Internet/Broadband

In a letter dated Dec 7 that was handed to press but is unavailable on the Federal Communications Commission’s website, the agency refuses to assist New York Attorney General Schneiderman’s investigation into the identity theft of a million consumers in the FCC’s network neutrality record. This letter shows the FCC’s sheer contempt for public input and unreasonable failure to support integrity in its process. To put it simply, there is evidence in the FCC’s files that fraud has occurred and the FCC is telling law enforcement and victims of identity theft that it is not going to help.

When we set out three weeks ago with our partners at BattlefortheNet.com to launch protests nationwide ahead of the Federal Communications Commission’s Network Neutrality vote, we were confident we could pull off at least five of them and were going to shoot for 15. Dec 7, there were more than 700 protests in all 50 states. It was the largest public outpouring of support for Net Neutrality and internet freedom ever.

As attendees of the telecom industry's premier social gathering were escaping the 44-degree chill and entering the Washington Hilton, several dozen net-neutrality protesters chanted outside. Across the street, on an exterior wall of the Courtyard Marriott, the activists projected in giant lettering, "No Slow Lanes. Open & Equal Internet For All."

Days before the Federal Communications Commission will vote on its proposed rollback of Net Neutrality rules that protect the open internet, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) introduced the Save Net Neutrality Act (H.R. 4585) to stop the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would result in a final rule eliminating the existing Net Neutrality policy. The FCC offered an NPRM on May 18, 2017 which would rollback Net Neutrality rules established by the Commission in 2015.

A group of 50 US mayors sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai in a collective effort to ask that he keeps the current rules, which are based on Title II of the Communications Act, in place.

[Commentary]  The idea of network neutrality may be intuitively simple, but the regulations that codify it are complex. One point of comparison is the position countries take on “zero rating,” a phrase used to describe telecom service plans that offer discounted or free access to a select group of apps or services. In fact, this image from the website of a Portuguese telecom provider MEO, that uses zero rating, recently went viral because it represents the dystopia of what a fragmented internet might look like. 

[Commentary] The Trump Federal Communications Commission has determined, amazingly but not surprisingly, to rush through its transfer of authority over internet service providers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—even before knowing if that agency possesses the authority to handle such matters.

[Commentary] On Thursday, December 14, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a proposal to abolish net neutrality. People who care about rural America’s access to services and information should be concerned. Without net neutrality rules, consumers and the federal government have no way to prevent internet service providers from doing bad things to consumers until after the fact. And because there are no rules, how do you get providers to stop doing bad things to consumers and businesses?

Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn took to the streets, literally, speaking to protestors outside the Federal Communications Bar Association's chairman's dinner, where FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was the featured jokester. She was also highlighting a letter to the FCC from various elected officials (mostly mayors), including mayors of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. They called on the FCC to preserve its 2015 rules.