gigi sohn – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Dodgy Group That Targeted Gigi Sohn FCC Nomination Now Under IRS Inquiry For Lying About Ad Spending

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

You might recall how popular telecom and media consumer advocate Gigi Sohn saw her nomination to the FCC scuttled after a variety of right wing and telecom-tethered lobbying groups ran a successful, year-long public smear campaign.

The campaign tried to frame Sohn as an unhinged radical extremist, giving corrupt Republican and Democrat lawmakers the flimsy justification they needed to scuttle the nomination. Attacks ran the gamut from homophobic efforts to frame her as deviant for simply being on the EFF’s board, claims she hated cops, and attacks insisting Sohn (long an advocate for rural broadband) secretly hated rural America.

One of the groups behind those attacks, The “American Accountability Foundation,” has suddenly found itself under IRS inquiry after it previously bragged about how much money it had spent to scuttle Sohn’s nomination. The organization, which has tethers to telecom and media giants looking to lobotomize the FCC, reported no spending on lobbying or advertising in 2021 and 2022.

Yet research shows the organization spent nearly a quarter a million dollars buying ads on Facebook alone that attacked Sohn in 2022:

“According to data obtained by the ad analytics company AdImpact, AAF spent over $230,000 on Meta ads alone that year to oppose Biden’s FCC nominee, Gigi Sohn. Data from Meta also confirms that the ad spending to target Sohn in 2022 was around that figure. That figure does not include other means of advertising, nor does it include spending on other issues.”

U.S. lobbying and financial disclosure laws are the technical equivalent of damp street corner cardboard, so if you’re violating them and encouraging inquiry by feckless U.S. enforcers, you’re truly screwing up.

The American Accountability Foundation calls itself a “nonprofit government oversight and research organization that uses investigative tools to educate the public on issues related to personnel, policy and spending.” But it’s the exact kind of Conservative dark money group companies like AT&T and Comcast like to use to seed lies in the discourse and scuttle any effort at consumer protection.

The New Yorker profiled the group back in 2022, noting it was a key player in numerous attacks on Biden regulatory and judicial nominees. By the time it faces anything vaguely resembling accountability, its crafters will have already moved on to creating numerous new, similar sleaze merchants.

The Sohn thing was quickly forgotten by the AI and crypto obsessed news cycle, but it really was a new high water mark for U.S. policy corruption. Sohn is broadly experienced, fiercely intelligent, and popular across both sides of the aisle; yet faced a year-long relentless assault at the hands of telecom and media companies whose lobbying tendrils extend into every last crevice of corrupt U.S. policymaking.

Filed Under: ad spending, broadband, corruption, gigi sohn, irs
Companies: american accountability foundation

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

from the only-took-3-years dept

Thu, Sep 7th 2023 01:39pm - Karl Bode

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

Comcast Lost 12% Of Its Cable TV Customers In The Last Year Alone

from the couldn't-have-happened-to-a-nicer-company dept

Mon, Aug 7th 2023 05:24am - Karl Bode

Cable executives spent years denying that “cord cutting” (ditching traditional TV) was real. For years they insisted it was a “fiction,” or that it was a fad that would end once Millennials started procreating. Whatever gave them permission to not meaningfully evolve their often predatory, anti-competitive business strategies.

Yeah, about that.

Major cable companies continue to bleed traditional cable TV users at an amazing rate. Last May, the whole industry reported the fewest traditional pay TV subscribers since 1992, as younger audiences flock toward streaming, over the air broadcasts, YouTube, or TikTok.

Last quarter was particularly ugly for Comcast, which lost 520,000 pay TV subs during a single quarter, and 12.6 percent of its video subscribers over the last year. The company now has 14.98 million video customers and dropping, and will soon be replaced by Charter Spectrum (which also lost 241,000 customers that same quarter) as the biggest traditional cable company in the U.S.

It’s now estimated that 8,164 customers are cancelling cable TV every day.

Comcast did manage to add 2 million paid subscribers to its Peacock streaming service (Mrs. Davis is a phenomenal show, by the way) and now has 24 million total. Granted those users pay significantly less money a month than traditional cable TV users. And Peacock has generally been a money loser; it saw 651millioninlossesduring2Q2023,comparedtoa651 million in losses during 2Q 2023, compared to a 651millioninlossesduring2Q2023,comparedtoa467 million loss in Q2, 2022.

