I left finance because if I'm going to take it up the ass for a decade, I'd prefer to get in to a hall of fame for it.
— Veronica Vain (@TheVeronicaVain) January 14, 2015
Pr0n Actress Veronica Vain explaining why she left Wall Street for adult films.
H/t The Independent
It now appears that the FCC will preempt bans on municipal broadband, and rule that broadband service is a telecommunications service, preserving net neutrality:
A Federal Communications Commission proposal to preempt state laws that harm municipal broadband projects are being made official this week, with Chairman Tom Wheeler circulating a draft decision to his fellow commissioners, The Washington Post reported today. The commissioners are expected to vote on the matter on February 26, the same day they are likely to vote for new net neutrality rules.
Municipal broadband operators in Tennessee and North Carolina petitioned the FCC to preempt state laws that prevent them from expanding to nearby communities that want Internet service. Wheeler plans to invoke the FCC’s authority to remove barriers that prevent broadband investment and competition.
and
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission this week is widely expected to propose regulating Internet service like a public utility, a move certain to unleash another round of intense debate and lobbying about how to ensure so-called net neutrality, or an open Internet.
It is expected that the proposal will reclassify high-speed Internet service as a telecommunications service, instead of an information service, under Title II of the Communications Act, according to industry analysts, lobbyists and former F.C.C. staff members.
The change, the analysts and others say, which has been pushed by President Obama, would give the commission strong legal authority to ensure that no content is blocked and no so-called pay-to-play fast lanes exist — prohibitions that are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept.
I had figured that Wheeler was another Obama revolving door sellout.
While this is not a done deal, and the devil is, as always, in the details, I am pleasantly surprised.
Also, thanks to the FOUR MILLION people who made their voices heard against “Cable Company F%$#ery”.
This would not have happened without them.
The FCC just made it clear to hotels and convention centers, you block WiFi, and there will be sanctions:
After Marriott blocked Wi-Fi hotspots in parts of its hotels, the FCC sent a stern warning: don’t even think about trying that again.
“The Communications Act prohibits anyone from … interfering with authorized radio communications, including Wi-Fi,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a statement. “Marriott’s request seeking the FCC’s blessing to block guests’ use of non-Marriott networks is contrary to this basic principle.”
Wheeler pointed out that the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau fined Marriott (MAR) $600,000 for blocking Wi-Fi, and said the agency will fine other hotels if they try anything similar.
After being fined, Marriott petitioned the FCC to change the Communications Act so that it could block access to Wi-Fi devices in its conference spaces. The hotel chain said it needed to block Wi-Fi hotspot access in conference centers because attendees could launch cyberattacks on the company’s network or disrupt Wi-Fi service for the conference or guests.
Many customers were outraged by the petition, claiming that Marriott’s request for a conference center Wi-Fi ban was a veiled attempt to ban access in hotel rooms and lobbies as well.
Of course it was.
Overpriced phone and internet has been a major profit center for hotels, and they are eager to find ways to get that money back.
The law is pretty simple though: Civilians operating radio jammers is illegal.
In fact, it’s illegal for most law enforcement as well.
Here in New York City and other parts of the Northeast, the snow has begun to fall and it likely won’t stop for the next 24 hours or longer. Some estimate the city will be buried in up to 30 inches of snow by late tomorrow.
For customers of Uber and Lyft, that should bring up nightmares of blizzards past when Uber’s surge prices hit seven to eight times the normal rates — or upwards of $30 a mile.
With that in mind, NYC mayor Bill de Blasio said in a press conference, “Price gouging in the context of an emergency is illegal.” In response, Uber and Lyft have capped their surge prices at 280% and 200% respectively.
The cap is a welcome gesture, but doesn’t that still constitute “price gouging in the context of an emergency”? Under New York State law, price gouging is defined as an “unconscionably excessive price” during an “abnormal disruption of the market.” Like many laws, there’s a bit of vagueness written into that language, and I’ve reached out to the Attorney General’s office to ask whether Uber’s and Lyft’s capped surge rates qualify as “unconscionably excessive” and will update the post if I hear back.
Seriously. This is a company whose business model is, “We’re contemptible greed-head ratf%$#s.”
