Carriers Eager For Telecom 'Reform,' Since They'll Write The Law Telecom 'reform' begins just as you imagined it would. You may have noted that during the recent debates over Title 2 reclassification, both AT&T and Verizon began putting their support behind the idea of getting Congress to rewrite telecom law. This week the companies even proclaimed (after closed door meetings with the FCC) they might support certain network neutrality rules. That's a strange choice given both companies' traditional hatred of government and regulation (unless that regulation hurts a competitor). Of course the reason AT&T and Verizon are eager to have Congress "reform" the Communications Act is because both companies know that they'll largely be the ones writing it. As such, they'll ensure that the FCC is all-but toothless when it comes to actually protecting consumers, and they'll also ensure that any pro-consumer language in any Act rewrite is chock full of loopholes. Techdirt seems to be the only website we've seen that notes how this works: Want to see how regulatory capture works in action? Congress is apparently gearing up to start the massive process of reforming telecom/broadband laws later this week, and the communications companies are ready for it. A recent report shows that the big telcos/broadband companies have not only spent big on lobbying the government, they're hiring a ton of ex-government employees, including eighteen former members of Congress, to act as lobbyists. A full 72% of telco lobbyists are former employees of the federal government, including the two top (former) staffers to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who is the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, who will have a role in telco reform. The full scope of the revolving door between AT&T, Comcast and Verizon lobbyists and Congress is really quite spectacular, though not surprising. The entire system's really quite a win for carriers -- given it not only allows them to all-but directly write the laws -- but when those laws fail to do anything of note for consumers or competetion (because they designed them that way) -- the carriers can then complain about how all regulation is prone to failure. Again, U.S. telecom is not a free market, it's a monopoly or duopoly market where the rules are crafted by the wealthiest operators to ensure that never changes.
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1 edit | Government for Rent Applicants must be willing to conduct all transactions behind closed doors & within secret. Must be able to present "open end check" or cash. Foreign interest & corporate individuals or groups welcome.
Only the rich need apply. | |
|  TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY
2 edits | Big Suprise It is just like it has always been. If you have the bucks to hire a legion of lobbyists, pay off Senator, Congressmen. The only difference is the amounts of money involved.
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I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
- Mark Twain in Eruption | |
|  | | | Re: Big Suprise Just look around how many people want to get into politics now, they figure after a few years they can go into politics and make tons of money, forget creating anything of value, reminds me of movies about corporations running the country in some distopia. | |
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1 edit | Re: Big Suprise Rollerball! (1975 version, of course.) | |
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| | Corporate Fascism Benito Mussolini once said that: "Fascism should be better called Corporatism, because it is the merger of State and Corporate Power." Well, the US Telcom industry is American Corporate Fascism at it's very finest, wherein the FCC becomes merely the legal enforcement arm of Telco Corporate Policy.
Makes me think America's interests would have been better served had we been fighting on the side of the Italians, Germans, and the Japanese during World War II, against the Socalist French and the Communist Soviets. And there was no greater advocate of such a senario than the late, great, General George S. Patton himself. | |
| |  SLDPremium
join:2002-04-17
San Francisco, CA
1 edit | Re: Corporate Fascism You do realize that Socialism mitigates corporatism, don't you?!? It is practically the antithesis. And fighting for Germany and the Nazi regime against the Jews would have been a really just decision, right?
Jusy because Mussolini had it right on some fronts doesn't mean he was on the right front! | |
| |  jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
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| said by podstolom:Benito Mussolini once said that: "Fascism should be better called Corporatism, because it is the merger of State and Corporate Power." Well, the US Telcom industry is American Corporate Fascism at it's very finest, wherein the FCC becomes merely the legal enforcement arm of Telco Corporate Policy. Drivel. The little detail conveniently left out of anti-corporate rants like this is that government is always a net drain on a society, while companies actually enrich shareholders and employees (and pay taxes, of course), all while providing goods and services to customers.
The promised utopia of nationalized telecom fails to impress when one sees it in action -- see this week's news about Lebanon's national telecom (already one of the most expensive markets in the region) deciding to block VOIP traffic. | |
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1 edit | Re: Corporate Fascism said by jester121:Drivel. The little detail conveniently left out of anti-corporate rants like this is that government is always a net drain on a society, while companies actually enrich shareholders and employees (and pay taxes, of course), all while providing goods and services to customers. How is government a net drain on society? Was DARPA's research on the internet a net drain? Has NASA been a net drain? What about the construction and maintenance of highways, the post office, firefighters, policemen, various food and drug regulations, oil drilling regulations, zoning laws, banking regulations, and on and on ad nauseum?
The government interferes in the economy to protect consumers and level the playing field so small businesses can compete with larger ones. In an unregulated market economies of scale will lead companies to merge until a monopoly or oligopoly is created.
Without competition those corporations serve no benefit to society other than to leech money from consumers. You can argue that this enriches their shareholders, but ultimately it simply funnels money into the coffers of the rich, and prevents innovations from developing that occur in a competitive environment.
As for the Lebanon piece, you're presenting a false dichotomy. The Lebanese government owns the actual companies providing services. What most people with any sanity understand is the most efficient scenario is where the government builds out the basic infrastructure and creates an open network on top of which companies offer service.
Australia's NBN and Google's fiber project are perfect examples of this. | |
| | | | jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL Reviews:
·voip.ms
| Re: Corporate Fascism You and I chased this cow into the cul-de-sac in that other thread, and this one probably isn't going to be any different. Since we're unlikely to change each other's minds, I'll spend my afternoon doing something productive, thanks.  | |
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| | Tax payers money no good Maybe since big business wants to pay for the laws that are written, they should also pay more in taxes. It really is frustrating that "we the people" do not count anymore.
This is getting more and more like taxation without representation. Hate to see what our rates will be like next year. | |
| | Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | Re: Tax payers money no good said by rfceo :
Maybe since big business wants to pay for the laws that are written, they should also pay more in taxes. It really is frustrating that "we the people" do not count anymore.
This is getting more and more like taxation without representation. Hate to see what our rates will be like next year.
You're absolutely right, with the big corporations now writing laws that are against the public interest, maybe the big corporations should pay all taxes! | |
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chelpt
join:2008-05-24
La Crosse, WI | The author must want the FCC to controle everything? Yeah, duopoly... that is why I can chose between cable, telephone, about 4 different cell phone carriers, and 2 different satellite companies... and that is out here in western Wisconsin.
Can these writers check, for one moment, their dripping love of government regulation?
It would seem to me that all people really want is to have the Communications Industry just not practice monopolistic behaviors and to make sure that these same companies are not tapping our lines to see what we are saying or doing at will. (Notice that I said Communications, and not Telecommunications.)
That being said, my version to re-write the fcc laws would be just that... scrap the old and make a new one to encompass only that above. So, this would then include cable companies with every one else. Then the only thing they could do is manage the sale of radio frequencies and make sure that no one is routing according to what kind of data is being sent.
It escapes me why 'net neutrality' needs to be more complex than that. | |
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