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FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike
tlhIngan writes Municipal broadband is in the news again — this time Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures, has endorsed states' right to ban municipal broadband networks and warned the (Democrat-led) FCC to not do anything that a future Republican led FCC would dislike. The argument is that municipal broadband discourages private investment in broadband communications, that taxpayer-funded projects are barriers to future infrastructure investment.
fuck that guy
this time Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures, has endorsed states' right to ban municipal broadband networks
He's endorsed the right of the people in each state to get bent over by massively-corrupt telcos with their monopolistic behaviors - by reinforcing their monopolies - all in the name of a free market (despite the fact that it's anything but).
FTFY.
"Don't you dare serve the people, you shall only serve the corporations!"
J
make it so only corporation dictate what yo can do, news at 11.
Pubs have become more and more ant citizen every year. The citizens wont municipal broadband? FUCK EM!
"that taxpayer-funded projects are barriers to future infrastructure investment."
That's been shown to be false over and over again. Why do these people get away with a provable false statement.
We have seen, over and over again tax-payer funded program create jobs, create infrastructure, and in some cases create entire tangential industries.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
While they're at it state and federal funded roads compete unfairly with privately funded toll roads. Better do something about that.
A republican FCC shouldn't do anything a democratic one won't like either. Unless they enjoy being hypocrites.
So according to this guy, we should never make laws or decisions that don't have complete bi-partisan support because the other side will try to repeal it. How would anything get done? At that, we wouldn't have any laws at all. Did he even listen to what he said?
I swear, man. Congresscritters sound more like whiny children every day. This is the epitome of politicians' refusal to compromise on anything. The general intelligence of people in politics must steadily be dropping. They better stay where they are because they sure can't do anything else.
"It’s not hard, then, to imagine a future FCC concluding that taxpayer-funded, municipal broadband projects themselves are barriers to infrastructure investment.
Right, because we've all done so well under the monopoly of Comcast et al. If the private sector can't compete (*cough*strong arm a monopoly*cough*) versus a municipal project then golly-gee maybe there's a lesson to be learned. Not that I expect an evidently corrupt bureaucrat to fathom said lesson.
Lies, damned lies, and Republican bullshit.
What about your lovely free market? What about competition? If you want to have customers, offer a better product and invest in your infrastructure -- they haven't been investing in it for years, because they're greedy assholes worried about short term profits and executive bonuses.
The Republicans have become about entrenching corporate profits at the expense of the tax payers, and people get shitty services and inflated rates because of it.
The Republicunts are about NOTHING other than corporate profits and enforcing the religious freedoms of Christians.
Such hypocrisy.
This is the kind of bullshit you see when money is equated with speech.
I say we remove the charitable exemptions for religions, and kill all the lobbyists.
Fuck all y'all.
"The argument is that municipal broadband discourages private investment in broadband communications, that taxpayer-funded projects are barriers to future infrastructure investment."
"Private investment", notably the quite-intentional lack of it, was the barrier to future infrastructure investment, hence the entire raison d'être of municipal broadband in the first place.
Bitch and moan about the stifling of private business opportunities when you actually have a business plan concerning that locale beyond "avoid until February 31st".
Cable companies: begging for cake, (not) choosing it, having it, and eating it all at once.
Well, corporations are people!
You think we should serve Soylent Green instead?
[March 2014] Speaking at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference, [Verizon CFO] Shammo said the company would not consider other markets until it generates more cash within the wireline business.
"I am not going to build beyond the current LSAs (local service acquisitions) that we have built out," Shammo said. "We have to generate more cash within the wireline business and once we do that and I feel that FiOS has returned its cost of capital, then we can look at expansion, but at this point we're happy with what we have."
These are the same people that are allowing their copper network to rot out in order to push people onto FiOS.
Why should we-the-people have to wait for a conglomerate to make the business case for bringing service to our communities?
Especially if we can do it now.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Ignore the Republicans. There are too many dependents soaking up government bennies to ever elect another R as president.
R house? Sure. R senate? Maybe. R president? Not before the currency collapse.