Why do people use this, and why do their massively underpaid drivers stay with them?
The cable lobby is opposed to a Federal Communications Commission plan to define “broadband” as speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps up.
Customers do just fine with lower speeds, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) wrote in an FCC filing Thursday (thanks to the Washington Post’s Brian Fung for pointing it out). 25Mbps/3Mbps isn’t necessary to meet the legal definition of “high-speed, switched, broadband telecommunications capability that enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications using any technology,” the NCTA said.
“Notably, no party provides any justification for adopting an upload speed benchmark of 3Mbps,” NCTA Counsel Matthew Brill wrote. “And the two parties that specifically urge the Commission to adopt a download speed benchmark of 25 Mbps—Netflix and Public Knowledge—both offer examples of applications that go well beyond the ‘current’ and ‘regular’ uses that ordinarily inform the Commission’s inquiry under Section 706″ of the Telecommunications Act.
Hypothetical use cases showing the need for 25Mbps/3Mbps “dramatically exaggerate the amount of bandwidth needed by the typical broadband user,” the NCTA said.
“Netflix, for instance, bases its call for a 25Mbps download threshold on what it believes consumers need for streaming 4K and ultra-HD video content—despite the fact that only a tiny fraction of consumers use their broadband connections in this manner, and notwithstanding the consensus among others in the industry that 25Mbps is significantly more bandwidth than is needed for 4K streaming,” the NCTA said. “Meanwhile, Public Knowledge asserts in conclusory fashion that an ‘average’ US household constantly streams at least three high-definition movies simultaneously while also running various ‘online backup services and other applications’—without providing any evidence indicating that such usage is at all ‘average.'”
The commission defines broadband as 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up but hasn’t changed the definition since 2010. The FCC is required under Section 706 to determine whether broadband is being deployed to Americans in a reasonable and timely way, and the group must take action to accelerate deployment if the answer is negative. Raising the definition’s speeds provides more impetus to take actions that promote competition and remove barriers to investment, such as a potential move to preempt state laws that restrict municipal broadband projects.
Here is the money quote:
Though a majority of Americans can purchase broadband of at least 100Mbps, Wheeler has focused on the lack of competition at higher Internet speeds. While 75 percent of American homes have at least two options for wired broadband of 4Mbps/1Mbps, only 25 percent have a choice of at least two providers at the 25Mbps/3Mbps threshold:
4/1 download is the telco’s old DSL, which hasn’t been upgraded since the early 200s.
What’s more, it never will be upgraded, as the phone companies have decided that there is not sufficient profit there.
By upgrading the definition of broadband to something that actually describes the way that broadband is used today, it makes it far more difficult for states to prevent municipal broadband.
Seriously, just f%$# the cable companies.
Come to think of it, “F%$# the Cable Companies,” would be a good platform for a political party.
At the State of the Union address, Obama will announce plans to increase penalties and increase the penalties and broaden the scope of the already over-broad Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFPA):
The Obama administration, currently engaged in a war of words with North Korea over the recent hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment, is calling on Congress to increase prison sentences for hackers and to expand the definition of hacking.
During next week’s State of the Union address, the president is set to publicly urge increased prison time and other changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act—the statute that was used to prosecute Internet activist Aaron Swartz before he committed suicide in 2013.
The Obama administration, currently engaged in a war of words with North Korea over the recent hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment, is calling on Congress to increase prison sentences for hackers and to expand the definition of hacking.
During next week’s State of the Union address, the president is set to publicly urge increased prison time and other changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act—the statute that was used to prosecute Internet activist Aaron Swartz before he committed suicide in 2013.
………
Among other things, penalties under Obama’s plan would increase from a maximum five-year penalty to 10 years for pure hacking acts, like circumventing a technological barrier. What’s more, the law would expand the definition of what “exceeds authorized access” means. A hacker would exceed authorization when accessing information “for a purpose that the accesser knows is not authorized by the computer owner.”
So, under Obama’s proposal, if you browse Facebook on a work computer, that’s 10 years in the slam.
Note that Aaron Swartz was driven to suicide by an abusive prosecution using the current (far less broad and far less punitive) version of the CFPA.
The CFPA is already a petri dish for overzealous prosecution, and Obama wants to make it worse.
