representative Fred Upton (R – Michigan) circulated draft legislation aimed at short circuiting that action.… More

Mobile carriers buy 70MHz UHF slice for $20 billion

13 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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The auction is over and mobile broadband carriers gained 70 MHz of spectrum in the 600 MHz band, at a cost just under $20 billion. After four cycles of downward bidding by television companies willing to sell their channel assignments followed by upward bidding by wireless companies wanting to buy them, the Federal Communications Commission’s incentive auction ended on Friday.

The downward, selling price auction ended last month, with TV stations willing to accept $10 billion in return for giving up 84 MHz of UHF spectrum.… More

Two nuggets of broadband policy gold offered to Trump administration

12 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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It’s in there somewhere.

So as not to throw the baby out with the bathwater (although it’s a small baby in an ocean of bathwater), it’s worth highlighting a couple of genuine wins in the last gasp “progress report” from the Obama administration’s federal broadband opportunity council.

The acknowledgement by the federal economic development agency (EDA) that broadband infrastructure is eligible for grant funding is particularly valuable, since it’s backed up with cash. EDA is now encouraging local agencies to “incorporate broadband investments (if applicable) into their regional economic development strategies along with other assets such as transportation infrastructure, energy, land use, etc.”… More

Too little, too late from the federal broadband opportunity council

11 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Received and filed.

It’s called a progress report, but there’s not much progress to report. And the safe bet is that the federal broadband opportunity council will go into hibernation, rather than continue with whatever progress it might have made. Nevertheless, the council published a valediction of its efforts as the Trump administration was walking in the door.

The council was formed in 2015, following Barack Obama’s community-broadband-king-for-a-day speech in Iowa in January of that year.… More