And simply say "For us to be concerned about a Republican FCC, we would need to believe that it is possible for a Republican to win a presidential election. Given the current climate, that won't happen in your lifetime, Senator"
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
We've seen this with water, gas, and electricity.
Just run the damn wire.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Yeah, cause they want us to be serfs in a backwards nation where people can't even run at 1 GB/s while the other first world nations run at 100 GB/s.
Yeah, that works.
Not.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why do they play and say talk about a "Republican led FCC" instead of just saying they don't want the FCC to do anything that might mean the least inconvenience for Comcast and AT&T's complete takeover of the Internet?
I mean, for chrissake, Barack Obama, the marxest marxist who ever marxed, appointed goddamn Tom Wheeler, a former cable executive to be chairman of the FCC. Are they disappointed that the chairman of the FCC isn't just Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast?
Fucking corporatists. They're not even trying to hide their evil agenda any more. We need another president like Taft or Teddy Roosevelt to just scare the living shit out of big corporations. It's the only way to make them behave. The Clayton Act and other anti-trust legislation ushered in the most productive and prosperous era in US history, and now these sleazy fucks want to take us all the way back to the age of robber barons where young women got burned up in shirt factory fires. Now we've got pussy-ass Barack Obama and Eric Holder who shake with fear every time a CEO so much as looks cross at them. Now, a company breaks the law and the justice department fines them with one hand and passes them the money to pay the fine with the other hand (Citicorp, Goldman Sachs, et al). Two parties, one is completely terrified of the corporatists and the other's got their nose up the corporatists ass. No, they're not the same, but the outcome is the same.
Seriously, there needs to be a goddamn revolution in this country. I'll get behind it 100% as long as it's finished by the start of football season because I'm totally gonna take my fantasy league this year. Or maybe we can just not have the revolution on Sundays or Monday nights. Didn't they used to do that in wars? Take Sunday morning off so everyone could go to church and pray that God help them butcher the other side? Something's got to be done, I tell you. Start the revolution right now while it's still pre-season.
At least, thank god, we get another chance in 2016. Yeah, I know, anybody who gets the nomination from either party is going to be a corporatist, but if I don't hold out some faint hope that something will change, I'll just go shoot myself, and I can't do that because, like I said, I'm going to own fantasy football this year. But, (and thank God for small favors) I won't be enriching Comcast while I do it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
By framing the narrative this way the public can be polarized around trivial issues; divide and conquer.
Implying that a a left-wing or democrat controlled FCC would behave differently is misleading -- they are all beholden to the same powerful business interests who play both sides so that they are certain to have the winner in their pocket.
Warning the FCC to not do anything 'anti-republican' is just re-enforcing the imaginary division between left and right in our minds. It doesn't exist. There are only global supra-national corporations and people. Everything else is an intentional distraction.
Besides the corrupt global monetary system, the single most important issue that has allowed us to be reduced to abject serfdom is that corporations are considered persons under the law, which is a development of the last 125 years in the US. This allows management and ownership to escape personal liability for any actions of the organization under his or her control.
Because corps are able to vote with their huge dollars your small dollars are irrelevant -- as are your wants and needs.
Focus on that. Thinking Left/Right is just wasting your time.
The question we all have to be asking ourselves is... when is that going to happen again? Do we honestly think the Republicans will be able to lead anything more than the split of their own party? I really think it's the end of an era.
Might as well worry about when McCarthy will be back. Better make sure you don't associate with any Communists!
I see Slashdot is going the way of Digg and being taken over as a liberal propaganda blog.
This information is 100% fabricated. The FCC panel is headed by hardcore progressive liberals.
Why am I not surprised. Send Sunil, Mooj or whatever his name is back to his shithole country.
Jesus - the hyperbolic circle jerking.. sigh.. Could we get any more f#cking stupid here?
His point is that this should be viewed as beyond the authority of the FCC by both sides; that a bureaucratic panel doesn't have the power to tell individual states how to regulate themselves; and doing so will open a Pandora's box. He illustrates his point by citing SCOTUS precedence, and hypothesizes what sort of dramatic swings would be possible with that power.