Seriously, has there been a single case where Obama has not chosen the most authoritarian option?
In what amounts to a major change in policy, Obama appears to have to endorsed municipal owned and run broadband networks:
U.S. President Barack Obama said laws that impede local governments from bringing competitively priced, high-speed Internet to their residents hold back businesses and raise prices for consumers.
Obama used the the well-wired city of Cedar Falls, Iowa, which he said provides broadband access that’s almost 100 times faster than the national average, as an example for the rest of the country and to urge repeal of laws the prevent communities from creating their own networks.
“High-speed broadband isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity,” Obama on Wednesday told an audience at Cedar Falls Utilities, which has extended fiber lines capable of high Internet speeds to all local residences and businesses. “This is about helping local businesses grow, prosper and compete in a global economy.”
The president is urging the Federal Communications Commission to address barriers that keep communities from building their own broadband networks. His remarks were intended to touch on one of the messages he’ll deliver in his State of the Union address to the nation next week.
While the FCC might rule on this, the chance of any meaningful legislation from a Republican Congress is about the same as Ayman al-Zawahiri becoming a contributing editor at Charlie Hebdo.
Truth be told, I really don’t expect any significant moves on this issue, given the obvious heat that he and the FCC will take on net neutrality.
I really don’t get it.
It was reflexively, and stupidly, counter-intuitive in all the time that I was aware of it, it hasn’t broken a major story in decades, and it has appeared to see its mission as a way for country-club liberals to excuse their own privilige and entitlement. (It’s also been affirmative action for white Ivy Leaguers with degrees in English)
One of the things that its supporters have pointed to is the dense literary writings of the magazine’s now former literary editor Leon Wieseltier.
I never read his stuff. While I read some (not enough) literature, I have no urge to read people who write about literature.
It just seems to be an exercise in solipsism to me.
But Atrios pointed me to this bit of Graphorrhea that Mr. Wieseltier wrote for the New York Times:
Amid the bacchanal of disruption, let us pause to honor the disrupted. The streets of American cities are haunted by the ghosts of bookstores and record stores, which have been destroyed by the greatest thugs in the history of the culture industry. Writers hover between a decent poverty and an indecent one; they are expected to render the fruits of their labors for little and even for nothing, and all the miracles of electronic dissemination somehow do not suffice for compensation, either of the fiscal or the spiritual kind. Everybody talks frantically about media, a second-order subject if ever there was one, as content disappears into “content.” What does the understanding of media contribute to the understanding of life? Journalistic institutions slowly transform themselves into silent sweatshops in which words cannot wait for thoughts, and first responses are promoted into best responses, and patience is a professional liability. As the frequency of expression grows, the force of expression diminishes: Digital expectations of alacrity and terseness confer the highest prestige upon the twittering cacophony of one-liners and promotional announcements. It was always the case that all things must pass, but this is ridiculous.
And I thought that reading a ponderous translation of Immanuel Kant in high schoolwas a tough row to hoe.
It gets worse as it goes on. ……… and on. ……… and on. ……… and on. ……… and on.
I think that if translated to Frankenstein-speak, it translates to, “Paper publications good! Internet Bad!”, but I can only give a confidence that I actually understood that bit of purple prose with about 27.3%.
Why anyone ever bought a copy of The New Republic in the past 40 years is beyond me.
Seriously. If this weren’t Leon Wieseltier, I would think that this was a parody of academic writing.
H/T Atrios
Yeah.
I haven’t bought that since J. Edgar Hoover bought his first slip:
The director of the FBI has defended his bureau’s claim that the hacking attack against Sony Pictures was the work of the North Korean government – saying skeptics “don’t have the facts that I have.”
Speaking at a cybersecurity conference at Fordham University in New York City on Wednesday, FBI boss James Comey said he has “very high confidence” that Pyongyang was responsible for the comprehensive ransacking of the movie studio’s servers.
When asked why security experts favor a different explanation – that the attack was probably the work of disgruntled insiders or former employees – Comey said, “They don’t have the facts that I have, don’t see what I see.”
That’s true, because the FBI has remained tight-lipped as to the exact evidence that it believes links the Sony incident to North Korea. But on Wednesday, Comey offered the most detailed explanation yet of the government’s reasoning.
