<net_neutrality>

It seems that one way to escape the tyranny of ISP’s is to build your own broadband network. In fact, more than 750 American communities have already done so. This map shows exactly which communities have done so.

(from motherboard.vice.com)

It seems that the only way to get fast, reliable internet in this country is to build it yourself, and that is just saddening to hear. However, it is a good sign that local communities are fighting back. These community broadband networks are significantly cheaper than those of the telecom giants that dominate the country, and interest in these community broadband networks has only grown after the Trump administration’s FCC’s attack on net neutrality.

Of course, these grass-roots efforts to protect fundamental consumer rights have only been met with the the utmost resistance and backlash from ISP’s, who are not afraid to rely on dirty tactics to do so.  One example would be Fort Collins, Colorado, where Big Telecom spent 200,000 dollars on a campaign opposing the mere consideration of a community broadband network. (source) There have even been TV ads, believe it or not, and they are as out-of-touch and disingenuous as you might think.

The argument here is that the money from the bill could be spent on other things that are more important than the internet, such as infrastructure, affordable housing, and public safety. This argument doesn’t seem too invalid, until you remember how telecom industries wasted several billion dollars “developing” fiber-optic network infrastructure, not to mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars campaigning against community broadband in a single city of 150,000 residents. This blatant hypocrisy is what makes their argument crumble to the ground.

That is not the only fatal flaw of this argument. Their point of spending money on infrastructure does not even work, since the cost of 150 million would be funded through utility bonds, which are unable to be spent on things like road repairs.

“The broadband budget is going to be funded 100 percent through subscriber fees,” Atkins noted. “If you don’t build the network, it doesn’t magically create $150 million to spend on something else.”

Traditionally, Big Telecom has painted the net neutrality issue and local broadband issue as bipartisan. For example, the repeal of net neutrality back in December was portrayed as an action of Trump’s administration, and thus it must have been supported by conservatives across the nation. This is in fact entirely false. The fact is that the communities that build their own networks are overwhelmingly conservative and vote republican. (source)

These pie charts from 2008 and 2012 paint a clear picture that municipal broadband and net neutrality are not bipartisan issues. People from both sides of the political spectrum support municipal broadband and net neutrality, thus any who oppose these things are simply acting out of pure greed.

However, there is a silver lining to this whole situation. It means that there is no good argument against local broadband networks, and Big Telecom can only rely on lies and deception to convince voters to oppose the idea. The only real downside to creating local broadband networks would be big telecom companies losing money, which is something they desperately do not want to experience. This is a good thing. Hundreds of cities and municipalities across the nation have successfully voted for and passed bills pushing forward the idea of local broadband, despite Big Telecom dishing out money to oppose it. Ideally, this means that people are beginning to realize that opposing local broadband brings zero benefit to them and only benefits Big Telecom. The people still have all the power, and the power of our democracy is the only thing that can bring these greedy giants down. Please vote for municipal broadband if you can. This is the only way we can stand up to Big Telecom.

The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU stated this in a report:

“Hundreds of cities, towns, and counties around the country have already turned to community broadband, often providing faster and cheaper service than for-profit telecoms. And, municipally-owned broadband providers can honor net neutrality and privacy values, regardless of what the FCC does or doesn’t do. With these public systems, communities can ensure that internet service is provided in an equitable way.” (source)

The most effective way we can stand up to the FCC and ISP’s is by boycotting them and creating our own internet services, because their stranglehold over the internet is simply immoral. To quote the ACLU:

“The internet has become a crucial utility, yet unlike water and electricity, quality broadband service in the U.S. is far from universal.”

Imagine if water and electricity were also controlled like the internet currently is. How barbaric of a world would that be.

This week’s blog post will be a bit different. I will first analyze a blog post by the lobbyist group US Telecom.

 

This blog post can be found here.

This blog post by US Telecom basically tries to argue that States should not be able to implement their own net neutrality laws because having a big mess of different laws would halt technological progress, and that state preemption power should still be held by the FCC.  The author, who is the president of US Telecom, even goes as far to say this:

“If we truly believe—as I do—that all Americans deserve an open internet, then we should fight together at the federal level for permanent, evenhanded protections that apply across the entire internet.”

While this lobby group does claim to support net neutrality, its members include a few ISPs that were openly against net neutrality, such as AT&T and Verizon. USTelecom’s website literally says they have the “backing and presence of large companies, including AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon. ” link

It seems that there would be an obvious conflict of interest in the author’s claims. He is arguing for protections at the federal level for the internet to protect the freedoms and rights of consumers. What? Is this sounding familiar to you? Why could that be?

Oh. It’s exactly what we had until last year.

