Category Archives: FCC

Continuing on a theme

Posted on by

As I wrote yesterday, Shelly Moore Capito won the ‘Pub primary for US Senate in West Virginia. She left an open House seat in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District to run for the Senate. Four different ‘Pub candidates ran in the Primary to fill her 2nd District seat; Capito declined to endorse any of those candidate.

The winner of that four-way primary was the Tea Party candidate, Alex Moony, the former GOP ‘Pub Chairman for Maryland. Moony’s win once again exposed the lie that Tea Party candidates can’t win; he won handily over his other three opponents.

Moony had the backing of Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservative Fund (SCF) and grassroots organizations throughout the 2nd District. A number of other Tea Party groups, including the Tea Party Express, congratulated Moony on his win.

***

Obama’s FCC has, in spite of widespread criticism and Congressional warnings, approved a Rule that, in affect, implements Net Neutrality. The Washington Post reports:

FCC approves plan to allow for paid priority on Internet

By Cecilia Kang,

Net neutrality protesters outside the FCC. (Brian Fung / The Washington Post)

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted in favor of advancing a proposal that could dramatically reshape the way consumers experience the Internet, opening the possibility of Internet service providers charging Web sites for higher-quality delivery of their content to American consumers.

The plan, approved in a three-to-two vote along party lines, could unleash a new economy on the Web where an Internet service provider such as Verizon would charge a Web site such as Netflix for the guarantee of flawless video streaming.

Smaller companies that can’t afford to pay for faster delivery would likely face additional obstacles against bigger rivals. And consumers could see a trickle-down effect of higher prices as Web sites try to pass along new costs of doing business with Internet service providers.

The proposal is not a final rule, but the three-to-two vote on Thursday is a significant step forward on a controversial idea that has invited fierce opposition from consumer advocates, Silicon Valley heavyweights, and Democratic lawmakers.

Even one of the Democratic commissioners who voted yes on Thursday expressed some misgivings about how the proposal had been handled.

“I would have done this differently. I would have taken the time to consider the future,” said Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who said the proposal can’t allow for clear fast lanes for the most privileged companies. She said she supported a proposal allowing the agency to consider questions on how it could prevent certain Web sites from being blocked, in addition to figuring out the overall oversight of broadband Internet providers.

“I believe the process that got us to rulemaking today was flawed,” she said.  “I would have preferred a delay.”

The column continues here. FOX News chimed in with this article.

FCC to cripple the Internet

By FoxNews.com

The Federal Communications Commission thinks the Internet in the United States can be run at two speeds. Backtracking from an earlier proposal, the FCC now believes it will be just fine to let Internet service providers (ISPs) control what you access online, with a few exceptions that the FCC would police.

While this new proposal might not kill the Internet, as it exists now, it would certainly cripple it – at least for American consumers and businesses.

Multiple leaks about FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to the commission, which will be presented on Thursday, indicate that the agency would not allow ISPs to give preferential treatment – faster Internet access – to their own subsidiaries. But it would allow other companies to pay for faster, more reliable access. (No matter that such a similar restriction has already failed in the case of Comcast giving preferential treatment to its own Golf Channel.)

If the Internet does not maintain net neutrality, wherein all digital data is treated the same, countless businesses will suffer.

Unfortunately, there is no halfway approach to how data should flow over the Internet. It’s a binary proposition: Either access to the Internet is equal, no matter the type or size of the business, or it is not. Letting Amazon have better access because it can pay and because it is not owned by AT&T will not make the situation more equal.

If the Internet does not maintain net neutrality, wherein all digital data is treated the same, countless businesses – tech companies in Silicon Valley, auto companies in Detroit, health care providers in Houston, startups in New York – will suffer. And, of course, you and I will pay for diminishing service and be denied the option of choosing what we want to read, view and listen to at faster speeds.

Representatives of the country’s largest ISPs are claiming that the one solution to preserving net neutrality in the U.S. – legally classifying broadband Internet utilities as utilities – “would threaten new investment in broadband infrastructure and jeopardize the spread of broadband technology across America, holding back Internet speeds and ultimately deepening the digital divide.” That’s according to a press release attached to a letter signed by Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Time Warner Cable CEO Robert Marcus and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In the first place, those companies are proposing to introduce their own digital divide, in which consumers would have no choice. Faster, more reliable Internet access would be granted only to those companies that would pay AT&T, Time Warner, et al. Want better access to your child’s school website? Too bad, Verizon will say no – unless the school can fork over the kind of fees that an Amazon or Facebook would pay. Thus, the digital divide would grow exponentially if these CEOs have their way. 