Everyone loves HHS - but they forget (let me make his point in a different way) the HHS could effectively slash Abortion coverage at will by simply saying Insurance can't cover it. That's what it's dangerous to give so much power to one position; especially a politically appointed one.
Christ - His biggest mistake, apparently, is forgetting to dumb down his point and talk like everyone is 12.
IMHO, the FCC should just declare ISPs common carriers as a start; then recommend to Congress a law that says the individual citizens have a right to assembly, even in the form of a municipality, and establish publicly held utility services.
Then, it could go back to SCOTUS or whatever.
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
/. is becoming reddit.
I am tired of the stories with comments that follow astroturfed political scripts
Another way to get bent over for a probe to uranus.
chutzpah and hypocrisy, go together like a horse
*) Federal government regulating over the desires of State legislatures: Evil! Evil! Evil!
*) State government regulating over the desires of municipal legislatures: Motherhood, Apple Pie and the American Way!
"that taxpayer-funded projects are barriers to future infrastructure investment."
Yes everyone can compete in the free market,
except for groups of geographically related people cooperating with their tax dollars. Can't have them competing.
That's the last thing we want for our infrastructure. People cooperating with their votes and tax dollars.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
in broadband communications? Hoarding profits to buy out competitors, NBC, and politicians. Why invest in improving service for your captive customers when you can invest in takeovers and bribes?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
You seem to have completely missed his point, so let me break that long sentence into four short sentences for you:
The is FCC deciding if it has the (unconstitutional) power to decide whether or not municipal broadband is built, disregarding state law.
If the FCC assumes that power, a future FCC chairman would therefore have the power to ban municipal broadband.
That would be bad.
Therefore, don't assume new powers that you wouldn't want your successor to have.
I'm not sure if I agree in this case. I do agree with the general principle- if you acquiesce to Obama assuming new powers, president Jeb Bush will inherit those new powers in a couple years.
I'm a Republican and normally I don't like the government things that private businesses can. Except, in this case ISPs are utilities and monopolies, the free market does not work with monopolies. Municipal ISPs are a bad idea, but giant cable monopolies is a worse idea. Cities are good at running utilities, either let them become ISPs or find a way to ensure competition and low barriers to new entries to the market.
Everyone loves HHS - but they forget (let me make his point in a different way) the HHS could effectively slash Abortion coverage at will by simply saying Insurance can't cover it. That's what it's dangerous to give so much power to one position; especially a politically appointed one.
What current law gives them that power? The ACA allows them to mandate coverage of certain things, but I"m unaware of any that allows them to forbid coverage of medical procedures.
"The argument is that municipal broadband discourages private investment in broadband communications, that taxpayer-funded projects are barriers to future infrastructure investment."
Wait, you mean that someone else doing the exact thing that the corporations have refused to do would 'discourage' the corporations from doing that very thing they've already declared they don't want to do?
You are such a fucking ignorant tool Mr. Berry.
Because a city in Utah had already started a system and had it in place, they were able to lease it to Google, which Google did.
If anything, that shows that gov. helping its citizens, and then working businesses, goes MUCH FURTHER, than allowing large business monopolies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No, he didn't say everything needs to have bipartisan support. He said that if the FCC assumes a NEW power, the power to override state law and ban or require municipal broadband, the FCC will still have that power when Jeb Bush is president. If you decide that the FCC can choose whether or not muni is built, a different FCC chairman would inherit that power and could ban municipal broadband. Don't assume new powers for yourself if you don't want your successor to have the same power.
That's something I keep in mind. If Palin were president, would I want her administration running the health care industry? If not, I should oppose government run healthcare because we WILL have a president as bad as Palin at some point. Maybe in 2016, maybe in teo years, maybe in six years, maybe in ten years. We will have a horrible president. How much control do I want that crappy president to have over my life?
When it comes to granting new powers to the government , that's exactly right. Republicans have been saying tat for decades and Bysh Jr was criticized for taking on new powers, because any new power he assumed would be inherited by Obama or whoever came next.