It seems like this article is actually using the facade of national net neutrality and instead trying to just prevent states from enacting their own protections. To truly be a supporter of open internet, as the author says, you must only fight for net neutrality at the federal level. He says this about the reason why:

“Protections should be no different for consumers in Minnesota or Iowa than they are in California or Florida.  Equally true, consumers deserve consistent safeguards across the online world, whether engaging with Facebook, Google, AT&T or Comcast.”

His main concern is with the inconsistencies between state net neutrality laws, therefore the federal government, or more specifically the FCC, should be able to prevent states from making such laws. Again, his excuse is that there should be consistent protections for all, yet he fails to point out that consistent protections were literally in existence and working well less than 12 months ago. I would think the major ISPs seem to be regretting their decision to help repeal net neutrality, since all it did was open an entirely new can of worms.

However, I think the worst thing in this blog is this statement:

“Broadband providers have worked hard over the past 20 years to deploy ever more sophisticated, faster and higher-capacity networks, and uphold net neutrality protections for all. To continue this important work, there is no question we will aggressively challenge state or municipal attempts to fracture the federal regulatory structure that made all this progress possible. ”

This statement seems quite plausible and logical until you realize the complete lack of progress over the past 20 years. In the year 2005, the government gave broadband companies about $400 Billion to develop and implement fiber optic network infrastructures. source By 2014, the nation should have been using 1-gigabit internet, if these companies had truly used the money to develop it. Yet, our internet speeds in 2018 are not nearly as fast as promised. The broadband companies simply took the money and did nothing with it. How much progress did they make? This is an empty claim and is just proposing another way to permanently disable net neutrality and demolish consumer freedoms.

When I first read this blog post, I felt a sense of pure visceral disgust. I simply could not believe the amount of hypocrisy and lies. How could someone be so out of touch with consumer interests that they propose to veto state laws. The republican FCC should have been against big government policies, and the repealing of net neutrality was a big step in shrinking the FCC’s reach and power. Yet, they want to give the FCC power to preempt states from making their own net neutrality laws. In conclusion, they want to only have this power in the cases where it would benefit the ISPs. These ISPs are much too large and without protections, they will only get larger and more powerful. Why do you think the US is behind so many countries in internet speeds? Why is the country with the highest GDP in the world have such poor internet infrastructure? It’s because there is competition between ISPs, and therefore no need to sink time and money into improving and innovating. The amount of power these companies have is absolutely sickening.

Sorry if this blog post was more emotional than others, I just had to get this off my chest.

While the FCC’s repeal of national regulations on net neutrality may have seemed like an attack on democracy, it may have had the opposite effect. Now that there are no more nationwide regulations, individual states are instituting their own net neutrality laws. The Republican FCC’s controversial decision may to give ISP’s more power may just have backfired.

Washington, the first state to pass a statewide net neutrality law after the repeal, will be sued by the wireless industry lobby group CTIA, which represents AT&T, verizon, etc., but State Representative Drew Hansen is confident that they will prevail. Hansen said the following in an interview with arstechnica.com:

“‘Here is the oddity of the position that they’re taking in the net neutrality repeal,” Hansen said. “They’re saying the Communications Act lacks any authority that would give them the ability to impose broad standards of conduct on the Internet, but grants them broad sweeping authority to preempt state consumer protection laws related to the same area. It’s not clear to me how this can be the case.'” (arstechnica)

Hansen sees this failure in the FCC’s argument as his main defense. After the repeal of title ii regulations, the FCC would not be able to keep the net neutral and decentralized. This was done by removing the authority of the FCC to impose “broad standards of conduct” on the internet. Thus, making a national law preventing states from imposing their own standards would fall under the same category. It wouldn’t make any sense for the FCC to regulate one aspect of the internet and not others.

But, if Washington is successful, then this case will show the power of democracy and customer rights. The net neutrality repeal would only been thought to benefit ISP’s and mobile providers at the time of passing, but it may just result in even stronger net neutrality protections. Arstechnica reports that ISP’s and lobby groups have complained about state regulations being messy and inefficient, which led to the following reply from Hansen: “perhaps they should not have lobbied for the FCC to eliminate national laws.”

The net neutrality repeal may have seemed to grant free rein to large ISP’s and damaged consumer rights, but the ISP’s now seem to be living a nightmare of their own creation. Hopefully, all states will follow Washington’s footsteps and protect consumer rights over corporate ones.

