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> Well, they tried that, and then we got all of this revolving door nonsense where, to use an example closer to home here, former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai is now

by chroma 7y ago

> Well, they tried that, and then we got all of this revolving door nonsense where, to use an example closer to home here, former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai is now running the FCC as a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon Communications. That's not true at all. He worked at Verizon for 2 years (2001-2003). Almost all of the other 20 years of his career have been at various government agencies. He was nominated for an FCC position by president Obama and confirmed unanimously by the senate. People hate him because he was nominated to chairman by Trump and because of his position on net neutrality. I know I'll get a lot of flak for this, but honestly net neutrality had no noticeable impact on consumers. Prices haven't gone up. ISPs haven't clamped down on what sites you can visit. This outcome was obvious before the law changed. Internet services improved before net neutrality and plenty of other countries with better service don't have net neutrality. People seem to think Pai wants to deregulate everything, but that notion is quashed if you actually look at what he's done and said. For example: he has argued in favor of a cap on the rates of long distance phone calls from prisons. From a 2003 memo[1]: > I believe that the government should usually stay its hand in economic matters and allow the price of goods and services to respond to consumer choice and competition. But sometimes the market fails, and government intervention carefully tailored to address that market failure is appropriate. > The provision of inmate calling services (ICS) is one such market. Inmates cannot choose their carrier, and carriers do not compete with each other for an inmate’s calls. Those do not sound like the words of someone who is in the pocket of giant phone companies. Pai has also threatened to legislate that phone companies switch to a secure caller ID protocol if one isn't adopted by the end of the year.[2] This would make most robocalls easy to block. The problem is that different phone companies have trouble coordinating, as nobody benefits until they all adopt the new protocol. A government mandating adoption of a new technology is a way to solve that coordination problem. Career bureaucrats are many things, but they aren't what the media portrays Ajit Pai as. 1. http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2013/db0809/DOC-322749A4.pdf http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2013... 2. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-357422A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-357422A1.pdf

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> That's not true at all. He worked at Verizon for 2 years (2001-2003). He is a former Verizon lawyer, as stated. > He was nominated for an FCC position by president Obama and confirmed unanimously by the senate. The FCC has five commissioners but only three can be of the same party. Pai's slot was thereby slated to be filled by a Republican even when the President is of the other party. Moreover, confirmation of commissioners is rarely contested because the appointments are temporary and because of the way they're selected, rejecting one would only result in their being replaced by someone of the same party. > People hate him because he was nominated to chairman by Trump and because of his position on net neutrality. People hate him because of his position on net neutrality and other issues. I expect Trump loses more support for nominating Pai (from people paying attention to such things) than Pai loses for having been nominated by Trump (in addition to Obama). > I know I'll get a lot of flak for this, but honestly net neutrality had no noticeable impact on consumers. It seems odd that the ISPs would be so opposed to a policy that has no impact on anything. > Prices haven't gone up. This is never a thing it was supposed to cause. The opponents had argued the opposite -- that network neutrality would cause prices to be higher. Yet we haven't seen a significant price reduction either, though seeing any pricing result on a short time frame would be quite unexpected regardless. > ISPs haven't clamped down on what sites you can visit. Again, not a thing that was expected. The problem is things like zero rating favored services while imposing metering or usage caps for others, and purposely oversubscribing transit links so that their direct competitors for video services have to pay them monopoly prices for interconnection. These things occur even now. Also, these companies are highly experienced in government policy. They know perfectly well not to jump right into outrageous behavior from the date of the rule change if they want to keep it. That doesn't mean it's not coming. Expect to see more things like this, from before the rules were in place to begin with: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html And again, if they don't intend to violate it then what does it hurt for violations to be prohibited? It's like repealing the law against leaded gasoline and then claiming it's not needed because nobody has resumed production of it yet. If they're not ever going to do it then the rule is harmless and if they are going to do it then the repeal is not. > People seem to think Pai wants to deregulate everything, The claim is that he's in the telecommunications industry's pocket, not that he wants to deregulate everything. These are not the same thing -- especially in the telecommunications industry. The incumbents commonly use regulation to suppress competition. > but that notion is quashed if you actually look at what he's done and said. For example: he has argued in favor of a cap on the rates of long distance phone calls from prisons. The high rates don't go to the major telecommunications companies, they go to the prisons or their bespoke prison calling system providers. It constitutes ~0% of Verizon's revenue -- and is if anything probably costing them some money in lost business because the high cost paid to other parties suppresses demand for their services. > Pai has also threatened to legislate that phone companies switch to a secure caller ID protocol if one isn't adopted by the end of the year. Once again nothing to the detriment of large telcos, which have the scale to implement the requirement efficiently (unlike some of their smaller competitors), and benefit from it by not having robocalls causing customers to cancel their telephone service as not worth the inconvenience. Also apparently not very effective regardless: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190610/07405142367/fcc-pats-itself-back-new-robocall-plan-that-isnt-new-has-no-real-teeth.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190610/07405142367/fcc-p... But let's suppose it's not a bad policy -- it's possible for the interests of telcos and the interests of consumers to coincide. The issue is that shouldn't be the only time that FCC policy benefits consumers. Meanwhile he's repealing network neutrality and privacy rules, rubber stamping the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, appointing industry lobbyists to consumer advisory panels and various other problematic policies: https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/files/documents/FCC%20Ltr%201.24.19.pdf https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycomme... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/ajit-pai-buries-2-year-old-speed-test-data-in-appendix-of-762-page-report/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/ajit-pai-buries-... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/ajit-pais-plan-to-lower-broadband-standards-is-crazy-fcc-democrat-says/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/ajit-... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bj49j8/fcc-falsely-claims-community-broadband-an-ominous-threat-to-the-first-amendment https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bj49j8/fcc-falsel... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb57gx/no-broadband-competition-100-mbps https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb57gx/no-broadba...