Looking at poll numbers, Jeb Bush us likely to be elected president in two years. How much power do you want Jeb Bush to have? Any powers you grant Obama will be inherited by J Bush.
So now Slashbots are hyperventilating with hatred at hypothetical Republicans?
You really need to get a life.
So now the democrats need to warn the FCC not to take actions that might offend future democrats. After that the very, very pissed off left might want to warn the FCC that if anything is done that they don't like they will eat your babies for breakfast from the skulls of republicans. Threats should not exist at any level regardless of how quietly they are made.
In a speech in front of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Berry endorsed states' rights
Inflammatory headline aside, that's pretty much the way Republicans think the country should be run. Let States govern themselves, Fed should stay out unless the issue crosses state lines.
I don't understand why the Republican would be against municipal broadband. Aren't they always talking about job creation? Chattanooga has added hundreds of jobs, had a huge increase in start-up companies, and attracted a lot of industry to the area since they deployed a municipal gigabit broadband network, so why oppose it? The only explanation I can possibly think of is that they are too cozy with the cable and telecomm monopolies.
Bullshit.
There is nothing preventing private companies from competing from public projects. Except that public companies (hopefully) won't price-fix.
If the GOP is intent on stopping that, then I guess we should say that the GOP is a barrier to future infrastructure investment. And the solution is to prevent a Republican led anything.
Have gnu, will travel.
So, where is the freedom? Where is the choice? I can choose between Corporate Person A or Corporate Person B but not a Citizen Cooperative (government)? I thought these Corporate Person types loved Freedom and Choice. These Corporate Personages are crooks who lie like the politicians they buy -- and their products generally suck.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
"good" is defined as the federal government "investing" in whatever you want no matter what the citizens of any state want???
The guy was arguing against the federal government forcing its will onto the people of all 50 states. He (rightly) points out that if you inject the federal government into some area of the economy, it has distorting effects on the markets that can lead to less dynamism and less free-market investment and innovation. All the innovation of the internet that has happened so far has happened in the absense of these new proposed regulations, which is PROOF that these regs are not needed to get the level of service and freedom we have. This is a FACT which you big government guys want everybody to ignore in your push to use things like "net neutrality" as a wedge to inject government regulation into the internet. Federal policy that helps in New York just might not work well for the people of New Mexico or Montana.
Rejection of one-size-fits-all government regulation is the traditional and constitutional norm in the United States and that sort of Washington-DC-centric policy making is really only a post-1930's idea. Incidentally, MOST of the nation's infrastructure was built by the states, local governments, and corporations not by the federal government making "investments". When you have problems with your streets, water, electricity, etc do you prefer to deal with locals, or the county or the state........ or do you REALLY want to go contact your congressman and hassle with the federal government? Do you really want all your consumer issues to become federal government issues? Why are some people so damned determined to jam the federal government into every single aspect of their lives?
This has nothing to do with "banning municipal broadband" today, and everything to do with not granting a power at the Fed level that would let a future FCC in 1-2 election cycles do exactly that.
FTFA:
"If the history of American politics teaches us anything, it is that one political party will not remain in power for perpetuity. At some point, to quote Sam Cooke, 'a change is gonna come,'" Berry said. "And that change could come a little more than two years from now. So those who are potential supporters of the current FCC interpreting Section 706 [of the Telecommunications Act] to give the Commission the authority to preempt state laws about municipal broadband should think long and hard about what a future FCC might do with that power."
Arguing that municipal broadband networks could discourage investment by private companies, Berry said, "Itâ(TM)s not hard, then, to imagine a future FCC concluding that taxpayer-funded, municipal broadband projects themselves are barriers to infrastructure investment. So if the current FCC were successful in preempting state and local laws under Section 706, what would stop a future FCC from using Section 706 to forbid states and localities from constructing any future broadband projects? Nothing that I can see."
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
If there were competition, the broadband companies would be going out of their way to roll out something bigger and better than the next guy. Except, all too often, a broadband company gets a monopoly in a city, raise their prices while cutting their services. They have zero incentive to roll out any improvements. They rarely even bother with doing basic maintenance. Upgrades and repairs cost money, that cuts into profits. It's not like the market has anywhere else to go.
