anna gomez – Techdirt (original) (raw)

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After Years Of Stupid Games, The Senate Finally Gives The Biden FCC A Voting Majority. Now What?

from the only-took-3-years dept

You might recall that Biden’s first nominee to the FCC, Gigi Sohn, found her nomination torn apart after an industry-funded smear campaign successfully derailed the nomination. Sohn is an extremely competent and popular reformer, but a homophobic lobbying campaign by media and telecom giants (Comcast, News Corp.) falsely framed Sohn as a radical extremist, eroding her support in a corrupt Senate.

Last May the Biden administration tried again with the nomination of Anna Gomez, a widely well-regarded former NTIA official and Sprint lobbyist generally viewed as a “safer,” less controversial choice–given her lack of any history of policy reform or (gasp) outspoken consumer advocacy.

Not too surprisingly, Gomez has sailed through the Senate confirmation process without a hitch, grabbing Senate approval on Thursday with a 55-43 vote. The comically overdue confirmation gives Biden an FCC voting majority for the first time in 7 years (for those playing along at home, that’s the better part of the last decade that the nation’s top media and telecom regulator has been sidelined by lobbying influence).

The question now becomes: what will the Biden FCC do with it?

Verizon, AT&T and Comcast all quickly applauded the nomination (something they generally don’t do for nominees they feel will threaten their power). Consumer activist groups like Fight For the Future were happy to see the FCC finally have a voting majority, but urged the FCC to act quickly on popular consumer rights issues like the restoration of net neutrality:

The FCC can’t afford to waste a single second. Now that the agency has a full slate of commissioners, they should move immediately to reverse Trump’s disastrous repeal of net neutrality and reinstate basic oversight of telecom monopolies. Restoring Title II net neutrality in full should be a given. But there is so much more that the FCC can and should be doing to close the digital divide and protect human rights and free expression.

There’s plenty an energetic and strategically competent Biden FCC could do. It could quickly restore net neutrality rules designed to keep regional monopolies from abusing their market power. It could restore media consolidation limits gleefully stripped away by the Trump FCC. It could challenge monopoly power by supporting community-owned broadband networks, cooperatives, and city-owned broadband utilities. It could finally pursue the long sought after wrist slap penalties against wireless companies for collecting and abusing your daily location data.

But outside of that last one, I think it’s probably wise to temper any enthusiasm.

Neither Gomez or existing FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel or Geoffrey Starks will ever be mistaken for serious reformers. None of them have much (any) history when it comes to rocking the boat. They’re the kind of FCC nominees that can survive a corrupt Senate confirmation process. Namely, well regarded but disruption-averse professionals, extremely unlikely to piss of industry giants lest it compromise future career opportunities.

I suspect this FCC will forget completely about restoring media consolidation limits (they’ve yet to even mention it). I’d also suspect that while they will revisit net neutrality in some form (assuming they don’t run out of time given the looming Presidential election), I’d wager the proposal they come up with will be a bit hollow and performative, likely falling short of full Title II reclassification of ISPs as common carriers.

While it’s true she’s been limited by a lack of a voting majority, Rosenworcel’s tenure so far has been marked by well-intentioned but ultimately somewhat hollow policy initiatives. I’d expect any revisiting of net neutrality to follow suit. Something that sounds like a full restoration of the 2015 net neutrality rules, but lacking when it comes to the legal fine print.

The biggest problem with U.S. broadband is unchecked regional monopolization, limited competition, and the corruption that protects it. The Trump FCC was a mindless rubber stamp on this front. Democrats are often better on the issue, but not only has the Rosenworcel FCC shown no interest in directly attacking monopoly power, I’ve yet to even see any of them even mention the problem exists.

By and large, these kinds of telecom regulators like to issue ambiguous platitudes about their dedication to “bridging the digital divide,” but when it comes to directly confronting the regional monopolies responsible for high broadband prices, spotty coverage, slow speeds, obvious fraud and comically horrible customer service, they’re usually inclined to beat around the bush.

Federal leadership has been so lacking on broadband policy and consumer protection, most of the fights have long since shifted to the state and local level, where real reformers still actually exist. As the rightward lurching Supreme Court further erodes federal regulatory authority, I’d expect that trend to continue.

That’s not to say the Biden FCC can’t or won’t do good things. There’s a lot of work left to do fixing the FCC’s dreadful broadband maps as $42.5 billion in infrastructure bill broadband subsidies start to flow. There’s plenty of other everyday, non-controversial activities related to engineering reviews and spectrum management the FCC will continue to semi-competently conduct.