Secondly, there is no “threat to new investment in broadband.” Indeed, the situation is quite the opposite. There is constant improvement in optical switches, which increase speeds. And there is plenty of motivation for ISPs to upgrade: It’s called competition (can you say Google Fiber?). You and I pay dearly for these services every month, but if it’s not enough to run their businesses properly, then AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon should start charging subscribers more up front and providing better service. Crippling the Internet for their own profit, with no promise of improvement, is not a solution. It’s a disincentive for ISPs to upgrade.

Moreover, access to and the flexibility of the Internet have done nothing but improve under the de facto standard of net neutrality since the early ’90s. Suddenly handing over control of how reliably and how fast certain content gets sent to a few companies would kneecap the U.S. economy.

There is more to the article at the FOX website. Go and read it all. The reality of this move by the Obama government is to control the use, access and content of the Internet. If they can’t restrict the free flow of information by act of Congress, they will do so through the back-door via regulation. The real purpose is to violate the 1st Amendment rights of the free flow of news and information.

Facebook

Say, "Good night," Julius.

Posted on by

I’ve had to work with the FCC for a long time, at least a couple of decades, perhaps more. My previous job was to design systems to support Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS,) a federal mandate to the states to provide telephone communication for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The states would make contracts with my employer to provide this service. At it’s high point a few years ago, we had contracts with over thirty states and at least one foreign government.

From time to time, every other year it seemed, the FCC would propose enhancements to the basic service. The FCC drew its authority from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.) Most of the time, the FCC listened to providers. We listened to the FCC carefully. You see, the FCC also regulated our reimbursement for handling long distance calls. When the FCC dictated a few service or technology, we would examine and forecast costs and continuing expenses with a fine toothed comb. We needed to make sure our added expense and cost still provided a measure of profit given the fixed reimbursement rate from the FCC. It was my job to design the support systems and to determine the costs to provide these new services. In the process I was awarded six patents for innovative designs to provide the TRS services.

The question was, why did the FCC have to be involved when the original mandate was to the states? The states were forced by the feds to pass enabling legislation to comply with the ADA. How did the FCC come to be involved in a purely social requirement? The immediate response was because the service was from a telecommunications carrier.

In reality, FCC oversight wasn’t needed, nor required. The original mandate was to the states, not to the telecommunications carriers like AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and a few others. The states would issue Requests for Proposals and in turn would negotiate a contract with a TRS provider. The FCC got it’s nose into the tent because one of the basic services was to provide interstate long distance calling for the deaf.

It would be more prudent, perhaps, if the service was regulated by the ICC like trucking companies, IF any federal oversight was required at all. You see, the carriers were already regulated as part of their normal business. We, the TRS providers were being “double-dipped”, so to speak, by the FCC. First because we were a communications carrier and second because we were also a TRS provider.

There was no need for the FCC to be involved at all. The services to be provided was covered in the contract between the state and the provider. What benefits did the FCC provide?

None. Except to increase the overall cost of the service. And who paid for this? The people of the states. If you look closely at your next phone bill. You’ll probably see a line item for TRS. Usually this is a tax for every phone line and/or for every call you make. In a few cases it’s a flat charge added to your bill because you have a phone.

I’ve often wondered how much the cost could have been reduced if we didn’t have to jump through the FCCs hoops. You see the FCC was created during that great social failure known as the New Deal in the 1930s specifically to constrain the growth of AT&T. The social engineers at the time feared AT&T would become a monopoly.

The FCC, for all practical purposes, killed competition and gave AT&T a virtual monopoly for phone service. It wasn’t until the 1980s that AT&T’s monopoly, created in part by the FCc, was broken up and AT&Twas forced to divest itself of the local exchange carriers like Southwestern Bell, Bell South, PacBell and others. The FCC finally performed its original mission—fifty years late. It finally allowed competition to emerge—like Sprint in the 1980s and more recently cable TV providers.

However, we’ve come full circle. Almost all of the local exchange providers have again been reabsorbed into a single company called—AT&T! So, what benefits did we ever get from the FCC? They’ve failed to perform their original purpose.

I propose that the FCC having failed to meet its original purpose, regardless whether that purpose was needed in the first place, has no mission and should be abolished as obsolete and a waste of taxpayer money. Others agree with me. Here’s an editorial from the Investor’s Business Daily that provides some additional information.

