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I was recently at a conference in DC called "Transforming Communities: Broadband Goals for 2017 and Beyond" which was largely focused on public policy related t
by quasse 10y ago
I was recently at a conference in DC called "Transforming Communities: Broadband Goals for 2017 and Beyond" which was largely focused on public policy related to the lack of real broadband in America. Gigi Sohn, who is the counselor to the chairman of the FCC, spoke.
She was very candid about the position of the FCC and the fact that she was finally able to speak her mind because this was going to be one of her last public appearances as a government official. One thing that stuck me was what she said about Tom[1]: "He actually believes that the consumer, the american people, are his clients. He's said that from the first day and he'll say that the day he leaves. Trust me, he doesn't like any of the companies [laughter]". The loss of the current administration of the FCC (including but not limited to Tom) will be a great loss for the American people in my opinion.
The conference was interesting and somewhat sad, because it was planned before the election and probably with the assumption that the new administration would not be totally hostile. Instead of the original direction of "here's what we've done and how we plan to carry these goals forward" it ended up being more of a retrospective on progress that had been made at the federal level that was about to be erased.
From the people I saw, there did not seem to be anyone there representing the new administration.
[1] https://youtu.be/O5drVTSpH5g?list=LLDlLvM2YAVFtSXvebIrlE0A&t=6509 https://youtu.be/O5drVTSpH5g?list=LLDlLvM2YAVFtSXvebIrlE0A&t...
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoThere were a lot of concerns when Mr Wheeler took over and he greatly surprised everyone. Let's be patient and see what happens next.
- chimeracoder 10y ago> There were a lot of concerns when Mr Wheeler took over and he greatly surprised everyone. Let's be patient and see what happens next. When Wheeler was nominated, there were some concerns that he wouldn't even want to live up to the promises that Obama made. That's a very different situation from being worried that the next chairman will live up to the promises that Trump has made.
- gnicholas 10y agoWhat FCC-related promises has Trump made? I know he's said a lot of unsettling things, but nothing springs to mind regarding net neutrality or the like.
- ethbro 10y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=trump+net+neutrality https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+net+neutrality
- BurningFrog 10y agoThis is the best I could find in 5 minutes of click-research: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/532608358508167168 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/53260835850816716... I wouldn't call it a promise, but it does make an anti NN argument.
- wavefunction 10y agoI was pretty negative when he was nominated and very pleasantly surprised and happy to be wrong about my initial concerns. I have a lot of respect for the man now, in fact.
- jandrese 10y agoIf he ran for president in 4 years he would have my vote. So few politicians realize that they are supposed to be working for the people, not the mega corps.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoI hadn't thought about this. He might bring a refreshing change. Sure did to the FCC.
- hueving 10y agoIt's worth noting that whenever there is a change of parties in control, the incumbent party is always going to lament the fact that it's the end of the world. Time will tell if the new FCC administration is actually bad for the consumer.
- rattray 10y agoYou're likely being downvoted for assuming lamentation is related to the party that was elected, rather than the person. We're in a unique situation here. I do agree that we should wait and see when it comes to the new (FCC) administration, however.
- croon 10y agoWhile I in many scenarios in theory could agree with you, this portrayal is very disingenous unless you think Net Neutrality is somehow bad for consumers, because going off party politics on these issues, this WILL be bad.
- mr_spothawk 10y agoI think Net Neutrality is bad for consumers, because it entrenches dependance on eg. Comcast. Instead, if we'd just let Comcast do whatever it wants with its networks (yes, we have stupidly built a lot of laws/rules around network sharing, that enable nasty behavior by Comcast, et. al.), then they'd jack up the price for whatever they want and (in a handwaving way) we'd have a market for citizen built mesh-networks. Those are great things. as a further stretch of the imagination... Fuck Video Bandwidth... why are we encouraging more Netflix with Net Neutrality? Do we really want more television? Fuck codifying anything about Comcast's business into legal frameworks (laws/regulations/etc...)... let's do what humans have done for many many thousands of years, and communicate among ourselves, instead of through the king's network. And, to be sure, Comcast is King. Well, money is... Or we wouldn't be worried about FCC chair change-over. /rant [ edit - thanks for the down votes ]
- Spivak 10y agoSo what you're arguing is that NN is artificially keeping the cost of network access down? That's actually an argument I haven't heard before. Thus the only companies that can afford to eat the cost of NN are huge ISPs. I don't know whether this is true or not but I'm at least interested. NN is largely independent of the type of content being sent over the network. NN helps Netflix because they're in competition with services that are owned by or partner with ISPs -- it doesn't, on the surface, seem to foster the creation of more streaming services. Comcast was extremely anti-NN because they want to push cable and their own streaming services via network restrictions. I'm not sure what part of CC's business is begin codified into NN regulations or what nasty behavior it enables.