One state has already followed suit. California state Senator Scott Wiener introduced a bill that would be even more strict than previous regulations. “If broadband providers thought that they’d be subject to fewer regulations after the Federal Communications Commission voted in December to jettison its net neutrality protections, they could be disappointed.” (wired.com)

Scott Wiener

 

 

This bill explicitly bans something called “zero rating” in many cases.  This is when ISP’s can exempt certain services from counting towards a monthly data cap, allowing free usage of data in certain services. For example, if AT&T zero rated their own DirecTV service, users would no longer need to worry about their data cap when using it. This may seem like a nice benefit, but it is actually an anti-consumer practice because ISP’s can create artificial benefits to services of their own choosing, effectively artificially shaping the market to their own liking. This bill would only allow zero-rating if the rating applied to all services of the category. So under this bill, if AT&T zero-rated DirecTV, they would also have to do the same for other similar services, such as DISH. Fast lanes, which were also controversial, would still be allowed under this bill. However, it would only be allowed to be set by consumers and not the ISP’s. The consumer would have the ultimate choice in which content to prioritize. This bill may not pass, but it definitely provides lots of consumer protections, and other states should definitely try to follow this model.

 

Individual cities have even begun to join the fight for net neutrality. Organized by New York mayor Bill de Blasio, NYC, San Francisco, Portland, and other cities are joining forces to prevent ISP’s from exercising their new found freedom to ravage consumer rights. (geekwire.com) “Corporate greed is the only reason net neutrality is gone,” de Blasio says.

Bill de Blasio

 

This is only the beginning. We can be assured that other local governments will follow suit. Ajit Pai, the FCC chairman with obvious corporate ties and interests, seemed like he was lying through his (abnormally large) teeth when he claimed the nationwide repeal of net neutrality was for the purpose of “restoring internet freedom,” but now it seems like he may have been right.

The discussion over the FCC’s controversial actions has been reinvigorated after FCC chairman Ajit Pai was alleged to be investigated for corporate ties. This man, who was already quite a controversial figures, has come under scrutiny once more. USA Today reports that Ajit Pai is being investigated by the FCC Inspector General for ties with Sinclair Broadcasting, under request of state representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. and Elijah Cummings, who suspect that Pai had been using his position as FCC chairman to benefit Sinclair broadcasting.

The FCC Inspector General’s office is an office that independently investigates the FCC’s programs and actions, who reports directly to both the FCC chairman and Congress. The role of the FCC inspector general is to find all the deficiencies of the FCC and help it improve. link to fcc page on inspector general

Sinclair Broadcasting is the biggest television station operator in the US, with 193 stations total and providing TV services for 40 percent of american households. It is a behemoth of a corporation and dominates in its industry.

According to USA Today, Ajit Pai’s push for deregulatory measures have been directly benefiting Sinclair, which has been allowed to merge with Tribune Broadcasting, thanks to a new rule that increased the limit for how many TV stations a single broadcasting corporation is allowed to have. After this merger, Sinclair would be able to reach 72% of american households. A federal mandate only allows a single broadcaster to reach 39% at most. This federal mandate, which was implemented to protect viewpoint diversity, would be violated, and a majority of US households would be getting service from the same provider, which may influence their political viewpoints. USA Today also claims that some critics say Sinclair “forced local stations to provide favorable coverage to then-Republican candidate Donald Trump’s campaign at the expense of rival Hillary Clinton”.  link to FCC broadcast ownership rules

If Sinclair does have a political agenda to impose on its clients, then this merger would be incredibly dangerous  indeed, as it would be able to reach a large majority of the population. Sinclair itself has said that the merger would allow them to better serve its local viewers due to increase in operational efficiency, which is not a satisfactory response to those opposing the merger.

Neither Sinclair nor Pai responded to the issue.

On another note, another controversy revolving around this subject matter has also been reignited. Before the repeal in December, people were asked to sent comments to the FCC to state their opinion on the matter. The controversy was centered around the ridiculous amount of fake comments in support of the FCC’s decision. According to arstechnica, 2 million people were impersonated and left comments in support of the repeal, some of whom were no longer with us and sending comments from beyond the grave. Identity theft is obviously a crime, but the FCC did not acknowledge this and refused to cooperate in an investigation on the subject matter.link to article

Commisioner Rosenworcel of the FCC commented on this matter in December:

“This is crazy. Two million people have had their identities stolen in an effort to corrupt our public record. Nineteen Attorneys General from across the country have asked us to delay this vote so they can investigate. And yet, in less than 24 hours we are scheduled to vote on wiping out our net neutrality protections. We should not vote on any item that is based on this corrupt record. I call on my colleagues to delay this vote so we can get to the bottom of this mess.”

This was over a month ago. However, more recently, 24 member of congress have sent a letter to the FCC with questions regarding this matter, according to TechCrunch.  link to article These questions included:

“Several members of this Committee filed comments in the docket of this proceeding, yet a number of the arguments raised in those comments were either dismissed out of hand or overlooked entirely. How did the Commission decide which arguments filed by members of Congress should not be considered?

Why did the FCC fail to cite a single consumer comment in the order?

Why has the FCC failed to cooperate with the NY attorney general’s investigationinto potential identity theft?

Why did the FCC choose to not implement any kind of identity verification in its comment platform?