When the group calling itself Guardians of Peace sent threatening emails and made other online statements, Comey said, it mostly used proxy servers to disguise the messages’ origins. “But several times, they got sloppy,” he claimed.
On those occasions, he said, the group sent messages from servers with IP addresses “that were exclusively used by the North Koreans,” giving law enforcement a “very clear indication of who was doing this.”
This makes no sense at all.
It’s a pain in the ass to set up this kind of stuff, but once you do, you would have to actively decide to screw this up.
As the article notes:
Public IP network addresses, by themselves, are a poor indicator of the true origin of internet attacks, due to the ease with which traffic can be spoofed or routed through multiple networks. For this reason, infosec professionals remain skeptical the Kim government is responsible for the Sony Pictures hack.
How much do you want to guess that the hackers “got sloppy” only after the DPRK got fingered?
I ain’t buying it.
Given the history of stove-piping by the US state security apparatus, I need something beyond, “If you knew what I do.”
Bruce Schneier, perhaps the most prominent security pundit in the world, is dubious about the FBI’s claim that the DPRK is behind the Sony Hack, while Kurt Stammberger, the senior VP Norse, a cybersecurity firm, insists that all evidence points to an internal hack:
Cybersecurity experts are questioning the FBI’s claim that North Korea is responsible for the hack that crippled Sony Pictures. Kurt Stammberger, a senior vice president with cybersecurity firm Norse, told CBS News his company has data that doubts some of the FBI’s findings.
“Sony was not just hacked, this is a company that was essentially nuked from the inside,” said Stammberger.
While Norse is not involved in the Sony case, it has done its own investigation.
“We are very confident that this was not an attack master-minded by North Korea and that insiders were key to the implementation of one of the most devastating attacks in history,” said Stammberger.
He says Norse data is pointing towards a woman who calls herself “Lena” and claims to be connected with the so-called “Guardians of Peace” hacking group. Norse believes it’s identified this woman as someone who worked at Sony in Los Angeles for ten years until leaving the company this past May.
I’m inclined not to believe the official story from the FBI.
The sketchy accounts currently given by the FBI seem to indicate that they worked backward, starting with the guilt of North Korea, and then picking and choosing evidence on that basis.
The Department of Justice has subpoenaed some Microsoft emails, and the Redmond Borg has objected because the emails in question are on a server in Ireland:
The Irish government today supported Microsoft in its ongoing fight against US prosecutors – who appear to want access to server hard drives anywhere in the world.
Microsoft has garnered serious backing from the technology industry in its case against American investigators. The Feds believe they have the right to access emails stored on Microsoft’s servers in Ireland; Uncle Sam thinks it can lawfully tap up any US company for information, regardless of where that info is stored.
The Feds wants the messages to prosecute a drug case, and obtained a simple search warrant served against Microsoft in New York, rather than approaching the Irish government and its courts for help. If the US govt wins the case, which is being played out in the aforementioned state, it will effectively mean that Microsoft’s cloud data stored around the world can be read at will by US g-men.
Now the Irish government has filed an amicus curiae brief [PDF] supporting Microsoft’s position. If the US government wants information on servers overseas, it should go through existing treaties rather than just expecting to snatch the bytes with a US-issued search warrant.
This is not a big deal from a procedural standpoint: It really would not take much longer to make existing treaty mechanism, but it is from a business perspective, because, should the DoJ prevail, it will be yet another reason for foreign customers to flee American cloud providers.
The degree to which the US state security apparatus attempts to eschew treaty based in attempt to be bad-ass borders on the pathological.
Microsoft and Google don’t agree on much, but they’ve presented a united front against the hotel industry, which is trying to convince government regulators to give them the option of blocking guests from using personal Wi-Fi hotspots.
The tech companies recently joined the wireless industry’s lobbying group and a handful of other parties in opposing the hotel industry’s petition, which seeks the Federal Communications Commission’s permission to block personal Wi-Fi networks on their properties.
This summer, the American Hospitality & Lodging Association and Marriott International asked the FCC to declare that a hotel operator can use equipment to manage its network even if it “may result in ‘interference with or cause interference’ to a [wireless device] being used by a guest on the operator’s property.”