Traditionally, Comcast recoups its TV losses on the broadband side, where it holds a monopoly over internet access across much of the United States. But things are shaky there as well, as Comcast is finally seeing some increased competition mostly thanks to fixed 5G wireless networks, and the kind of creative, community-owned broadband networks popping up all over the United States.

Some phone companies have also, thirty years late, started upgrading more DSL users to fiber. As a result, Comcast also lost 19,000 broadband subscribers during the same quarter.

Comcast did manage to add 315,000 wireless customers, but Comcast’s “wireless network” primarily leases access from Verizon, and isn’t going to be anywhere close to the same kind of money maker bloated, expensive cable TV bundles used to be.

This is all rough sledding for a company that successfully lobbied to defang all regulators and competition over a thirty year span (they were a key player in the sleazy smear campaign that derailed Gigi Sohn’s nomination to the FCC), yet now finds itself scrambling for relevance anyway. Add the broader writers’ strike to the mix, and Comcast/NBC’s future looks cloudier still.

And while Comcast will be getting a huge chunk of the more than $45 billion in broadband subsidies included in the infrastructure bill, so will a lot of the municipalities, cooperatives, city-owned utilities, and other locally-owned broadband networks spawned from the monopoly’s apathy.

Filed Under: cable tv, competition, cord cutting, disruption, gigi sohn, regulation, streaming, video

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

Fri, Aug 4th 2023 05:25am - Karl Bode

More than 600 communities across the U.S. have decided to build their own broadband networks after decades of predatory behavior, slow speeds, and high prices by regional telecom monopolies.

That includes the city of Bountiful, Utah, which earlier this year voted to build a $48 million fiber network to deliver affordable, gigabit broadband to every business and residence in the city. The network is to be open access, meaning that multiple competitors can come in and compete on shared central infrastructure, driving down prices for locals (see our recent Copia study on this concept).

As you might expect, regional telecom monopolies hate this sort of thing. But because these networks are so popular among consumers, they’re generally afraid to speak out against them directly. So they usually employ the help of dodgy proxy lobbying and policy middlemen, who’ll then set upon any town or city contemplating such a network using a bunch of scary, misleading rhetoric.

Like in Bountiful, where the “Utah Taxpayers Association” (which has direct financial and even obvious managerial tethers to regional telecom giants CenturyLink (now Lumen) and Comcast) launched a petition trying to force a public vote on the $48 million in revenue bonds authorized for the project under the pretense that such a project would be an unmitigated disaster for the town. (Their effort didn’t work).

Big ISPs like to pretend they’re suddenly concerned about taxpayers and force entirely new votes on these kinds of projects because they know that with unlimited marketing budgets, they can usually flood less well funded towns or cities with misleading PR to sour the public on the idea.

But after the experience most Americans had with their existing broadband options during the peak COVID home education boom, it’s been much harder for telecom giants to bullshit the public. And the stone cold fact remains: these locally owned networks that wouldn’t even be considered if locals were happy with existing options.

You’ll notice these “taxpayer groups” exploited by big ISPs never criticize the untold billions federal and local governments throw at giant telecom monopolies for half-completed networks. Or the routine taxpayer fraud companies like AT&T, Frontier, CenturyLink (now Lumen) and others routinely engage in.

And it’s because such taxpayer protection groups are effectively industry-funded performance art; perhaps well intentioned at one point, but routinely hijacked, paid, and used as a prop by telecom monopolies looking to protect market dominance.

Gigi Sohn (who you’ll recall just had her nomination to the FCC scuttled by a sleazy telecom monopoly smear campaign) has shifted her focus heavily toward advocating for locally-owned, creative alternatives to telecom monopoly power. And in an op-ed to local Utah residents in the Salt Lake Tribune, she notes how telecom giants want to have their cake and eat it too.

They don’t want to provide affordable, evenly available next-generation broadband. But they don’t want long-neglected locals to, either:

Two huge cable and broadband companies, Comcast and CenturyLink/Lumen, have been members of UTA and have sponsored the UTA annual conference. They have been vocally opposed to community-owned broadband for decades and are well-known for providing organizations like the UTA with significant financial support in exchange for pushing policies that help maintain their market dominance. Yet when given the opportunity in 2020, before anyone else, to provide Bountiful City with affordable and robust broadband, the companies balked. So the dominant cable companies not only don’t want to provide the service Bountiful City needs, they also want to block others from doing so.

