House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline(D-RI) said he's concerned with a broad range of implications tied to the multi-billion-dollar merger deal between T-Mobile and Sprint. "I'm particularly concerned about the impact on consumers, on the price of services, on choice," he said. Also at the hearing, T-Mobile CEO John Legere commented on Huawei.
The issue of overbuilding got a lot of attention in a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on "The Impact[s] of Broadband Investments in Rural America." Overbuilding existing commercial service with government money has long been one of Internet service providers biggest issues with how government broadband subisidies are administered. Subcommittee Chairman John thune (R-SD) said with both the US Dept of Agricutlure and Federal Communications Commission providing broadband funding, he could see how the money could be "inadvertently used" to overbuild. He asked whether Congress should
Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feintsein (D-CA) made it clear that her state's tough privacy legislation will have to be the floor for any federal privacy legislation. The hearing was on that California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as well as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation adopted by the European Union. Sen Feinstein suggested the California bill should be even tougher, make more privacy control decisions opt in, rather than the opt out in which CCPA is based.
The House Communications Subcommittee held a hearing on the Save the Internet Act, which Democrats introduced recently in the House and Senate. But, the partisan bickering showed the net neutraltiy fight will continue regardless of the talk from both sides about the bipartisan agreement that Congress needs to step in to clarify government internet oversight. Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) warned Republicans at the outset that the new bill was what they were dealing with at the hearing, and that they could take up other topics at another time.
On January 24, 2019, 15 senators sent Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai a letter urging the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission to broadly investigate the sale of Americans' location data by wifeless carriers, location aggregators, and other third parties. On Feb 27, Chairman Pai replied: "As you know, the Commission launched an investigation of these practices last year. The Commission takes its responsibility in this regard seriously.
On January 17, 2019, Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón (D-Puerto Rico) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai expressing concerns with a USTelecom petition requesting forbearance from the certain requirements of the section 251 (c) of the Communications Act. She is concerned that the level of competition in the Puerto Rico telecommunications sector is not similar to that of the rest of the United States and she wants to ensure that any relief did not impede network restoration and reconstruction efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
“This is for the first time 100-plus premium channels—not the junk nobody wants—purely over the top, a mobile-centric platform, for $35 a month.” And soon, it might be the last time. This was AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson describing the promise of DirecTV Now just 27 months ago, as the company launched what would become one of the video business’ fastest growing subscription over-the-top products.
On January 25, 2019, Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-NY) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai with concerns about Charter Communications. Rep Brindisi asked:
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