A taxpayer funded project isn't a barrier to future infrastructure improvements. Monopolies are a barrier to future infrastructure improvements.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Fuck the republican party.
And the democrats, too, while we're at it.
Do the cunts not realize how transparently bad they are? Do the people still not get it? They're bad people. They're worthless. Why listen to a fucking thing any one of them says?
It's long been a principle of the left that everything is political (people in the Soviet Union and in National Socialist Germany were always being watched by "political officers" and related political agencies) because, from the perspective of the left, everything involves government. When government injects itself into every aspect of life and society, it brings with it political concerns. It both demands that the citizens conform to its preferred politics AND it becomes wary of people who do not "adapt to the new realities". It's quite natural then, that the citizens begin to see everything as tied-to-politics.
As a result of growing and intrusive government, everything in the US that used to be completely unrelated to politics gradually becomes political. As a natural consequence, of course, nearly everything political ends-up fitting into every non-political area as well... like "geek news"
Get used to it.
- A random dead foreigner, probably somewhere with oil.
OK, both parties are the same in that they pretend to serve a democratic republic rather than the reality of serving a corporatocracy oligarchy.
Now here's the difference, and it's only really superficial:
-Republicans want to restrain individuals while giving business free reign to do anything that they want.
-Democrats want to restrain business while giving individuals free reign to do anything that they want.
needs to be declared a non-profit public utility, charged at average cost to all customers in an area. The price needs to be capped at $29.95 a month for 50MB up and download speeds with NO DATA CAPS.
The only real reason for data caps in most areas are to try to cut the numbers of cable TV customers that are dropping cable tv and going to netflix streaming.
They ought to know that after it has all been built out they can just install their friends into the city councils to privatize it all for peanuts.
Can't we end this? Let the blue and red states separate. The blue states can remain with Western Europe and the red states can partner up with China and South America, whatever.
Your posr made things more stupid. There is a long history of federal involvement in regulation including (or even especially) the FCC. This longstanding practice was established before the New Deal and was born from necessity. While you may choose to excise physical reality from your mind to formulate your misinformative posts many here will understand that transmissions blasting from one state at a frequency can interfere with wireless communications elsewhere.
The argument you have outlined is basically resistance to the very reason the FCC was established in the first place. The FCC was formed specifically because one state can't rule another so the need to bring practical measures for arranging transmission required another authority. Same goes for many other federal regulatory bodies. Of course federal regulation can be abused as with state regulation but federal regulation or something very similar is required for a functional society. Please consider that outside the US governmental structure, such as in the international arena, various countries have joined together and subjected themselves to a selected authority precisely to obtain practical guidelines required for functional regulation of various endeavors. These efforts are not an Illuninati conspiracy but rather a rational choice to provide practical use of human capability. They span communications, finance and transportation mainly.
This brain dead "tea/libertarian" dogmatic spew is easily and instantly discerned as completely out of touch with reality. The spew only serves as noise to make when corrupting a system as in this case
These fanatics would make the same arguments for public roads, public right of way, water, power, sewer, heating gas and highway system. They do in fact and have made great headway into those areas, it is to the point where serious discussions happen on the privatization of the air happen without laughter at how ridiculous it is.
It's like pyromaniacs have been given influence over fire safety... not all fire is good, they don't realize it because they are mentally ill. One has to wonder about these fanatic capitalists...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The Democrats on the FCC seem committed to gutting net neutrality. The only reason the Republicans voted against their proposal was they thought it didn't go far enough.
the 2016 national elections were already decided, mr. berry. i do know that your run in 2010 ended in primary failure... so how would you know what it takes to win a national election when you couldn't even win a congressional primary in an off-year? take a hike, your 15 minutes are long over.
fucking cool. reduce investments because we build our own network and don't need the investment any longer. then the government takes the money from the would be investors through taxation.
fuck off republicans. no one needs you at all.
Future infrastructure investment so far in the future, they cannot be seen without a time machine.
Thanks Matt Berry, I'll be voting for the dems now.