Big telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast (and all the consultants, think tankers, and academics they hire to defend their monopoly power) love to claim that community owned broadband networks are some kind of inherent boondoggle. But they’re just another business plan, dependent on the quality of the proposal and the individuals involved.

Even then, data consistently shows that community-owned broadband networks (whether municipal, cooperative, or built on the back of the city-owned utility) provide better, faster, cheaper service than regional monopolies. Such networks routinely not only provide the fastest service in the country, they do so while being immensely popular among consumers. They’re locally-owned and staffed, so they’re more accountable to locals. And they’re just looking to break even, not make a killing.

If I was a lumbering, apathetic, telecom monopoly solely fixated on cutting corners and raising rates to please myopic Wall Street investors, I’d be worried too.

Filed Under: bountiful, community broadband, competition, fiber, gigabit, gigi sohn, high speed internet, open access, utah
Companies: centurylink, comcast, lumen

FCC Slowly Stumbles Toward Updating Its Pathetic, Industry-Friendly Definition Of ‘Broadband’

from the congratulations-for-doing-the-bare-minimum dept

Mon, Jul 31st 2023 05:29am - Karl Bode

Under the Communications Act, the FCC is supposed to occasionally survey the state of the broadband industry to ensure that affordable broadband is being deployed on a “reasonable and timely basis,” and do something about it if it isn’t.

Of course the captured, bumbling agency doesn’t actually do that.

Despite spending $400 million on the effort, the FCC has long struggled to even accurately map where broadband is available. It usually can’t be bothered to hold giant telecom monopolies accountable for outright fraud. It routinely downplays or ignores competition problems. And the agency has long held a pathetic, dated definition of what constitutes “broadband” just to please industry.

Broadband was originally defined as any 200 kbps connection. In 2010, that pathetic definition was changed to a slightly less pathetic definition: 4 Mbps downstream, 1 Mbps upstream. In 2015, it was changed again to a slightly more reasonable but still pathetic 25 Mbps downstream, 3 Mbps upstream, where it resides today.

For eight years straight everybody from consumer groups to the GAO told the FCC that the sluggish 25/3 definition didn’t reflect modern standards, and let the telecom industry get away with providing substandard service. The Trump FCC’s response was to propose lowering the definition even further.

While the FCC dawdled, other agencies like the NTIA have adopted a more aggressive 100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up standard for most federally subsidized broadband builds.

Last week, the FCC (once again) stated that yeah, it should probably get around to changing the definition of broadband to something slightly more forward thinking:

the Notice of Inquiry proposes to increase the national fixed broadband standard to 100 megabits per second for download and 20 megabits per second for upload, and discusses a range of evidence supporting this standard, including the requirements for new networks funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Keep in mind, this is just the agency saying it’s beginning discussions of a higher standard. Actually implementing it will require a Democratic voting majority, which they don’t have thanks to the telecom industry’s scuttling of the Gigi Sohn nomination (the White House, key Congressional Democrats, and agency boss Jessica Rosenworcel offered zero real messaging support to Sohn as she faced down an industry-manufactured smear campaign, alone).

Even the new proposed 100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up standard isn’t particularly aggressive in an era where any number of cooperatives, utilities, and municipalities are delivering multi-gigabit symmetrical broadband (Chattanooga’s city-owned utility is pushing toward 25 Gbps).

The 20 Mbps upstream standard in particular is being kept low to keep cable companies, wireless providers, and telcos selling aging DSL happy. It’s a long overdue update that still doesn’t really represent modern deployments or any meaningful goal. And while the agency hints at a 1 Gbps down, 500 Mbps up definition sometime in the ambiguous future, it’s hard to take them seriously.

As part of the FCC’s announcement, Rosenworcel also stated how she was dedicated to delivering broadband to 100 percent of the population, with a broader eye on affordability:

Chairwoman Rosenworcel proposes that the Commission consider several crucial characteristics of broadband deployment, including affordability, adoption, availability, and equitable access, when determining whether broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion to “all Americans.”

Granted this promise isn’t really new. Part of the much-hyped Obama-era “National Broadband Plan” was to deliver 100 Mbps down, 50 Mbps up service to all Americans. We failed completely at that goal, and nobody much likes to talk about it. We failed because telecom monopolies effectively control Congress, and thereby key regulators. We failed because of corruption.