Now that many people have cell phones, and don’t pay the usurious fees for phone calls, Marriott wants to jam personal Wi-Fi hotspots so that they can charge equally usurious fees for that:
The Marriott-owned Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center tech staff was using a monitoring system that de-authenticated guests’ personal Wi-Fi hot spots. Meanwhile, the hotel was charging exhibitors and attendees anywhere from $250 to $1,000 for Wi-Fi service, the FCC said.
In October, Marriott settled an FCC complaint about the practice for $600,000 but argued that it hadn’t broken the law and was using technology to protect guests from “rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber attacks and identity theft.”
A month later, the agency asked for comments on Marriott’s earlier request to find such Wi-Fi blocking legal.
Like I said, Hotel Telecommunications F%$#ery.
I think that the deadline for comment has passed, but you can read the comments here.
HBO Go is a service that allows subscribers to the HBO channel to view content on PCs, tablets, and other devices.
The kicker is that for now, though I expect this to change as it renegotiates contracts, in order to use this service, you need to have your cable/fiber company certify that you are an HBO subscriber in order to get the service.
Guess what? Comcast, the most loathed company in America, is refusing to provide this information for its subscribers:
One of the more dubious Comcast practices brought up by opponents of Comcast’s planned $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable is the cable giant’s sluggish refusal to support certain internet video services and platforms running over its broadband network. Case in point is the HBO Go app on Roku, which Comcast hasn’t supported since around 2011 or so for no coherent reason. To get the app to work, it needs to simply authenticate with the cable provider to prove you are a cable subscriber (since, at least until next year, there’s no HBO Go standalone option).
Much smaller cable companies haven’t had a problem in getting this to work, but Comcast, with its limited resources, somehow just can’t seem to spend the time. Roku’s neutrality filing with the FCC expressed concern that cable authentication systems could be used as yet another way gatekeepers could extract tolls from streaming services. As we noted when Comcast similarly refused to support HBO Go on the Playstation 3, the company — when it can be bothered to comment on the issue at all — usually trots out the excuse that getting this stuff to work is well, gosh — time consuming:“With every new website, device or player we authenticate, we need to work through technical integration and customer service which takes time and resources. Moving forward, we will continue to prioritize as we partner with various players.”
It certainly does appear to be a case of priorities. With Comcast looking to eliminate any and all justifications to reject its merger, the company this week announced its network would finally support HBO Go on Roku — some three years later. It couldn’t possibly be that Comcast intentionally stalled on supporting HBO Go on the country’s best-selling third-party streaming device because it wants to keep customers contained within the Comcast set top ecosystem and away from other options, could it?
I really think that if a politician of either party were to say that his goal would to make Comcast, “Squeal like a pig,” he would be elected President.
But we still have politicians going to their knees to “service” the cable giants.
For the 2nd time in my life,* threats of terrorism have pulled a major motion picture from release.
I guess that I
This time it’s for the James Franco and Seth Rogen farce The Interview that has been pulled from screens:
Sony Pictures Entertainment on Wednesday dropped plans for its Christmas Day release of “The Interview,” a movie that depicts the assassination of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, after receiving a terror threat against theaters.
Before that, the four largest theater chains in the United States said they would not show the movie, which has been at the center of a devastating hacking attack on Sony over the last several weeks. In a statement, Sony said: “We respect and understand our partners’ decision and, of course, completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theatergoers.”
Sony Pictures Entertainment on Wednesday dropped plans for its Christmas Day release of “The Interview,” a movie that depicts the assassination of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, after receiving a terror threat against theaters.
Before that, the four largest theater chains in the United States said they would not show the movie, which has been at the center of a devastating hacking attack on Sony over the last several weeks. In a statement, Sony said: “We respect and understand our partners’ decision and, of course, completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theatergoers.”
Hollywood executives never miss a chance to choose the craven path, I guess.
In a development that should surprise no one, “Senior Administration Officials” have confirmed that the hack originated in the DPRK.
BTW, James Franco had the best tweet about the cancellation:
#Emmastone kills it in @cabaret!!!! #alancumming is so good I started smoking and slapped his ass. 🌲🌲❤️Bye NYC!❤️🌲🌲
— James Franco (@JamesFrancoTV) December 17, 2014
That is so cool.
