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Trump Could Spell Big Trouble for Broadband, Net Neutrality

While Hillary Clinton was seen as overly-cozy with telecom in her own right, new President elect Donald Trump is already laying the ground work for an administration that could spell major trouble for broadband consumers, broadband competition, and the nation's new net neutrality rules. Trump has made it clear he vehemently opposes net neutrality, despite repeatedly making it clear he's not entirely certain what net neutrality even is.

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Meanwhile, Trump has selected Jeffrey Eisenach to head his telecom transition team.

Eisenach is an ally of the telecom industry that has spent years at industry-funded think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute assailing current FCC boss Tom Wheeler and nearly every consumer-friendly policy the FCC has enacted in recent years. His track record as a obfuscated ally of industry suggests he's very likely to appoint the kind of revolving door regulators that prioritize incumbent ISP interests.

While many had their doubts about Wheeler given his own lobbying past for the wireless and cable industries, he wound up being arguably one of the most consumer and competition friendly FCC chairmen in the history of the FCC, fighting for net neutrality, broadband privacy rules, a higher 25 Mbps definition for broadband, municipal broadband, and cable box competition.

That said, Wheeler was a bit of an enigma for the sector and a surprise victory for consumers. Eisenach, in contrast, has a well-documented history of intense opposition to nearly all of the positions Wheeler and consumer advocates support.

With an cozy industry insider like Eisenach helping to pick his replacement, we're more than likely going to witness a return to older iterations of the FCC (like Democrat Julius Genachowski and Republican Michael Powell) where the agency went well out of its way to avoid upsetting AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter.

As such, it's likely that Wheeler's current plans to impose new basic privacy rules on broadband, as well as his already-troubled attempts to bring competition to the cable box, will likely be gutted in one way or another. And according to Dish CEO Charlie Ergen, he also sees a likely reversal -- or at least a refusal to enforce -- the agency's net neutrality rules:»twitter.com/shalini/stat ··· 7864584

Meanwhile, there's every indication that ISPs are already heating up their ground game in an attempt to also walk back the FCC's decision to reclassify ISPs as common carriers, which gave the agency the legal authority to enforce net neutrality in the first place.

In an e-mail being circulated to news outlets, the telecom-industry backed lobbying group the Internet Innovation Alliance is already urging this new FCC to stop doing its job, and return to its more familiar role of being a beurocratic yes man to the telecom sector's biggest players. That would likely come in the form of a total Communications Act rewrite by the GOP-controlled House and Senate.

"The first order of business for the new FCC should be a return to the bi-partisan light regulatory oversight of broadband launched during the Clinton administration," says former Senator Rick Boucher in the e-mail, now working at Sidley Austin, a law firm employed by AT&T.

"The decision to treat broadband as an information service unleashed a wave of investment in internet infrastructure that enabled our communications network to become the envy of the world," claims Boucher. "That progress has been undermined by the Commission's decision to treat broadband as a telecommunications service with regulatory requirements designed for the monopoly era of rotary telephones. Few regulatory changes would do more to promote investment and a stronger U.S. economy than a return to the time-honored light regulatory regime for broadband."

Right, but if you know telecom parlance at all, the industry's definition of "light regulatory regime" means to do nothing whatsoever to protect consumers or small competing businesses, instead making the protection of incumbent ISP revenues the top priority. While "deregulation" (which in telecom really means letting ISPs effectively write the law) may work in healthy markets, in telecom where the last mile isn't competitive, history shows us time and time again this only tends to compound existing problems.

And while Hillary Clinton may have been a step backward in her own way, she made it clear she planned to extend many of Wheeler's existing policies on broadband privacy and competition. In stark contrast, Eisenach's appointment alone suggests Trump could have a devastating impact on a broadband sector in desperate need of continued, serious reform, and an FCC that had only just started to actually value consumer welfare and a need for increased sector competition.

Most recommended from 68 comments



karlmarx
join:2006-09-18
Moscow, ID

25 recommendations

karlmarx

Member

The ISP's are being stupid

First, they MUST BE CLASSIFIED as common carriers, otherwise, with the new republican judges, they will get sued out of existence by the AssAss's. Expect to see a flurry of lawsuits, upheld by the courts, forcing the ISP's to bow to the will of the media companies. Expect to see ISP's forced to shut off customers. Expect a revival of the 'mafia offer letters' to customers, and a flurry of lawsuits against customers.
The ISP's want to have their cake (monopoly) and eat it too (not be responsible). That maximizes their profits. Problem is, that's not the way the republicans work. The republicans will pass laws to whomever pays them the most money (well, democrats do also, so no real change). The ONLY think that works is places like Colorado, where the CITIZENS pass laws to prevent the incumbents from changing the laws. Expect to see a huge number of states follow colorado's lead in passing laws that even though the government hates, the people want.

winsyrstrife
River City Bounce
Premium Member
join:2002-04-30
Brooklyn, NY

17 recommendations

winsyrstrife

Premium Member

Time will tell

Said Earlier:
said by winsyrstrife:

It's up to the future of the FCC to determine whether or not we keep moving in the current direction, towards a future where consumers feel they truly factor into decision-making

Wheeler made great progress, but the agency, as a whole, must be invested in this progression.

Economist
The economy, stupid
Premium Member
join:2015-07-10
united state

16 recommendations

Economist

Premium Member

I am not conviced

Trump is no fan of big telecom or the Interwebz companies. I am certainly not going to take the speculation of Ergen at face value.

We have not had a populist in the White House since Jackson. I would wait and see what happens rather than freak out about something that is not even on the horizon yet.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

14 recommendations

battleop

Member

Well that didn't take long...

It didn't take long for the first post to show up that's going to create a lot of heated debate over party lines.
XJakeX
join:2005-03-05
Coventry, RI

13 recommendations

XJakeX

Member

No worries

Trump didn't have a clue what Net Neutrality meant when he made those comments in 2014. But he needs to learn quickly, because the bigger worry is that Congress will strip the FCC of it's authority. I'm sure wheels are spinning and money is changing hands as we speak to effect that change. Trump needs to be up to speed to know enough to veto it.

And Wheeler needs to push further for full telecommunications status control for the ISPs before he retires. He said he wasn't going to, but he really needs to at least get into the deceptive advertising and pricing practices if not also seriously consider line sharing.

GlennLouEarl
3 brothers, 1 gone
Premium Member
join:2002-11-17
Richmond, VA

11 recommendations

GlennLouEarl

Premium Member

So, what you're saying is

the more things change, the more they don't really change at all?

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

8 recommendations

tshirt

Premium Member

Might take a while to find out...

what he thinks/if he cares/if he will trade away that control for some other high priority item.

"Trump has made it clear he vehemently opposes net neutrality, despite repeatedly making it clear he's not entirely certain" about any thing.
Since he's been on both sides of almost every issue at some point in the campaign, you may need to wait to find out what whoever he tasks to push the FCC thinks is good policy, what they pass along and what (if anything) results from it.
Trump was pretty clear, EVERYTHING is negotiable and positions may change on a dime.
Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO

6 recommendations

Skippy25

Member

Maybe we will get lucky!

Eisenach did propose breaking up Microsoft into 4 different companies during the anti-trust suit against them.

Maybe he will help get someone to break up the ISPs so they are separate on content, infrastructure and services.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

3 recommendations

BiggA

Premium Member

Not the Important Issue

What he does or doesn't do on climate action and the Supreme Court and abortion rights are some of the big, really important issues. I kind of want to see him screw up Net Neutrality, because it's really easy to un screw-up in 2020. It's just a bunch of settings on routers and billing practices. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 100 years, and can cause runaway feedback cycles.