The GOP has been wholly corrupted by the telecom industry. Any time it holds the Presidency, the FCC becomes a mindless rubber stamp for telecom and media giants, gutting consumer protections, rubber stamping mergers, eroding media consolidation limits, and pretending U.S. broadband is wonderful. The GOP opposes any meaningful broadband definitions whatsoever.

Some Democrats are slightly better on telecom policy, but the kind of feckless careerists appointed to key leadership positions generally don’t like rocking the boat. So you get some good ideas, but mostly just empty rhetoric about the ambiguous “digital divide.” Nothing that seriously challenges monopoly power. The DNC supports baseline broadband definitions, but nothing particularly ambitious.

The FCC has increasingly been criticized as useless on broadband consumer protection. It took a major reputational hit for bungling a major rural subsidy program, resulting in the Biden administration shifting a lot of responsibility for managing the infrastructure bill’s broadband funding to other agencies.

Even within its dwindling authority, FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel has a strange allergy to even acknowledging that the real reason for America’s substandard broadband access is a bunch of government-coddled regional monopolies that have crushed competition underfoot.

It’s not of interest to the press, but lobbyists for AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Charter, have effectively kept the FCC on the consumer protection sidelines for the better part of the last decade. These industry giants whine like a full-diapered toddler any time anybody suggests a more robust definition of broadband, and the FCC always lowers the bar to please industry.

So yeah, it’s good the FCC finally decided to start upgrading our sorry ass definition of broadband nearly a decade after the fact. And it’s good that the agency is at least talking about affordability. But again, it’s hard to applaud an agency for belatedly doing the bare minimum, especially given its absolute refusal to so much as even criticize the monopoly power responsible for substandard US broadband.

Filed Under: 100 Mbps, broadband, definition, dsl, fcc, fiber, gigabit, gigi sohn, high speed internet, jessica rosenworcel, telecom, upstream, wireless

After FCC Debacle, Gigi Sohn Shifts Focus To Challenging Comcast, AT&T With Community-Built Broadband Networks

from the pass-go,-and-absolutely-collect-$200 dept

Wed, Jul 26th 2023 05:24am - Karl Bode

Last March, popular telecom and media reformer Gigi Sohn’s appointment to the FCC fell apart, after telecom and media giants (with the GOP’s help) waged a year long lobbying and propaganda campaign falsely framing her as a radical (The Verge has a good new interview with Sohn on what happened, in case you missed it).

The campaign was highly illustrative of not just the level of corruption in Congress and the regulatory nominee confirmation process, but how terrified companies like Comcast, AT&T, and News Corporation are of regulators who actually pursue policies of interest to the public (like say lower broadband prices, net neutrality, privacy protections, or media consolidation limits).

Sohn has since shifted focus to an arena I’d argue has more of a real-world impact than the majority of what the FCC is doing: community owned and operated broadband networks. Sohn’s now the head of an organization dubbed the American Association for Public Broadband, which advocates for locally-owned and operated alternatives to the lumbering, regional telecom monopolies we long ago normalized.

Frustrated by decades of monopoly dysfunction, towns and cities all over the country have decided to build their own networks, whether it’s municipal, built on the back of city-owned power utilities, or via cooperatives. There’s a lot of very cool stuff happening in this space that was supercharged by the peak COVID frustration with unreliable broadband and home schooling.

After being railroaded by telecom monopolies, Sohn’s now working to ensure that billions in historic new broadband subsidies (made possible by COVID relief and the infrastructure bill) will be spent on direct competitive challenges to their power. Organizations custom built by locals, which see broadband as a utility, and are simply interested in connecting everyone and breaking even:

These municipal network models would be essential in closing the digital divide because they are motivated by different incentives than private companies to “go to places that incumbent won’t,” Sohn argued.

“They are not interested in return on investment,” she added. “They are interested in making sure everybody is connected.”

Politicians and regulators talk a lot about how they want to “bridge the digital divide.” But most of them lack the political courage to correctly identify why that divide still exists in 2023: regional telecom monopolies, protected by corrupt state and federal politicians, that have worked tirelessly over thirty years to consolidate power, crush all meaningful competition, and jack up the cost of service.

The result is obvious everywhere you look: half-completed networks, high prices, comically terrible customer service, slow speeds, plenty of fraud, and massive gaps in the kind of low income, minority, and rural markets Wall Street doesn’t have the patience or interest to serve.