Kill Off The FCC

Posted 12/23/2010 06:55 PM ET
Regulatory State: Two days after the FCC voted to take over the Internet, it stands in the way of an agreement between private companies. This is an agency that should be targeted for elimination.
On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission approved net neutrality, a regulatory framework that has been sold as a means of keeping the Web fair and open. In truth, the rules give government the authority to tell Internet service providers how to organize the traffic that flows over their infrastructure.
That’s enough meddling in private affairs for one week for any federal agency. But the FCC wasn’t finished.
Chairman Julius Genachowski, who pushed net neutrality despite a court ruling and bipartisan opposition in Congress, set conditions Thursday on Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal. He wants Comcast to distribute content in a way that he approves of and lets competitors access Comcast’s platform.
It’s almost amusing that these conditions are being applied in the name of the “public interest.”
Genachowski’s proposal isn’t binding. He still has to present his ideas to the other four commissioners and a vote must be taken. But neither one man nor one group should have the power to marshal private companies’ business operations.
Private media companies are not government-owned utilities.
Regulators such as Genachowski say they are merely trying to keep competition healthy and protect consumers.
But their efforts inhibit competition and obstruct innovation.
Cell phones, for instance, were delayed by the FCC for a decade. The cost of this hang-up to the economy, according to the National Economic Research Associates, was $85 billion.
Like generals fighting the last war, regulators make rules based on the way businesses operated yesterday. As they try to keep up with market dynamics, they inflict uncertainty into business decisions and put a boot on the neck of progress. When not held back by regulators, though, companies freely create new technologies and business models that increase competition.
What role, then, is there for regulators, especially those at the FCC, which oversees one of the most dynamic industries in the world? With the intense competition in telecommunications that has benefited consumers and led to wide commercial successes, there’s no need for a government referee in this sector.
There’s nothing the FCC does that can’t be eliminated, streamlined or handed over to another agency or department that has a legitimate function. (Ed Morrissey of hotair.com suggests broadcast licenses “could be handled by the Commerce Department, or by a greatly reduced FCC with binding limitations on jurisdiction.” The point is, the FCC as now constituted doesn’t have to do it.)
The FCC has been around for a while — it was established by the Communications Act of 1934. So it won’t be abolished overnight. But its elimination is a worthy goal.
Just another Roosevelt boondoggle like the New Deal. A social experiment that is nothing but a failure. Like Johnson’s Great Society, all of the social bills passed by the democrats have been failures.

Say, "Good night," Julius.

Posted on by

I’ve had to work with the FCC for a long time, at least a couple of decades, perhaps more. My previous job was to design systems to support Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS,) a federal mandate to the states to provide telephone communication for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The states would make contracts with my employer to provide this service. At it’s high point a few years ago, we had contracts with over thirty states and at least one foreign government.

From time to time, every other year it seemed, the FCC would propose enhancements to the basic service. The FCC drew its authority from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.) Most of the time, the FCC listened to providers. We listened to the FCC carefully. You see, the FCC also regulated our reimbursement for handling long distance calls. When the FCC dictated a few service or technology, we would examine and forecast costs and continuing expenses with a fine toothed comb. We needed to make sure our added expense and cost still provided a measure of profit given the fixed reimbursement rate from the FCC. It was my job to design the support systems and to determine the costs to provide these new services. In the process I was awarded six patents for innovative designs to provide the TRS services.

The question was, why did the FCC have to be involved when the original mandate was to the states? The states were forced by the feds to pass enabling legislation to comply with the ADA. How did the FCC come to be involved in a purely social requirement? The immediate response was because the service was from a telecommunications carrier.

In reality, FCC oversight wasn’t needed, nor required. The original mandate was to the states, not to the telecommunications carriers like AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and a few others. The states would issue Requests for Proposals and in turn would negotiate a contract with a TRS provider. The FCC got it’s nose into the tent because one of the basic services was to provide interstate long distance calling for the deaf.

It would be more prudent, perhaps, if the service was regulated by the ICC like trucking companies, IF any federal oversight was required at all. You see, the carriers were already regulated as part of their normal business. We, the TRS providers were being “double-dipped”, so to speak, by the FCC. First because we were a communications carrier and second because we were also a TRS provider.

There was no need for the FCC to be involved at all. The services to be provided was covered in the contract between the state and the provider. What benefits did the FCC provide?

None. Except to increase the overall cost of the service. And who paid for this? The people of the states. If you look closely at your next phone bill. You’ll probably see a line item for TRS. Usually this is a tax for every phone line and/or for every call you make. In a few cases it’s a flat charge added to your bill because you have a phone.

I’ve often wondered how much the cost could have been reduced if we didn’t have to jump through the FCCs hoops. You see the FCC was created during that great social failure known as the New Deal in the 1930s specifically to constrain the growth of AT&T. The social engineers at the time feared AT&T would become a monopoly.

The FCC, for all practical purposes, killed competition and gave AT&T a virtual monopoly for phone service. It wasn’t until the 1980s that AT&T’s monopoly, created in part by the FCc, was broken up and AT&Twas forced to divest itself of the local exchange carriers like Southwestern Bell, Bell South, PacBell and others. The FCC finally performed its original mission—fifty years late. It finally allowed competition to emerge—like Sprint in the 1980s and more recently cable TV providers.