The FCC says it excluded comments that used fake names, but how was it determined which these were? And if it is known which comments used fake names, why were these comments not removed from the docket?”

It seems painfully clear that conflicts of interest and corruption have made this whole affair into a hot mess. However, many still fight for net neutrality and will continue to do so until they get their freedoms back.

What do you think? Do you think the repeal was a corrupt bargain? Do you think Ajit Pai’s corporate ties make him fit to be FCC chairman? Thank you for reading!

image credits:

https://s.aolcdn.com/dims-shared/dims3/GLOB/crop/3000×1702+0+0/resize/1600×908!/format/jpg/quality/85/https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/17514eb710bd502e98af5fd36bb8847b/205283823/federal-communication-commission-chairman-ajit-pai-prepares-to-and-picture-id679314928

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/fake-comments-map_original-800×619.png

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1711952.1394058119!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_1200/tv6f-1-web.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group_new_logo.svg

On December 15, 2017, the FCC made the shocking move to repeal net neutrality, a decision which will no doubt be controversial for years and even decades to come.

The internet is quite possibly humanity’s greatest achievement. An easily accessible, incredibly fast, and decentralized virtual network that has the ability to connect each and every person on the planet faster than the blink of an eye. The internet is a fast and efficient platform for almost everything: entertainment, communication, commerce, research, learning, free discussion, socialization and so on. And because no large corporate entities are allowed to control it, the internet is allowed to be totally decentralized an accessible to all. Net Neutrality refers to the government-enforced rules that make sure large telecom companies must treat all data equally, and not prioritize some data over others.

For example, take AT&T’s direcTV service. This is a streaming video service very similar to something like Netflix. Without net neutrality regulations, AT&T would have no obligation to treat data from Netflix the same as data from its own service. It could put direcTV on a faster lane, and make Netflix’s connections unbearably slow. Nothing would stop them from also charging extra to use Netflix efficiently. Such an action would help promote their own services and drive out others, at the cost of the wealth and general well-being of the general public.

The net neutrality issue begins with the Telecommunications Act of 1934, which set up regulations for telephone, telegraph, and radio communications. This act also created the FCC, a commission responsible for regulating these industries. Since its creation, this act has been updated to include other forms of communications as well, one of them being the internet. link to Office of Justice Programs webpage (the entire act is quite a long read) However, the most important and topical piece of this act is Title II, which contains the Open Internet Order of 2015, which established rules for internet service providers and promoted a government-regulated open internet.

At the center of the issue of net neutrality is an age-old argument: should government get involved? In response to the 2015 Open Internet Order, Ajit Pai presented a dissenting statement against the order, chastising the FCC and the then-Chairman Wheeler for crippling internet freedom by having the government control it. He said: “seizes unilateral authority to regulate Internet conduct, to direct where Internet service providers put their investments, and to determine what service plans will be available to the American public. ” (link to his full response) The interesting part is that he uses freedom as a core part of his argument, just like all pro net neutrality arguments. However, he sees net neutrality as a hindrance to internet freedom, because it puts the government in direct control of the internet.

In fact, the majority of people believe in internet freedom, even though not all of them might agree with net neutrality. Ajit Pai’s argument, however sound they may be, must be taken with a grain of salt since he has a questionable connection to a major ISP, but he is not the only one with such a viewpoint.

John Steimle, a tech entrepreneur and a contributor to Forbes.com, stated his opinion on net neutrality:

“Proponents of Net Neutrality say the telecoms have too much power. I agree. Everyone seems to agree that monopolies are bad and competition is good, and just like you, I would like to see more competition. But if monopolies are bad, why should we trust the U.S. government, the largest, most powerful monopoly in the world? We’re talking about the same organization that spent an amount equal to Facebook’s first six years of operating costs to build a health care website that doesn’t work, the same organization that can’t keep the country’s bridges from falling down, and the same organization that spends 320 times what private industry spends to send a rocket into space.” (link to article)

John equates the US government to the monopolies that net neutrality would protect the internet from, and makes the point that it might be worse because the US government is known to be inefficient at doing its job, and that such an inefficient system would be incapable of regulating the internet well and will halt technological growth and progress. He instead believes that a true competitive market will be the solution to the issue.

After the repeal, some state governments have taken a stand, and there has been a new wave of municipal and local ISPs popping into existence across the country. Could this be the start of true competition? Possibly. Tensions have been rising between local governments, ISPs, and citizens as heated legal battles begin for the fate of the internet. For example, San Francisco, a local government that supports net neutrality, has already made plans to make an independent internet service independent of ISPs. article link

Hopefully, the internet stays free and open, but regardless of what the future may be, we are definitely at a turning point in the history. The internet has become such and important part of life that constricting it would be a serious detriment to society and technological progress. There will be a long and messy fight for the internet, and hopefully the outcome is beneficial to us as a society.

 

 

 

 

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