For the irony impaired, he tweeted this after the film was puled, and he says nothing at all about this.
Epically cool!
*The first time was when the film Mohammad, Messenger of God was pulled as a result of the 1977 Hanafi Siege, where hostages were taken in Washington, DC.
The cable companies pet FCC commissioner has estimated the cost of net neutrality regulations to consumers at $17 billion, while an open internet advocacy group has pegged the cost at $0:
After a dramatic shift in the debate over net neutrality last month, many expect the FCC will reclassify internet providers so as to bar them from giving special treatment to some websites over others. The question now becomes how much (if at all) the agency’s decision, which turns on an arcane process called Title II, will cost consumers.
Depending on who you ask, the answer is that Title II, which would treat internet providers akin to public utilities, will be ruinously expensive — or will have little financial impact at all. Among the Cassandras, you can count Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai:“It will cost $17 billion in new fees,” Pai told an audience of telecom lawyers in Washington on Friday, warning that consumers’ monthly internet bills are set to soar.
Pai’s number, which has also popped up on the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page and in other right-leaning outlets, is lifted from a purported study by the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank that has reportedly taken funding from AT&T.
………
Like so much else in the pitched debate over net neutrality, however, the $17 billion number may have been ginned up for political purposes. According to Free Press, a nonpartisan advocacy group for open internet, the figure represents a misleading worst-case scenario that will never come to pass.
As the group points out, reclassification does not appear to require any new consumer fees. Such fees, it they do appear, will instead be the result of a separate set of decisions by the FCC and various governments.
I have no doubt that the PPI has taken funding from AT&T. After all, their parent organization, the now defunct Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was funded by the Koch brothers.
Also note that most of the $17 billion involved is on a separate regulatory ruling, and that the FCC has made it very clear that they will engage in regulatory forbearance, and not impose the charges that Mr. Pai is mentioning, but these charges have nothing to do with reclassification of Title II.
Even if there are a few buck additional charges, it would well worth it to prevent “Cable Company F%$#ery.”
Remember AT&T’s threat that it would curtail broadband rollout if network neutrality were implemented?
Well that threat is is now inoperative:
AT&T now says it isn’t really going to halt a huge fiber investment because of net neutrality despite its CEO recently claiming the company would do just that.
Don’t celebrate yet—AT&T is making no promises to build anywhere.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told investors on November 12 that “We can’t go out and invest that kind of money deploying fiber to 100 cities not knowing under what rules those investments will be governed.” Stephenson was referring to an April announcement in which AT&T said it would “expand its ultra-fast fiber network to up to 100 candidate cities and municipalities nationwide, including 21 new major metropolitan areas.”
Because of uncertainty about net neutrality rules, Stephenson said at the investor event this month that it would be better to “pause” instead of proceeding with the 100-city investment. Construction in all 100 cities was never guaranteed to begin with, as it was contingent on municipal cooperation with AT&T.
I’m not surprised that they’ve blinked.
Even the FCC wasn’t buying this as a credible threat.
You know how it goes.
The FCC is increasingly aware of massive public opposition to the broadband monopolists attempts to rape the consumers and internet businesses, what John Oliver rightly called “Cable company F%$#ery”, and so the former cable company lobbyist who is currently running the FCC is making noises about making it a touch more difficult for the last mile providers.
In response to this, AT&T tries blackmail, suggesting that any pro-consumer and pro-competition regulation will result in their curtailing their plans for a significant expansion of their fiber build-out.
The FCC called bullsh%$ on AT&T’s claims, and have demanded to see their detailed plans for expansion of broadband capability:
Two days after AT&T claimed it has to “pause” a 100-city fiber build because of uncertainty over network neutrality rules, the Federal Communications Commission today asked the company to finally detail its vague plans for fiber construction.