However, we’ve come full circle. Almost all of the local exchange providers have again been reabsorbed into a single company called—AT&T! So, what benefits did we ever get from the FCC? They’ve failed to perform their original purpose.

I propose that the FCC having failed to meet its original purpose, regardless whether that purpose was needed in the first place, has no mission and should be abolished as obsolete and a waste of taxpayer money. Others agree with me. Here’s an editorial from the Investor’s Business Daily that provides some additional information.

Kill Off The FCC

Posted 12/23/2010 06:55 PM ET
Regulatory State: Two days after the FCC voted to take over the Internet, it stands in the way of an agreement between private companies. This is an agency that should be targeted for elimination.
On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission approved net neutrality, a regulatory framework that has been sold as a means of keeping the Web fair and open. In truth, the rules give government the authority to tell Internet service providers how to organize the traffic that flows over their infrastructure.
That’s enough meddling in private affairs for one week for any federal agency. But the FCC wasn’t finished.
Chairman Julius Genachowski, who pushed net neutrality despite a court ruling and bipartisan opposition in Congress, set conditions Thursday on Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal. He wants Comcast to distribute content in a way that he approves of and lets competitors access Comcast’s platform.
It’s almost amusing that these conditions are being applied in the name of the “public interest.”
Genachowski’s proposal isn’t binding. He still has to present his ideas to the other four commissioners and a vote must be taken. But neither one man nor one group should have the power to marshal private companies’ business operations.
Private media companies are not government-owned utilities.
Regulators such as Genachowski say they are merely trying to keep competition healthy and protect consumers.
But their efforts inhibit competition and obstruct innovation.
Cell phones, for instance, were delayed by the FCC for a decade. The cost of this hang-up to the economy, according to the National Economic Research Associates, was $85 billion.
Like generals fighting the last war, regulators make rules based on the way businesses operated yesterday. As they try to keep up with market dynamics, they inflict uncertainty into business decisions and put a boot on the neck of progress. When not held back by regulators, though, companies freely create new technologies and business models that increase competition.
What role, then, is there for regulators, especially those at the FCC, which oversees one of the most dynamic industries in the world? With the intense competition in telecommunications that has benefited consumers and led to wide commercial successes, there’s no need for a government referee in this sector.
There’s nothing the FCC does that can’t be eliminated, streamlined or handed over to another agency or department that has a legitimate function. (Ed Morrissey of hotair.com suggests broadcast licenses “could be handled by the Commerce Department, or by a greatly reduced FCC with binding limitations on jurisdiction.” The point is, the FCC as now constituted doesn’t have to do it.)
The FCC has been around for a while — it was established by the Communications Act of 1934. So it won’t be abolished overnight. But its elimination is a worthy goal.
Just another Roosevelt boondoggle like the New Deal. A social experiment that is nothing but a failure. Like Johnson’s Great Society, all of the social bills passed by the democrats have been failures.
Facebook

‘Net Neutrality—what is it?

Posted on by

Today, the Internet is one of the last bastions of Freedom, if not the last. With very few exceptions such as mainland China, the Internet is open to all. Net Neutrality is a governmental attempt to regulate usage and content of the Internet. More governmental control, less freedom. We’ve seen it time and time again.

If you value Freedom, value your First Amendment Rights, oppose the FCC’s Net Neutrality proposal. It’s not neutral and the so-called equal use was never reason for it. It’s all about control.

Here’s another opinion from the Americans for Prosperity group.

Net Neutrality: What’s their Philosophy?

One of the next big fights in Washington is going be over so-called net neutrality, which is code for onerous new government regulations on the Internet. A free and open Internet remains of the few ways we can organize to stop the unending centralization of knowledge, money and power.

I think it bears examining the mentality of those in the White House who are in charge of communicating, and two new video clips give us a peak into White House Communication Director Anita Dunn’s thoughts.

In this clip she lists Mao Tse Tung as one of her favorite philosophers. And in this clip she brags about how the Obama campaign was able to control the media and avoid talking to reporters (starting at 1:45 in the clip). During the campaign, Obama asserted “I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to net neutrality.” And he hasn’t, not even the legislative body that is empowered to create new laws.

The Obama FCC is pushing for these sweeping new rules without any authority from Congress. Click here to go to OpenInternet.gov to tell the FCC not to enact net neutrality by administrative fiat.

As the net neutrality debate heats up, keep in mind that the White House is using a Maoist philosophy to control the media and avoid talking to reporters. All this in hopes of expanding their power to stifle our ability to communicate with each other.

Watch as they do it all by claiming to defend free speech and transparency. Classic DC doubletalk.