Steve Blum's Blog
I’m still slogging through the text, trying to figure out if there’s anything significantly different from November’s draft version. Absent changes, the real significance is that the clock is now ticking for some of the administrative and legislative actions that might be taken. Others, particularly court challenges, will have to wait until it’s formally published in the Federal Register.
A second net neutrality resurrection bill is on the table in the California legislature, introduced by senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco). Senate bill 822 is more targeted than the high visibility, low probability shotgun approach taken by senate president pro tem Kevin de Leon (D – Los Angeles) in senate bill 460. But it still has serious, likely fatal, problems.
Wiener’s bill is also vague. It’s a checklist of goals, rather than specific legal language that would accomplish anything.… More
A doomed attempt to impose network neutrality rules scrapped by the Federal Communications Commission is underway in Sacramento. California senate president pro tem Kevin de León (D – Los Angeles) gutted senate bill 460, a leftover broadband bill from last year, and replaced it with language that would reinstate the three “bright line rules” – no blocking, throttling or paid prioritisation – adopted by the democratic majority FCC in 2015 and repealed by the republican majority FCC last month.… More
Comcast is even more dishonest that previously suspected, Washington’s attorney general told a Seattle court earlier this month. Bob Ferguson is suing Comcast over its habit of cramming service contracts, that don’t necessarily offer much service, onto monthly cable bills.
You can read the latest filing here. Ferguson’s office summed it up in a press release…
… MoreA sample of recorded calls between [service protection plan (SPP)] subscribers and Comcast representatives obtained by the Attorney General’s Office reveal that Comcast may have signed up more than half of all SPP subscribers without their consent.
The Federal Communications Commission isn’t celebrating Christmas the way it did Thanksgiving this year. Instead of leaving us with a massive document dump before heading home for the holiday, the FCC went into the long weekend without releasing the final text of its decision to strip broadband service of common carrier status and, in the process, scrap network neutrality rules.
So for now, the decision isn’t in effect yet and any formal opposition is on hold.… More
A limited resurrection of network neutrality rules is under consideration in the U.S. house of representatives, with emphasis on limited. This effort has a realistic chance of success, unlike most of the political reaction to last week’s Federal Communications Commission decision to scrap network neutrality rules and end broadband’s status as a common carrier service.
Introduced by Marsha Blackburn (R – Tennessee) and co-signed by 15 of her fellow republicans, house resolution 4682 reads like it was written by a Comcast lobbyist.… More
The end of network neutrality and other common carrier rules throws broadband companies back under general consumer protection laws. Those are enforced, as Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai put it, by “our nation’s premier consumer protection cop”, the Federal Trade Commission, and by state attorneys general.
In California, that’s Xavier Becerra, appointed by governor Jerry Brown when Kamala Harris moved to the U.S. senate. He has sole responsibility for anti-trust law enforcement and shares consumer protection duties with county prosecutors.… More
Frontier Communication’s broadband customers might want to take up the offer of fierce consumer fraud protection that the Federal Communication Commission made as it issued its network belligerence decision this week. They thought they were getting broadband service at a stated price, but Frontier surprised them by adding a $2 “Internet infrastructure surcharge” to their bills. Because it could.
The charge is an attempt by Frontier to advertise a low price for broadband service, while charging a higher one.… More
A brief pause for a bomb threat aside, yesterday’s Federal Communications Commission vote to end broadband’s common carrier status as a telecommunications service, and net neutrality rules with it, went as expected. The three republican commissioners voted in favor of the change, the two democrats voted against and all five made speeches explaining why they were voting the way they always said they would vote (links below). There was no indication that the final order approved yesterday differed significantly – or at all – from the draft published three weeks ago.… More
By a vote of three republicans to two democrats, the Federal Communications Commission declared that broadband is not a telecommunications service this morning. Broadband’s common carrier status is gone and network neutrality rules have been scrapped. If the FCC follows recent practice, the full text of the decision will be released in the next few days, but the draft was published three weeks ago and there’s no indication at this point that any significant changes were made.… More