Enter community broadband networks; smaller, locally owned and operated efforts focused on treating broadband like an essential utility. Data keeps showing these networks offer cheaper, better service than regional monopolies, and, given they’re run by locals, they’re more accountable to locals (see our recent Copia report). Sohn’s goal: to double the number of such networks within the next five years.

The parallels to America’s electrification efforts 100 years ago are everywhere. Especially as it relates to cooperatives expanding broadband to areas lazy and greedy incumbents won’t. With federal regulators and lawmakers largely corrupted (and their power increasingly being curtailed by a rightward lurching Supreme Court), the real fight in broadband access has shifted to the local level, where armies of pissed off residents are challenging monopoly power with creative new deployments, block by block.

As a reformer Sohn could have done a lot of good work at the FCC. But I’d argue that the grass roots, local, bipartisan efforts to build better, faster, and cheaper community-owned broadband networks is where all the real action currently is anyway. And there’s no greater revenge to be taken upon monopolies like AT&T and Comcast than driving popular competition right into their backyards.

Filed Under: broadband, community broadband, digital divide, fcc, fiber, gigi sohn, high speed internet, monopolies, net neutrality, redlining, telecom

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

FCC ‘Investigation’ Into Broadband Caps Probably Won’t Amount To Much

from the and-we-definitely-mean-it-this-time dept

Wed, Jul 12th 2023 03:40pm - Karl Bode

We’ve noted for decades how US broadband caps are little more than a predatory cash grab. The usage limits and overage fees have zero real technical function and don’t manage congestion. Instead they’re little more than a glorified price hike; a way for regional telecom monopolies to nickel-and-dime captive customers, charging them more money for the same service under the pretense of technical necessity.

Recently, the Rosenworcel FCC announced that, decades after the fact, they’d be “investigating” broadband caps. As in, beginning the long process of a “notice of inquiry” that might or might not actually result in substantive reform of some kind:

“When we need access to the internet, we aren’t thinking about how much data it takes to complete a task, we just know it needs to get done. It’s time the FCC take a fresh look at how data caps impact consumers and competition.”

The FCC created a data cap experience form if you’d like to submit your thoughts.

There’s a few problems here.

One, everybody knows that broadband caps are bullshit (or should, if they’ve read Techdirt). It’s no mystery that they’re a direct result of limited competition and regional monopolization. And countless industry insiders, including numerous CEOs, have publicly made it clear they’re pointless and predatory. That the FCC needs to once again “study” this is… amusing.

Two, the current Jessica Rosenworcel FCC lacks the voting majority to actually implement meaningful reform after the industry’s successful and sleazy gambit to derail the nomination of popular reformer Gigi Sohn. Republican FCC Commissioners are generally little more than marionettes for the telecom sector (when they’re not busy hyperventilating about TikTok). They consistently support Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon policy issues, and I don’t they’d change their stripes here. Sohn’s replacement, the much safer choice, Anna Gomez, likely won’t be seated until at least the end of this year, assuming her nomination isn’t derailed by industry as well.

Three, even with a voting majority, I’m not sure the Rosenworcel has the political backbone or interest in actually acting here. I believe this likely a performative effort to undermine criticism that the FCC has been increasingly feckless on consumer protection.

While Democratic FCC officials sometimes enjoy unearned credit as being better on consumer protection, neither Rosenworcel nor Geoffrey Starks said a single, solitary peep of support during the year-plus that Sohn (a popular consumer advocate) faced down a campaign of sleazy, often homophobic, industry-backed attacks, alone. They were in no rush to ensure their own agency had a voting majority.

Similarly, neither Starks or Rosenworcel can even publicly even acknowledge that telecom monopolies exist and are the primary reason for expensive, patchy, substandard broadband. Both like to talk endlessly about the “homework gap” or “digital divide,” but neither has shown the courage to directly take aim (or even mention) the predatory monopolies at the heart of the problem.

Maybe this FCC will surprise me and grow a backbone sometime during the year-plus process this inquiry takes to culminate in actual policy. But I’m highly doubtful the end policy actually takes aim at the predatory monopolies that have been pushing a line of horse shit on this subject for the better part of the last two decades.

