The revolving door in Washington, DC, allows lobbyists to become regulators and vice versa, and there may be no better example than the Federal Communications Commission.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (a Democrat) is the former CEO of the cable industry’s top lobbying group, while the current head of the cable lobby—Republican Michael Powell—used to be the FCC chairman. Though they have held the same jobs, Wheeler and Powell are at odds over how to regulate Internet service, with Powell, as CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), leading the charge against his former agency.
More than a decade ago, Powell as FCC chairman ensured that broadband providers would not be regulated as common carriers, a decision that Wheeler essentially reversed this year when the FCC reclassified broadband as common carriage in order to impose net neutrality rules.
Tag: Tom Wheeler
Verizon trots out analyst to say unlimited data is bad for customers
Got a data cap on your smartphone? You should be grateful, according to an opinion piece that Verizon Wireless published on Friday.
“Let’s face it, if everyone had unlimited data and used it fully, the performance of the networks would suffer because of bandwidth restrictions and the ‘shared resource’ nature of wireless,” industry analyst Jack Gold, founder of J. Gold Associates, wrote in an article titled “The Lure of Unlimited Wireless Data—Is It Necessary?”
Gold went on to write that customers have shifted high-bandwidth activities to Wi-Fi networks, where usage doesn’t count against cellular data caps, and that “users are very well served by current wireless data plans, and really don’t require more. So, while unlimited data may sound attractive, there is no practical effect of data limits on the majority of users.”
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Is Leading An Incoherent, Facts-Optional Last Minute War On Net Neutrality…For The American People
Over the last few months we’ve discussed how FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai has been waging a one man war on net neutrality and Title II using what can only be described as an increasingly aggressive barrage of total nonsense. Back in January Pai tried to claim that Netflix was a horrible neutrality hypocrite because the company uses relatively ordinary content delivery networks. Earlier this month Pai one-upped himself by trying to claim that meaningful neutrality consumer protections would encourage countries like Iran and North Korea to censor the Internet.
Now on the surface, it appears that Pai just doesn’t understand technology very well. Of course, once you understand that he was once a regulatory lawyer for Verizon, you realize he’s simply dressing broadband duopoly profit protection up as some kind of deeper, meaningful ethos. As such, lamenting that Title II is “Obamacare for the Internet,” is just political theater designed to rile up the base to the benefit of the broadband industry.
With net neutrality set for a vote this week, Pai has accelerated his master plan to make the largest number of inaccurate net neutrality statements in the shortest amount of time possible. For example, Pai co-wrote an editorial in the Chicago Tribune last week that tries to use Obamacare fears to insist Americans will lose the right to choose their own wireless plans if Title II based rules come to pass:
“If you like your wireless plan, you should be able to keep it. But new federal regulations may take away your freedom to choose the best broadband plan for you. It’s all part of the federal government’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet like a public utility…take T-Mobile’s Music Freedom program, which the Internet conduct rule puts on the chopping block. The “Un-carrier” allows consumers to stream as much online music as they want without charging it against their monthly data allowance.”
FCC chair refuses to make net neutrality rules public before approval
FCC chair Tom Wheeler has refused to release the net neutrality rules that the regulator will vote on later this month.
The decision whether to make a document public before it faces formal approval rests with the FCC chair but, despite requests from Congress and two of his own commissioners, Wheeler has refused to do so, leaving the public in the dark over what the regulator will actually approve on 26 February.
Citing “decades of precedent,” Wheeler told the chairs of Congress’ technology committees [PDF] that the FCC works along the same lines as appeal courts and the Supreme Court and commissioners are given the text three weeks before a vote is expected in order to “confer privately, share their views and review drafts confidentially, and then issue their public decision,” claiming “this is commonplace for administrative agencies.”
However, given the extraordinary public interest in the rules – highlighted by the four million public comments received on the topic – not to mention the fact that two of his four commissioners have formally asked Wheeler to make the document public, the decision to keep the document under wraps is raising eyebrows – and hackles.
Commissioner Pai this morning put out a statement complaining about the decision not to release information and highlighting six concerns he has with the proposed plan. “I am disappointed that the plan will not be released publicly,” he noted.