Despite making all sorts of bold promises about bringing fiber to customers and claiming its fiber construction is contingent on the government giving it what it wants, AT&T has never detailed its exact fiber plans. For one thing, AT&T never promised to build in all of the 100 cities and towns it named as potential fiber spots. The company would only build in cities and towns where local leaders gave AT&T whatever it wanted. In all likelihood, only a small portion of the 100 municipalities were likely to get fiber, and nobody knows which ones.………
Today, the FCC challenged AT&T to finally reveal some facts about its fiber plans in a letter to AT&T Senior VP Robert Quinn. Jamillia Ferris, a former Justice Department antitrust lawyer who joined the FCC to review the AT&T/DirecTV merger, began the letter by describing Stephenson’s statement that “the Company would limit its fiber deployment to the ‘2 million additional homes’ that are ‘commitments to the DirecTV announcement’ and that any other fiber deployment would depend on the outcome of the Commission’s Open Internet Proceeding.” Ferris then asked Quinn for:
(a) Data regarding the Company’s current plans for fiber deployment, specifically: (1) the current number of households to which fiber is deployed and the breakdown by technology (i.e., FTTP [fiber-to-the-premises] or FTTN [fiber-to-the-node]) and geographic area of deployment; (2) the total number of households to which the Company planned to deploy fiber prior to the Company’s decision to limit deployment to the 2 million households and the breakdown by technology and geographic area of deployment; and (3) the total number of households to which the Company currently plans to deploy fiber, including the 2 million households, and the breakdown by technology and geographic area of deployment;
(b) A description of (1) whether the AT&T FTTP Investment Model demonstrates that fiber deployment is now unprofitable; and (2) whether the fiber to the 2 million homes following acquisition of DirecTV would be unprofitable; and
(c) All documents relating to the Company’s decision to limit AT&T’s deployment of fiber to 2 million homes following the acquisition of DirecTV.
Of course, AT&T never intended to put all that fiber in the ground, but it is nice that the FCC is saying that the emperor has not clothes.
This is all very simple, really:
These companies are the most loathed companies in America for a reason.
To quote Lily Tomlin, “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company.”
Former Cable TV Lobbyist, and Barack Obama’s FCC chairman, just told Barack Obama to go Cheney himself on net neutrality:
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is not convinced that the FCC should treat consumer broadband service as a utility despite President Obama urging him to do so.
A report last night in The Washington Post says Wheeler met Monday with Web companies including Google, Yahoo, and Etsy and told them that he wants to find a compromise that addresses the concerns of Internet service providers such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and AT&T. Wheeler was formerly a lobbyist for the cable and wireless industries.
“What you want is what everyone wants: an open Internet that doesn’t affect your business,” Wheeler told attendees of the meeting, according to the Post’s sources. “What I’ve got to figure out is how to split the baby.”
Obama argued that reclassifying consumer broadband service as a utility is the best way to implement net neutrality rules that prevent ISPs from blocking or throttling Web services or prioritizing traffic in exchange for payment. Obama noted that the FCC is an independent agency that can vote however it wants, a message Wheeler apparently has taken to heart.
“I am an independent agency,” Wheeler said repeatedly during the meeting, according to the Post’s sources.
While the Post story said Wheeler is “moving in a different direction” from the president’s plan, it did not provide any details as to what that direction is. Before Obama’s call for a full reclassification of broadband as a utility, Wheeler was reportedly close to settling on a hybrid approach in which the service ISPs offer to content providers would be treated as a utility while the service ISPs offer to consumers would remain a lightly regulated information service.
“Wheeler worries that the president’s more drastic approach is too simplistic, according to people familiar with his thinking,” the Post wrote. “With his long experience in the telecommunications industry, Wheeler is well aware of concerns that ill-considered regulations could stifle innovation and slow the growth of the country’s broadband infrastructure, those people said. And he worries that the White House is being naive about the ripple effects of changing how a major piece of national infrastructure is governed.”
I guarantee you that Wheeler got a heads up before Obama made the statement.
In fact it was probably more than just a heads up. I think that Obama knew what Wheeler’s response would be before he made his statement.
When I doubted Obama’s sincerity, and worried that he would, “find a way to f%$# the ordinary guy and benefit the big corporations again,” it appears that I was right.
He gets to pretend to be on our side, while siding with the oligarchs.
Cable companies ‘stunned’ by Obama’s ‘extreme’ net neutrality proposals
Sorry, but I stand with John Oliver.
Stop cable company f%$#ery.
