fcc

FCC begins Act II of apartment, condo broadband access drama

8 June 2017 by Steve Blum
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The rules that govern how video, voice and Internet services are delivered to people who live in what the Federal Communications Commission calls multiple tenant environments (MTEs) are complicated. It’s a universe that includes apartments and condominiums (multiple dwelling units/MDUs), and commercial real estate, such as shopping malls or office buildings. Later this month, the FCC will consider, and likely approve, the start of a broad enquiry that could result in an update and overhaul of those regulations.… More

FCC votes to kill net neutrality, after a fair trial of course

19 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Common carrier rules for broadband service are on the way out. As expected, the Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines to begin a rulemaking process that, in theory, is a neutral, technocratic assessment of current regulations that might lead to any outcome. But there’s never been any pretence that the result will be anything but a repeal of the FCC’s 2015 decision to bring broadband – wired and wireless – under the common carrier umbrella.… More

Muni ISPs are as common a carrier as any other

15 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Buried within a half million comments about common carrier regulation of broadband service, in the midst of a system crash brought about, or not, by a John Oliver rant, is a letter from 19 municipal (to one degree or another) Internet service providers supporting the Federal Communications Commission’s current effort to roll those rules back.

In what must have been an epic, nay, herculean, speed reading session, FCC chair Ajit Pai came across those comments and felt compelled to issue a press release trumpeting the blindingly obvious conclusion that, hey, these guys agree with me so they must be pretty smart.… More

Did John Oliver take down the FCC, again?

13 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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After another classic net neutrality rant, John Oliver is getting credit in some quarters for inspiring a flood of online comments that brought the Federal Communications Commission’s website to a grinding halt. 150,000 comments were filed in the first 36 hours after the broadcast, three times the number over the same period three years ago when Oliver issued his first net neutrality call-to-arms.
It didn’t long for the FCC’s comment system to crash, or for the agency to claim it was someone else’s fault…

Beginning on Sunday night at midnight, our analysis reveals that the FCC was subject to multiple distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDos).

… More

Don't force us to subsidize wireless companies, cities ask FCC

7 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communication Commission’s move toward preempting local and state review of wireless infrastructure building plans and locations, and, potentially, their ability to control public right-of-ways and real estate they own, has produced a useful primer on the issues involved, as cities and counties see it. A coalition of more than 1,800 communities filed a joint response to a request from Mobilitie, a mobile infrastructure company, that asked the FCC to give it free rein to install tens of thousands of towers, which it tries to pass off as 120-foot steel utility poles, along public roads (h/t to Omar Masry at the City and County of San Francisco for the pointer).… More

Back door white house influence voids FCC decisions, says judge

5 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Who’s controlling whom?

This week’s decision by the federal appeals court in Washington, DC to stand by an earlier ruling that okayed the Federal Communications Commission’s reclassification of broadband as a common carrier service contains an interesting warning to the Trump administration and current FCC chair Ajit Pai. Judge Janice Brown, who dissented and argued that the FCC order was illegal, lambasted off the record interference by the white house in regulatory processes…

If the means by which the President seeks to shape the agency’s deliberations transgress legal procedures designed to ensure public accountability — like notice-and-comment requirements and rules regarding ex parte communications — he undermines the accountability rationale for confining executive Power to the President…Acting with concern for public accountability seems especially salient when the President “and his White House staff” seek to exert influence over the direction of an ostensibly-independent agency…

This Order shows signs of a government having grown beyond the consent of the governed: the collapsing respect for Bicameralism and Presentment; the administrative state shoehorning major questions into long-extant statutory provisions without congressional authorization; a preference for rent-seeking over liberty.

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FCC has bad information about what telecoms is

30 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission started down the road to roll back its previous decision to regulate broadband as a common carrier service last week. A draft decision to open up a process to reverse its 2015 decision to reclassify Internet access (yes, it’s incredibly bureaucratic) from being an information service to a telecommunications service will be taken up by commissioners next month.

Information services are value added services. Facebook adds value to the your bits by processing that data and connecting it every which way with what your friends send them.… More

FCC steps back from broadband regulation, steps on local government

21 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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The weed whacker was whirling at full tilt yesterday as the Federal Communications Commission decided to take on local limits on cell sites and utility poles, and roll back regulation of wholesale broadband services. The voting was largely bipartisan. Democrat Mignon Clyburn concurred with republicans Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly on opening two major enquiries, one on whether wireless permit shot clocks should be given deemed granted teeth when they expire and the other on a range of wireline issues, including limits on how long local governments can take to review construction permits and how much they can charge.… More

T-Mobile leads 600 MHz auction, DISH slips easily in behind

16 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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T-Mobile is the big winner, or at least the big spender, in the Federal Communication Commission’s $20 billion incentive auction, walking away with more than half the 600 MHz band licenses up for grabs – 1,525 licenses, 55% of the total. Second place went to DISH, which paid $6.2 billion for 486 licenses, 18% of the total.

Who came in third depends on how you’re figuring it. Comcast bid the third most money – $1.7 billion – but ended up with only 73 licenses, a mere 3%.… More

San Francisco ban on exclusive ISP deals goes to FCC

11 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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San Francisco’s open broadband access rule for apartments and condominiums will be tested at the Federal Communications Commission. As adopted by the San Francisco board of supervisors, the ordinance allows any resident of a multi-dwelling unit (MDU) to buy Internet service from any provider. The landlord or homeowner’s association has to allow access to both the building and the existing wiring inside of it. A lobbying front for companies that make a living providing exclusive broadband service to MDUs is asking the FCC to overturn the rule – Article 52, for short – because, they say, it will result in less competition and fewer choices…

Though styled as a vehicle for promoting consumer “choice” among communications services, Article 52 in fact offers a de facto sweetheart deal to large, well-financed entities by overriding voluntary, contractual arrangements that are preconditions to the financing required for buildout by small, entrepreneurial start-ups.

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