More likely, as they have previously, if the Rosenworcel FCC does anything they’ll focus on transparency. As in, require that ISPs very clearly outline how they’re ripping you off at the time of sale, but do nothing about them actually ripping you off. That’s better than a Republican-controlled FCC (which would actively support big ISPs ripping you off), but it’s simply not meaningful enough.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, fcc, gigi sohn, high speed internet, jessica rosenworcel, overage fees

Biden Urges FCC To Police Bullshit Cable Fees, But It Can’t Because His Staffers Screwed Up The Gigi Sohn Nomination Process

from the regulatory-theater dept

Thu, Jun 29th 2023 01:26pm - Karl Bode

For years we’ve noted how cable companies routinely screw you over with all manner of bullshit fees. One Consumer Reports study found that roughly 25 percent of your cable bill is made up of completely nonsensical fees, designed to let companies advertise one rate, then sock you with a much higher bill. It’s estimated this false advertising nets the cable industry an extra $28 billion in additional revenue annually.

Generally speaking, as it is across the airline, hotel, and banking industries, federal and state government leaders are perfectly fine with this kind of fraud, provided companies are relatively clever about it. Ripping off U.S. consumers at scale is basically treated as little more than creative marketing.

Though last week, the Biden administration came out of nowhere with a formal press statement urging the FCC to crack down on bullshit cable fees; a welcome change of pace for a government that’s usually too afraid to directly criticize politically powerful telecom and media giants like Comcast:

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under the leadership of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, proposed a new rule that would require cable and satellite TV providers to give consumers the all-in price for the service they’re offering up front. Too often, these companies hide additional junk fees on customer bills disguised as “broadcast TV” or “regional sports” fees that in reality pay for no additional services. These fees really add up: according to one report, they increase customer bills by nearly 25% of the price of base service.

The problem: the FCC can’t actually do that, in part thanks to strategic bumbling by Biden staffers and advisors.

If you recall, the Biden administration was an historic nine months late in nominating popular reformer Gigi Sohn to the FCC, giving the telecom industry and GOP ample runway to launch a multi-year long homophobic smear campaign that ultimately derailed her nomination. Biden’s team (and her would be future colleagues at the FCC) provided zero meaningful messaging support as the industry spread lies about Sohn’s track record and policy positions in the press.

From what I understand Biden personally supported Sohn, but his team showed none of the strategic urgency they showed in the rush appointment and subsequent promotion of FTC boss Lina Khan. Democratic staffers also failed to schedule Sohn confirmation votes with any urgency, and buckled repeatedly to bad faith Republican demands for additional, unnecessary show hearings.

As a result, we’re now several years into the Biden administration and the FCC still lacks the voting majority to do anything deemed even controversial by industry, including policing bullshit cable fees.

Biden’s safer replacement FCC nominee, Anna Gomez, may not be seated until late this year or early next, giving the agency very little time to implement any actual policy reform ahead of the next presidential election, at which point control of the agency could revert to Republican leadership that routinely coddles telecom monopolies and lobotomizes the key regulator tasked with overseeing them.

Even when the existing, relatively feckless FCC does act on issues like predatory fees (decades after the fact), the solution is always “transparency.” As in, they’ll push for rules requiring that cable and broadband companies be more transparent about how they’re ripping you off, but they won’t actually stop them from ripping you off, and often won’t implement policies bringing more competition to bear.

Actually stopping cable and broadband monopolies from ripping you off would teeter to closely into the realm of rate regulation, which has generally been ranked somewhere right below devil worship by US policymakers. But the problem is agencies like the FCC rarely embraces pro-competitive policies to drive market-based solutions either, so what you wind up getting is dumb regulatory theater.

It’s great the Biden administration is taking aim at fee-based industry fraud in public messaging, but the administration’s strategic incompetence related to the Sohn appointment still speaks volumes.

Filed Under: biden, broadband, broadcast tv fee, cable bill, cable fees, cable tv, fcc, fees, gigi sohn, regional sports fee

FCC Launches New Broadband Privacy ‘Task Force’ So It Can Pretend It Hasn’t Become Useless On Consumer Protection

from the seems-a-bit-late dept

Wed, Jun 28th 2023 01:37pm - Karl Bode

We just got done noting how the FCC has spent most of the last decade under the bootheel of the telecom lobby, and in an era where all DC policy is fixated on “big tech,” (often for very good reasons) nobody much seems to care or have noticed. For four years under Trump, the FCC was little more than a rubber stamp, approving every terrible idea the industry had.

Under Biden, telecom lobbyists and the GOP then worked in unison to prevent the agency from being staffed (see the successful coordinated smear campaign against FCC nominee Gigi Sohn) or having a voting majority. Not that the agency’s Democrats — who have a weird aversion to even acknowledging the US broadband monopoly problem — would put that authority to use anyway.