Barack Obama just came out in favor of Title 2 regulation of broadband providers:
U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said Internet service providers should be regulated more like public utilities to make sure they grant equal access to all content providers, touching off intense protests from cable and telecoms companies and Republican lawmakers.
Obama’s detailed statement on the issue of “net neutrality,” a platform in his 2008 presidential campaign, was a rare intervention by the White House into the policy setting of an independent agency.
Shares of major Internet service providers Comcast Corp and Time Warner Cable Inc fell sharply after Obama said ISPs should be reclassified to face stricter regulations and banned from striking paid “fast lane” deals with content companies.
The president also said the Federal Communications Commission’s new rules should apply equally to mobile and wired ISPs, with a recognition of special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.
“Simply put: No service should be stuck in a ‘slow lane’ because it does not pay a fee,” Obama, currently in Asia, said in a statement released by the White House. “That kind of gate keeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth.”
It’s a remarkably strong statement, and he included mobile providers in it.
that being said, it’s mind-bogglingly stupid timing, as Charlie Pierce so aptly observed:
Where in the name of god was this before a midterm election when, because the kidz stayed home, the average age of the voter was approximately half-past the Hallmark Channel? Yeesh.
He’s right.
The average Fox News viewer barely understands email, and would not understand, nor would Fox be able to work them into a frenzy, over network neutrality.
Meanwhile, the younger Democratic voters are disgusted and dispirited, and were expecting to get f%$#ed like a drunk sorority girl by Obama’s former cable lobbyist FCC chairman.
A statement like Obama’s would have driven a more turnout.
Seriously, both Barack Obama, and the Democratic political establishment seem to be paralyzed by fear of offending people who go to Sally Quinn’s cocktail parties.
BTW, I still expect Obama to find a way to f%$# the ordinary guy and benefit the big corporations again, just like he did with Wall Street.
I hope to be wrong about this, but I fear that I won’t.
Text of White House Statement follows:
Statement by the President on Net Neutrality
An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life. By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known.
“Net neutrality” has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation — but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. That is why today, I am asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to answer the call of almost 4 million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.
When I was a candidate for this office, I made clear my commitment to a free and open Internet, and my commitment remains as strong as ever. Four years ago, the FCC tried to implement rules that would protect net neutrality with little to no impact on the telecommunications companies that make important investments in our economy. After the rules were challenged, the court reviewing the rules agreed with the FCC that net neutrality was essential for preserving an environment that encourages new investment in the network, new online services and content, and everything else that makes up the Internet as we now know it. Unfortunately, the court ultimately struck down the rules — not because it disagreed with the need to protect net neutrality, but because it believed the FCC had taken the wrong legal approach.
The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone. I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online. The rules I am asking for are simple, common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe. These bright-line rules include:
- No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.
- No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.
- Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.
- No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.
If carefully designed, these rules should not create any undue burden for ISPs, and can have clear, monitored exceptions for reasonable network management and for specialized services such as dedicated, mission-critical networks serving a hospital. But combined, these rules mean everything for preserving the Internet’s openness.
The rules also have to reflect the way people use the Internet today, which increasingly means on a mobile device. I believe the FCC should make these rules fully applicable to mobile broadband as well, while recognizing the special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.
To be current, these rules must also build on the lessons of the past. For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business. That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call, or a packet of data.So the time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do. To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone — not just one or two companies.
Investment in wired and wireless networks has supported jobs and made America the center of a vibrant ecosystem of digital devices, apps, and platforms that fuel growth and expand opportunity. Importantly, network investment remained strong under the previous net neutrality regime, before it was struck down by the court; in fact, the court agreed that protecting net neutrality helps foster more investment and innovation. If the FCC appropriately forbears from the Title II regulations that are not needed to implement the principles above — principles that most ISPs have followed for years — it will help ensure new rules are consistent with incentives for further investment in the infrastructure of the Internet.
The Internet has been one of the greatest gifts our economy — and our society — has ever known. The FCC was chartered to promote competition, innovation, and investment in our networks. In service of that mission, there is no higher calling than protecting an open, accessible, and free Internet. I thank the Commissioners for having served this cause with distinction and integrity, and I respectfully ask them to adopt the policies I have outlined here, to preserve this technology’s promise for today, and future generations to come.