But when it comes to real broadband policy reform, tough consumer protection, or a meaningful assault on monopoly power, I really wouldn’t hold your breath. There was a reason the industry pulled out all the stops to undermine Sohn, and there’s a reason they didn’t engage in the same behavior with Gomez. That said, I’ve been wrong before (see: Tom Wheeler), and with any luck we’ll be surprised again.

Filed Under: anna gomez, biden, broadband, fcc, gigi sohn, jessica rosenworcel, location data, media consolidation, net neutrality

Finally Close To Having A Voting Majority, Will The Biden FCC Actually Restore Net Neutrality?

from the here-we-go-again dept

Fri, Jul 14th 2023 05:25am - Karl Bode

Last month we noted how the country’s top telecom and media regulator has been under the bootheel of industry for the better part of seven years, and nobody much seems to care.

For four years under Trump the agency was a glorified rubber stamp to industry interests. Telecom and media giants then lobbied Congress into gridlock for two years under Biden to ensure Democrats couldn’t fill vacant commissioner seats, keeping the agency without a voting majority, unable to do pretty much anything deemed controversial by industry (like restoring net neutrality).

After the industry-backed derailing of the Gigi Sohn nomination set a new high water mark for sleazy Congressional corruption, the Biden administration last May decided to try again by nominating Anna Gomez, a former NTIA official and Sprint lobbyist widely viewed as a safer and less “controversial” (read: she historically hasn’t been much of a consumer advocate or reformer) candidate.

Not too surprisingly, Gomez’s confirmation is moving through Congress more quickly than Sohn’s. Despite some performative outrage by Ted Cruz pretending Gomez is the type of nominee who’ll embrace “regulatory overreach” (whatever that means for an agency that hasn’t shown political courage for the better part of a decade), Gomez’s nomination was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee and now heads to a full Senate vote:

Democrats hold a 14-13 majority on the Senate Commerce Committee. Gomez’s nomination was passed without a full roll call, but nine Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), asked to be recorded as a “no” on Gomez’s nomination.

Republicans are just being obstructionist here, as usual. There’s absolutely nothing controversial about Gomez. There wasn’t actually anything controversial about Sohn either; Republicans and the telecom industry just didn’t want the FCC under Biden to function, so they made up an entirely bogus narrative about how Sohn was a radical cop hater, then seeded it across right wing media with great success.

But if you’ll recall, Sohn’s nomination was scuttled not just by Republicans (who routinely vote in lockstep with the interests of AT&T and Comcast on nearly every issue), but thanks to three key Democratic Senators (Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Kelly (AZ), and Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)) who, worried about being vulnerable politically in swing state midterms, parroted industry’s false concerns that Sohn (a hugely popular reformer) was some sort of extremist.

Said Democrats are far more likely to sign off on Gomez, whose positions on key public interest issues are more of a black box. That said, the kind of nominees that can survive a corrupt congressional nomination process generally aren’t the kind of “rock the boat” types you actually need if you’re looking to implement reform on issues like broadband consumer protection or media consolidation.

The result, as you can pretty clearly see with existing FCC commissioners from both parties, are officials who talk a lot about their ambiguous dedication to “bridging the digital divide,” but generally are too worried about future career prospects to meaningfully challenge the giant telecom monopolies responsible for a large segment of the industry’s biggest problems.

Still, Gomez says she supports reverting the Trump era dismantling of net neutrality. And from my conversation with insiders, the Biden administration remains keen on restoring the rules. But with limited time left in Biden’s first term, and an agency staffed with the kind of folks not known for disrupting the status quo, a restoration of well-crafted net neutrality protections remains something I’ll have to see to believe.

Net neutrality rules were flawed but important guidelines aimed at keeping telecom monopolies from abusing their market power to harm competition and consumers. Despite a lot of misinformed people claiming that “the repeal must not have mattered because the internet still works!”, it mattered. It gutted the FCC’s already flimsy consumer protection authority generally, and the only reason big ISPs haven’t behaved worse in the years’ since is because numerous states passed their own net neutrality protections.

So restoring net neutrality, and specifically once again reclassifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II, remains important from a general consumer protection perspective.

But at this point I think the public and policy worlds are so burned out on the net neutrality debate after 20 years, it makes sense to focus most telecom policy energy and messaging on the real underlying cause of shitty, expensive broadband: telecom monopolization and the corruption that protects it. That messaging also needs to focus on what’s actually working, namely the various community-backed alternatives directly taking aim at concentrated monopoly power.

But I don’t get any real sense the Rosenworcel FCC, Gomez or not, actually has the political courage to meaningfully wage that particular fight. And with a corrupt Congress built to ensure that popular reformers can’t survive the regulatory nomination process, it’s doubtful it’s going to anytime soon.