Keenly aware they’re increasingly viewed as feckless on consumer protection, the FCC under Jessica Rosenworcel put on a bit of a performative show last week. One, by announcing a hollow “investigation” into broadband usage caps (as if data hadn’t made it clear for decades such caps are a technically pointless way monopolies ruthlessly exploit of limited competition). I’ll have another post on that.

And two, by launching a new “privacy task force” the FCC claims will belatedly start protecting consumer privacy and policing corporate malfeasance. The announcement is rather ambiguous and contains zero meaningful insight into what this new committee might actually do given its ongoing 2-2 voting gridlock caused by industry lobbying:

“We live in an era of always-on connectivity. Connection is no longer just convenient. It fuels every aspect of modern civic and commercial life. To address the security challenges of this reality head-on, we must protect consumers’ information, ensure data security, and require cyber vigilance from every participant in our communications networks,” said Chairwoman Rosenworcel. “This team of FCC experts will lead our efforts to protect consumer privacy.”

If you’ve been asleep on telecom privacy issues, don’t worry, so has the FCC. For decades the U.S. telecom industry has been plagued by major SIM hijacking and identity theft scandals, location data scandals, domestic surveillance scandals, major unfixed wireless vulnerabilities, and repeated, avoidable hacks (like T-Mobile being hacked eight times in just fives years).

But the problem hasn’t been a lack of meeting minutes. The problem has been a steady parade of corruption at the hands of telecom lobbyists looking to lobotomize all oversight of some of the least liked corporations in U.S. history (looking at you, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon).

In 2017 the Wheeler FCC tried to pass basic broadband privacy laws that at least required that telecoms be transparent about what data they collect. That effort was quickly crushed by telecom lobbyists, the GOP, and a corrupt Senate wielding the CRA. In the years since, the FCC’s response to endless privacy scandals has been a rotating crop of half-assery, uncollected fines, and bureaucratic gibberish.

Occasionally, the FCC at least makes a half-assed effort to appear like it’s doing something useful on consumer protection. Like last January, when the agency finally proposed (in 2023!) requirements that telecom providers actually inform consumers on a timely basis when their data is compromised.

Of course because the Biden FCC lacks a necessary 3-2 voting majority to do anything (again thanks to the telecom industry’s political ratfucking of Gigi Sohn) few policies with actual teeth emerge. For example, the FCC can’t actually implement the timely disclosure requirements above without said voting majority. Nor can it collect on the location data abuse fines it tried to hit carriers with years ago.

As the GOP and telecom industry worked in unison to wage a homophobic smear campaign against Gigi Sohn over the last year, neither of her would-be Democratic colleagues, Jessica Rosenworcel or Geoffrey Starks, could be bothered to issue a single solitary peep of meaningful support. Either because they didn’t agree with Sohn’s reformist views, or they lacked the political backbone to wade into the fray.

Most of the current FCC’s consumer protection actions are pantomime for appearance’s sake. This isn’t an agency that’s been willing to stand up to giant telecom monopolies on any substance of note since the net neutrality fracas, and you saw how that turned out.

While the agency does perform essential technical functions on spectrum and engineering issues, its function as a meaningful consumer protection watchdog has been dead as a doornail for a decade due to corruption. At this point we’re just pretending otherwise.

In response, much of the onus to consumer protection has shifted to a shoddy patchwork of state AGs who may or may not actually have the resources for the job. That, in turn, results in some patchy state privacy laws of inconsistent quality, and a ton of corrupt states with zero meaningful consumer protection standards whatsoever. Again, all by telecom and media industry design.

An ambiguous “task force” probably isn’t going to meaningfully address the underlying rot on privacy and consumer protection accountability, which is soon to get worse courtesy of several looming Supreme Court rulings aimed at undermining federal regulatory authority even further.

At this point, the federal consumer protection movement desperately needs less hollow bureaucracy and more fierce reformers and fighters with political courage. But as the Gigi Sohn fracas demonstrates, it’s abundantly clear what happens to those kinds of candidates when they attempt to run the nomination gantlet.

Filed Under: broadband, consumer protection, fcc, geoffrey starks, gigi sohn, high speed internet, jessica rosenworcel, privacy, security, sim hijacking, ss7 flaw, telecom