by chroma 7y ago

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> That's not true at all. He worked at Verizon for 2 years (2001-2003). He is a former Verizon lawyer, as stated. > He was nominated for an FCC position by president Obama and confirmed unanimously by the senate. The FCC has five commissioners but only three can be of the same party. Pai's slot was thereby slated to be filled by a Republican even when the President is of the other party. Moreover, confirmation of commissioners is rarely contested because the appointments are temporary and because of the way they're selected, rejecting one would only result in their being replaced by someone of the same party. > People hate him because he was nominated to chairman by Trump and because of his position on net neutrality. People hate him because of his position on net neutrality and other issues. I expect Trump loses more support for nominating Pai (from people paying attention to such things) than Pai loses for having been nominated by Trump (in addition to Obama). > I know I'll get a lot of flak for this, but honestly net neutrality had no noticeable impact on consumers. It seems odd that the ISPs would be so opposed to a policy that has no impact on anything. > Prices haven't gone up. This is never a thing it was supposed to cause. The opponents had argued the opposite -- that network neutrality would cause prices to be higher. Yet we haven't seen a significant price reduction either, though seeing any pricing result on a short time frame would be quite unexpected regardless. > ISPs haven't clamped down on what sites you can visit. Again, not a thing that was expected. The problem is things like zero rating favored services while imposing metering or usage caps for others, and purposely oversubscribing transit links so that their direct competitors for video services have to pay them monopoly prices for interconnection. These things occur even now. Also, these companies are highly experienced in government policy. They know perfectly well not to jump right into outrageous behavior from the date of the rule change if they want to keep it. That doesn't mean it's not coming. Expect to see more things like this, from before the rules were in place to begin with: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html And again, if they don't intend to violate it then what does it hurt for violations to be prohibited? It's like repealing the law against leaded gasoline and then claiming it's not needed because nobody has resumed production of it yet. If they're not ever going to do it then the rule is harmless and if they are going to do it then the repeal is not. > People seem to think Pai wants to deregulate everything, The claim is that he's in the telecommunications industry's pocket, not that he wants to deregulate everything. These are not the same thing -- especially in the telecommunications industry. The incumbents commonly use regulation to suppress competition. > but that notion is quashed if you actually look at what he's done and said. For example: he has argued in favor of a cap on the rates of long distance phone calls from prisons. The high rates don't go to the major telecommunications companies, they go to the prisons or their bespoke prison calling system providers. It constitutes ~0% of Verizon's revenue -- and is if anything probably costing them some money in lost business because the high cost paid to other parties suppresses demand for their services. > Pai has also threatened to legislate that phone companies switch to a secure caller ID protocol if one isn't adopted by the end of the year. Once again nothing to the detriment of large telcos, which have the scale to implement the requirement efficiently (unlike some of their smaller competitors), and benefit from it by not having robocalls causing customers to cancel their telephone service as not worth the inconvenience. Also apparently not very effective regardless: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190610/07405142367/fcc-pats-itself-back-new-robocall-plan-that-isnt-new-has-no-real-teeth.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190610/07405142367/fcc-p... But let's suppose it's not a bad policy -- it's possible for the interests of telcos and the interests of consumers to coincide. The issue is that shouldn't be the only time that FCC policy benefits consumers. Meanwhile he's repealing network neutrality and privacy rules, rubber stamping the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, appointing industry lobbyists to consumer advisory panels and various other problematic policies: https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/files/documents/FCC%20Ltr%201.24.19.pdf https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycomme... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/ajit-pai-buries-2-year-old-speed-test-data-in-appendix-of-762-page-report/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/ajit-pai-buries-... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/ajit-pais-plan-to-lower-broadband-standards-is-crazy-fcc-democrat-says/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/ajit-... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bj49j8/fcc-falsely-claims-community-broadband-an-ominous-threat-to-the-first-amendment https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bj49j8/fcc-falsel... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb57gx/no-broadband-competition-100-mbps https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb57gx/no-broadba...