Filed Under: anna gomez, broadband, consumer protection, digital divide, fcc, geoffrey starks, gigi sohn, high speed internet, jessica rosenworcel, monopolies, net neutrality, telecom

Telecom Lobbyists Have Had The FCC Under Their Boot Heel For 7 Straight Years And Nobody Much Seems To Care

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Fri, Jun 2nd 2023 05:27am - Karl Bode

For four years under the Trump administration, the FCC was little more than a mindless rubber stamp, stripping away media consolidation rules, gutting net neutrality, and approving competition-eroding telecom mergers (often without even reading the deal details).

Things were supposed to be slightly better under the Biden FCC. But an inexplicable eight month delay in staffing the agency by the White House, followed by a grotesque smear campaign against the belated nomination of popular reformer Gigi Sohn, has left the agency without a voting majority two and a half years into Biden’s first term, leaving it incapable of implementing meaningful reform.

Hoping to have better luck after Sohn’s derailed nomination, Biden recently selected someone arguably safer for the spot: Anna Gomez. Gomez is generally well liked and has experience in both industry (lobbying for Sprint) and government (the FCC, NTIA), but her policy positions are a black box, and she’s generally not seen as somebody eager to challenge telecom and media giants.

Congress, for its part, continues to make it very clear their interest in telecom consumer protection is muted at best. Gomez isn’t expected to even see a Congressional hearing before the fall, ensuring she’s not seated until the tail end of 2023 or early 2024:

In a note for New Street Research on Monday (registration required), analyst Blair Levin said it was “unlikely there will be a hearing before the fall,” pushing a potential Democratic majority at the FCC until late 2023.

“While we expect a Democratic majority to quickly move forward with a process to adopt an order like the 2015 Open Internet Order (classifying ISPs as Title II carriers), it will take a while and may not be done before the 2024 election,” added Levin.

While the telecom industry seems to approve of Gomez, they still might try to obstruct or delay her appointment, ensuring the Biden administration has as little time as possible to implement key and popular reforms, like the restoration of net neutrality. Telecom and media giants want to keep the FCC without a voting majority until the next presidential election for what should be obvious reasons.

But this still assumes that even with a voting majority, the Biden FCC has the political backbone to wade into policies that seriously challenge telecom and media giants. I’ve seen no indication current FCC staffers much care about the bipartisan media consolidation limits stripped away under Trump. Nor has there been much urgency to restore the FCC’s broader consumer protection authority.

And while Democratic FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks talk a good game about bridging the “digital divide” and addressing the “homework gap” (a lack of affordable broadband for kids), they generally lack the courage to even identify that concentrated monopoly power is the primary reason US broadband is spotty, slow, and expensive. It’s a political risk to do so.

It doesn’t get much attention in the Big Tech era, but the telecom’s lobbying gambit here has proven to be a masterful one. They’ve effectively sidelined the nation’s top media and telecom regulator for 7 (what will ultimately be 8) years. And because telecom and media policy isn’t deemed that interesting in the big tech “censorship” era, it’s generally seen only passing press attention.

If I’m a telecom lobbyist, I’m positively thrilled that I’ve sidelined regulators for the better part of the decade. But this attack on federal regulatory power (soon to be worse thanks to Supreme Court Chevron deference decision) has a counter pendulum: it shifts the fight to the state and local level where it may be more difficult for telecom lobbyists to manage.

In broadband, for example, corrupt federal incompetence at policing monopoly power has resulted in towns and cities all over the country taking the matter into their own hands and building better, faster, cheaper, fiber networks. Networks often directly owned by locals with an eye on competitive open access. All looking to enjoy a massive infusion of federal funds thanks to COVID relief and infrastructure bills.

Lobbyists may find it easy to corrupt Congress and derail federal top down solutions to monopoly power, but fighting every pissed off town and city in the country simultaneously as they work to directly shove a stick into the eye of telecom monopolization will prove to be another fight entirely.

With a 50 year assault on the regulatory state (read: even semi-competent federal government oversight of corporations) approaching the end game thanks to the Supreme Court, all fights are now local brawls. Anybody interested in reform will have to fight block by block and work outward. For lumbering, unpopular corporate giants, I’m not sure that’s a battle that will prove to be so easily won.

Filed Under: anna gomez, broadband, geoffrey starks, high speed internet, jessica rosenworcel, monopoly, net neutrality, telecom

Biden Tries Again: Picks Anna Gomez For Long-Empty FCC Spot

from the round-and-round-we-go dept

Wed, May 24th 2023 05:21am - Karl Bode

By now we’ve talked at length about the hot mess that has been the Biden administration’s attempt to properly staff the FCC. After an inexplicable 8 month delay, the Biden administration picked popular consumer advocate Gigi Sohn for the spot. But a relentless, often homophobic, multi-year smear campaign by telecom/media giants and their GOP allies scuttled Sohn’s chances.

