Regulatory classification

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s strategy may be to use the repeal of network neutrality rules to force the hand of Congress. Those familiar with FCC deliberations say abdicating its net neutrality authority could pressure Democrats into cooperating with Republicans on passing a bill. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) has offered to hammer out net neutrality legislation with Democrats in the past. 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 14, 2017.

Rounding out our December meeting will be two matters that were previewed yesterday.

First, the Federal Communications Commission will consider an order that would restore Internet freedom and return to the bipartisan, light-touch framework that helped America's Internet economy become the envy of the world. And unlike the previous Administration, which pushed through its Internet regulations without letting the public see what was being proposed, anyone can read my plan. It's on the Commission's website —more than three weeks before our scheduled vote.

Today's draft Order shows both an appalling disregard for the record and an astounding disregard for even the basics of administrative law. It would seem more likely, as some have suggested, that Chairman Pai and Congressional Republicans have released this Order to create a crisis atmosphere and push through legislation authored by the cable companies rather than in a serious attempt at policy.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition filed a letter on November 20, 2017 to submit an analysis of open internet consumer complaints and related documents produced in response to its FOIA requests. The report is entitled “Consumer Perspectives on Barriers to Accessing the Open Internet,” was commissioned by NHMC and is based solely on the consumer complaints and related documents that have been released by the Federal Communications Commission to date.

The Federal Communications Commission received a record-breaking 22 million comments chiming in on the net neutrality debate, but from the sound of it, it’s ignoring the vast majority of them. A senior FCC official said that 7.5 million of those comments were the exact same letter, which was submitted using 45,000 fake email addresses. But even ignoring the potential spam, the commission said it didn’t really care about the public’s opinion on net neutrality unless it was phrased in unique legal terms.

While the claws are coming out, both pro and con, over network neutrality once again, one analyst says the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed order to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order will be a catalyst for 5G. Peter Rysavy, president of Rysavy Research and a FierceWireless contributor, says the proposal put forth by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will hasten the deployment of 5G network technologies and catalyze wireless network innovations. The proposal will be considered by the full commission at its Dec. 14 open meeting.

In a matter of hours this week, the Trump administration twice weighed in on one of the central issues shaping business and society today — just how much market power big companies should be allowed to amass. Yet in back-to-back developments, two federal agencies arrived at starkly different conclusions, and one company, AT&T, found itself on opposite sides of the debate.