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FCC Broadband 'Advisory Panel' Under Fire for Cronyism

When Trump FCC boss (and net neutrality foe) Ajit Pai launched a new FCC "broadband deployment advisory council" (BDAC) last year, he claimed that the new forum would work to advise the FCC regarding "strategies to promote better, faster, and cheaper broadband." Months later, and Pai's council has been plagued by repeated resignations by those who say the forum is effectively a sham, and that the Trump FCC is exclusively interested in protecting the interests of only the nation's biggest, deepest pocketed broadband monopolies.

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Early on, there were numerous complaints that the panel was stocked with industry insiders, specifically excluding experts developing more innovative alternatives to the industry status quo (like community broadband).

Late last year, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo quit his spot on the panel while accusing the FCC of industry cronyism.

"It has become abundantly clear that despite the good intentions of several participants, the industry-heavy makeup of BDAC will simply relegate the body to being a vehicle for advancing the interests of the telecommunications industry over those of the public," Liccardo said in his resignation letter." After nine months of deliberation, negotiation, and discussion, we’ve made no progress toward a single proposal that will actually further the goal of equitable broadband deployment," he said.

This week New York City CTO Miguel Gamiño Jr. resigned from the committee's Model Code for Municipalities Working Group, raising similar allegations of cronyism at the agency.

"As the BDAC’s process is scheduled to come to a close, it is clear that despite good faith efforts by both the staff and members involved, the membership structure and meeting format of the BDAC has skewed the drafting of the proposed recommendations towards industry priorities without regard for a true public-private partnership,” Gamiño said in a letter sent to FCC boss Ajit Pai.

"These circumstances give me no choice but to step away from this committee in order to direct the City’s energy and resources to alternative forums that provide more productive opportunities for achieving the kind of cooperative progress in advancing broadband deployment in the public interest.," he added.

Unless you're a fan of denying the obvious, it's indisputable that the FCC has routinely placed the interests of entrenched providers like Comcast and AT&T above the interests of consumers and the health of the internet. Since taking office Pai has been a living telecom industry wishlist, whether that has involved killing net neutrality, axing privacy protections, attacking city efforts to build better networks, killing attempts to make cable boxes more affordable, defending prison phone monopolies as they rip off inmate families, gutting media consolidation rules just to help one giant broadcaster, or dismantling broadband programs for the poor.

All the while, Pai has professed to be a noble defender of things like bridging the digital divide, despite the fact that most of his policies are making many of the industry's biggest problems worse. Pai's BDAC panel was another example of a relatively half-hearted attempt to make blind fealty to entrenched monopolies look like something far more inclusive and noble.

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Packeteers
Premium Member
join:2005-06-18
Forest Hills, NY
Asus RT-AC3100
(Software) Asuswrt-Merlin

14 recommendations

Packeteers

Premium Member

facebook irony

the trump administration is so crazy...

they kill obama's Internet Privacy Rules slated to go into effect dec 2017

they basically ignore the equifax leak of most usa citizen's financial data

and there is no way anyone can opt out from equifax getting new data,

yet now they are going ape shit over facebook for sharing marketing data

that you clearly didn't opt out from when you signed up?

i hope the irs leaks trumps long form tax returns from the past 30 years

just so that moron in the white house will actually take privacy seriously.
Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO

12 recommendations

Skippy25

Member

As the saying goes...

Shit in = shit out.