Sohn saw zero real support from her future colleagues at the FCC. Nor did the White House provide much in the way of messaging support as GOP-allied news outlets painted Sohn as an extremist caricature, falsely accusing her of hating cops, rural America, and free speech.

Ultimately Sohn’s nom was killed not just by a unified GOP, but by just three Democratic Senators who blocked her from reaching a simple Senate majority confirmation vote: Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Kelly (AZ), and Catherine Cortez Masto (NV). It was a prime example of how popular, outspoken reformers can’t survive a corrupt Congressional nomination process.

Now the Biden administration is back again, this time with an arguably “safer” choice: former Sprint-Nextel lobbyist and NTIA staffer Anna Gomez. Gomez has worked at both the FCC and at law firms representing companies before the FCC. She’s also generally well liked in the industry.

That said, her opinions on key policy issues facing the FCC are a bit of a black box. She’s made no public comments on whether she’d support restoring media consolidation limits stripped away by the Trump FCC. Or reclassifying ISPs under Title II and restoring net neutrality. Consumer advocates are hopeful that she will, but in conversations it’s clear they aren’t actually sure:

Advocates are particularly concerned that there’s nothing in Gomez’s record to state how she would view classifying broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. This is commonly known as net neutrality, and in practice it would prevent ISPs from throttling customers or discriminating against any content by slowing down speeds. “I think she’s for Title II but I don’t know that she’s ever said that,” said Guice.

So while Gomez is well liked and generally respected, a reformer she isn’t. A lack of information on her actual positions will likely help her nomination process, giving industry little to attack her on. But as it stands, telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast sound relatively pleased with the choice, which is usually clear indication she won’t pose much of a threat to consolidated monopoly power:

Tom Reid, chief legal officer of Comcast, which owns CNBC parent company NBCUniversal, said in a statement that Gomez’s “deep knowledge across the breadth of issues before the FCC makes her exceptionally qualified to be a Commissioner.”

Jonathan Spalter, president and CEO of USTelecom, a trade group that represents broadband providers like AT&T and Verizon, congratulated Gomez in a statement.

“I have come to know Anna over the years in her roles as an advocate in the public and private sectors, and if confirmed, I look forward to working with her and a full five-member FCC on our shared objective to connect everyone everywhere to the power and promise of broadband,” Spalter said.

Granted what companies like AT&T and Comcast say is often very different from what they’ll do, and industry is highly incentivized to keep the FCC in a perpetual state of 2-2 Commissioner gridlock to negate even the remote chance it might try to reform a very broken sector.

Consumer groups, simply keen to have an FCC majority after two years of FCC gridlock, also support the choice. But after watching Sohn get demolished by a highly coordinated industry attack machine, they’re keenly aware that they need to present a unified front if they want the FCC to have a voting majority anytime in the next decade.

Sometimes, folks of the revolving door variety wind up surprising you, as when former cable and wireless lobbyist Tom Wheeler wound up implementing some of the most meaningful telecom reform efforts in a generation (already mindlessly stripped away by the Trump administration, but still). That said, Wheeler was at the end of his career and had nobody left to impress politically.

That said, I suspect Gomez is much in line with existing Democratic FCC staffers Rosenworcel and Starks: as in she’ll talk often and ambiguously about the “need to bridge the digital divide,” but may not have the political courage to meaningfully challenge (or as in Rosenworcel’s case even directly identify) the regional telecom monopolies actually responsible for it. A lawyer and politician that’s competent and administratively sound, but won’t be keen to rock the boat.

What the FCC desperately needs is a tough fighter and a public interest advocate keen on aggressively tackling media consolidation, telecom monopolization, and a myriad of major issues caused by broken markets and unchecked corporate power. Gomez may surprise, but at first glance she very much isn’t that. That kind of candidate, as we just saw with Sohn, simply can’t survive a corrupt Congress.

Competent but feckless has been the general thrust of federal telecom market and consumer protection for a long while, which is a major reason why the real fight on telecom issues has shifted increasingly to the state and local level, where municipalities are busy building brick and mortar alternatives to monopoly power. With the Supreme Court looking to lobotomize federal regulators further via the Chevron deference case, I’d expect that trend to continue, making agencies like the FCC increasingly irrelevant.

Filed Under: 5g, anna gomez, cable, dsl, fcc, gigi sohn, high speed internet, monopolies, telecom