netneutrality

Muni ISPs are as common a carrier as any other

15 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Buried within a half million comments about common carrier regulation of broadband service, in the midst of a system crash brought about, or not, by a John Oliver rant, is a letter from 19 municipal (to one degree or another) Internet service providers supporting the Federal Communications Commission’s current effort to roll those rules back.

In what must have been an epic, nay, herculean, speed reading session, FCC chair Ajit Pai came across those comments and felt compelled to issue a press release trumpeting the blindingly obvious conclusion that, hey, these guys agree with me so they must be pretty smart.… More

Did John Oliver take down the FCC, again?

13 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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After another classic net neutrality rant, John Oliver is getting credit in some quarters for inspiring a flood of online comments that brought the Federal Communications Commission’s website to a grinding halt. 150,000 comments were filed in the first 36 hours after the broadcast, three times the number over the same period three years ago when Oliver issued his first net neutrality call-to-arms.
It didn’t long for the FCC’s comment system to crash, or for the agency to claim it was someone else’s fault…

Beginning on Sunday night at midnight, our analysis reveals that the FCC was subject to multiple distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDos).

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Broadband customers love the message, hate the messenger

People in the U.S. love big shopping, food and consumer electronics brands, but are not high on utility, telecommunications and food delivery companies and banks. That’s one take-away from the spring 2017 edition of the list of “America’s most loved brands” by Morning Consult. What was published was only a partial list – intended to draw you in and sign you up for their service – but even so it offers some interesting insights into the way consumers view the companies and industries that compete for their affections.… More

Back door white house influence voids FCC decisions, says judge

5 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Who’s controlling whom?

This week’s decision by the federal appeals court in Washington, DC to stand by an earlier ruling that okayed the Federal Communications Commission’s reclassification of broadband as a common carrier service contains an interesting warning to the Trump administration and current FCC chair Ajit Pai. Judge Janice Brown, who dissented and argued that the FCC order was illegal, lambasted off the record interference by the white house in regulatory processes…

If the means by which the President seeks to shape the agency’s deliberations transgress legal procedures designed to ensure public accountability — like notice-and-comment requirements and rules regarding ex parte communications — he undermines the accountability rationale for confining executive Power to the President…Acting with concern for public accountability seems especially salient when the President “and his White House staff” seek to exert influence over the direction of an ostensibly-independent agency…

This Order shows signs of a government having grown beyond the consent of the governed: the collapsing respect for Bicameralism and Presentment; the administrative state shoehorning major questions into long-extant statutory provisions without congressional authorization; a preference for rent-seeking over liberty.

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FCC has bad information about what telecoms is

30 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission started down the road to roll back its previous decision to regulate broadband as a common carrier service last week. A draft decision to open up a process to reverse its 2015 decision to reclassify Internet access (yes, it’s incredibly bureaucratic) from being an information service to a telecommunications service will be taken up by commissioners next month.

Information services are value added services. Facebook adds value to the your bits by processing that data and connecting it every which way with what your friends send them.… More

FCC steps back from broadband regulation, steps on local government

21 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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The weed whacker was whirling at full tilt yesterday as the Federal Communications Commission decided to take on local limits on cell sites and utility poles, and roll back regulation of wholesale broadband services. The voting was largely bipartisan. Democrat Mignon Clyburn concurred with republicans Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly on opening two major enquiries, one on whether wireless permit shot clocks should be given deemed granted teeth when they expire and the other on a range of wireline issues, including limits on how long local governments can take to review construction permits and how much they can charge.… More

Net neutrality pinky swear from ISPs is good enough, says FCC chair

9 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Network neutrality rules that prohibit Internet service providers from speeding up or slowing down subscriber’s traffic based on what it is or whether or not it’s profitable appear to be on the way out. Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai reportedly met with lobbyists last week and floated the idea of a voluntary system that would have ISPs write net neutrality commitments into their terms of service, which in turn would be overseen by the Federal Trade Commission, and not the FCC.… More

FCC wholesale word games will kill retail competition

7 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Looked at one way, the draft decision to lighten regulation of wholesale broadband services that’s been floated by the new chair of the Federal Communications Commission isn’t a lot different from the one proposed by the old chairman. Both versions backed away from regulating prices or terms for higher speed, dedicated industrial-grade connections – those faster than 45 Mbps – while keeping some controls on slower services based on legacy copper technology.

Current chairman Ajit Pai wants to back further away than Tom Wheeler, the guy he replaced, did.… More

Net neutrality is carefully tailored, FCC jurisdiction paramount says Charter

28 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Master of disguise.

Proving the adage that it’s an ill wind that blows no good, Charter Communications is taking shelter behind the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to regulate broadband as a common carrier service. In a request submitted to a federal court in New York (h/t to the Hollywood Reporter), Charter argued that the New York attorney general shouldn’t be allowed to sue it in state court over consumer fraud allegations, because the FCC has preempted such matters when it issued its network neutrality order in 2015.… More

Pai gets the call as weed-whacker-in-chief

24 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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Mainstream, of a sort.

Ajit Pai is the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, as predicted. An explicit announcement hasn’t been released – at least not as of earlier this morning – but Pai posted a thank you note and his colleagues have offered official congratulations, so take it as a given.

The appointment appears to be permanent. The FCC’s website has an historical listing of commissioners and chairs, and Pai is designated as “chairman”, while Mignon Clyburn, who held down the job while Tom Wheeler was awaiting confirmation in 2013, is listed as “acting chairwoman”.… More