As a registered republican, I'm disgusted by the current state of the party.
Joe Biden is a square shooter and will CRUSH the republicans! Only Joe Biden can help us now! Joe Biden for 2016!
Surely municipal broadband would establish a basic minimum level of service. After that private companies just have to compete in the market based on speed, price and a better service.
Sorry, can't say that last bit with a straight face....
warned the (Democrat-led) FCC to not do anything that a future Republican led FCC would dislike
Part of being the party in power is that you get to do shit that the other party doesn't like. You seriously think when Republicans were in power that they would have done the same? I think not......
I see John Cleese as Tim saying, "Look! I'm warning you!".
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Long past time to stamp out these corporate virtual "monopolies" that keep cable and internet access prices so high.
Fuck the republicans on this (the democrats are just as bad, but this is such a specific example of the GoP focus on the wealthy over the actual majority of American CITIZENS...)
There's actually a difference in structure which makes your comparison misleading.
The Federal government exists as an enumerated set of powers granted to it *by* the States.
Local and municipal legislatures are *likewise* created by the States, and granted a set of powers which they can exercise.
The State is supposed to be superior to both. The federal government is a subsidiary of the States collectively, which has been granted powers intended to protect the States as a whole from interference from other States or from other Nations. The municipal governments are subsidiaries of their particular states, which have been granted powers intended to help streamline the process of governing the State. (Obviously, YMMV in both scenarios.)
Then get saddled with Romney/Ryan or McCain/Palin ? I don't think so. I don't think you realize how many more people would be getting killed if those warmongers were in power. Add to that their lack of basic economic theory. trickle down, my dick.
Oh, we don't like that cheap municipal broadband. Its bad for business. We have to compete, offer fair value for money, charge lower rates. Noooo. That's bad. We like to charge hundreds of dollars per month for the equivalent of a dial up modem. Give us your car or the mortgage to your house if you want faster. Become our indentured servant, swear fealty unto death, and we might even look at giving you fibre before selling you to the opium lords in South China. We have purchased politicians to forward our agenda. Expect to be coerced by them even when they aren't in power so that you will (by mere force of influence and intimidation) do our (unpaid) bidding as well.
Just don't do ANYTHING that anybody might not like. Problem solved.
Who needs government?
yeah, the existence of the USPS completely stopped companies from entering into the letter and package delivery market.
Talk about straw men, a market "free" of regulation is a Wild West Free-For-All in which the biggest conglomerate eventually wins by leveraging control and being able to charge according to how much he controls it and what he has to charge to recover his investment. It makes no difference if a corporation seeking access to a market with limited resources, that must be regulated so that the competitors don't stomp on one another's bandwidth, goes to a duopoly-run Congress and seeks favors to cover up-front risk and then passes his costs to consumers. The result is exactly the same, a cartel, which isn't broken until there is creative destruction. Business people will hold on to even an outmoded infrastructure for as long as they can to recover the capital investment and garner profits. They have to be forced by competition to reinvest in newer technology. Places starting out have the luxury of not having to pay off the sunk cost of managing an existing infrastructure. It doesn't matter if companies seek help from the government to defray their costs or if they arrive at their costs through market maturity, the effect is the same and the players end up behaving in the same way. The political rhetoric hides the universal tendency of human behavior to resist change especially if it devalues an investment, It doesn't matter if the price was set by government or by investors. The result is the same. Someone has to pay.
Threatening public servant for seeking to act reasonably and conscientiously in accord with lawful principles that have a democratic mandate, simply because it is disagreeable to your own politics?
Can we get a drone strike on this obvious terrorist supporter, Ajit Pai, please? Or at least get him a visit and a rendition from the DHS?
Yeah, and we should also ban municipalities from building roads because they discourage private investment in toll roads. All the roads, including the street in front of your house, ought to be sold to UPS. You'd have to get their permission to drive your car on their roads. Since they'd be private property, they'd be within their rights to make any arbitrary rules they wanted. They could ban certain makes or kinds or colors of cars. They could allow you to drive only to certain pre-approved destinations. And don't even think about trying to create a package delivery service to compete with them.