public policy

With a week left to go before a decision is due, California governor Jerry Brown hasn’t said which side he’s going to land on in the network neutrality debate. Senate bill 822, which would restore net neutrality rules in California, is still sitting on his desk.

Brown does not give away much, if anything, when he’s considering bills. He gives bills serious thought. Some more than others, but he makes his own decisions. He’s good at balancing political, fiscal, operational and philosophical considerations.… More

California’s biggest telecoms companies – AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Charter Communications and their lobbying fronts – are being very generous to the members of the assembly’s communications and conveyances committee who ripped the guts out of senate bill 822 back in June. That’s the bill, authored by senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco) that would restore network neutrality rules in California. If governor Jerry Brown signs it.

The damage done was reversed, after netizens went feral on the committee’s chair, assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D – Los Angeles) and democratic party leaders leaned on him.… More

Ajit Pai verbally grasped at straws to slam a California bill that would reinstate network neutrality rules. In a speech in Maine, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission snarked “I can understand how they succumbed to the temptation to regulate. After all, I suppose a broadband pipe might look to some like a plastic straw”. He was referring to Californian attempts to send plastic straws the way of the disposable bag.

Pai repeated a common argument used by industry lobbyists – that senate bill 822 would end popular free data plans – and called it “a radical, anti-consumer Internet regulation bill”.… More