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Cable Lobby Tries To Stop State Investigations Into Slow Broadband (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Broadband industry lobby groups want to stop individual states from investigating the speed claims made by Internet service providers, and they are citing the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules in their effort to hinder the state-level actions. The industry attempt to undercut state investigations comes a few months after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against Charter and its Time Warner Cable (TWC) subsidiary that claims the ISP defrauded and misled New Yorkers by promising Internet speeds the company knew it could not deliver. NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and USTelecom, lobby groups for the cable and telecom industries, last month petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for a declaratory ruling that would help ISPs defend themselves against state-level investigations. The FCC should declare that advertisements of speeds "up to" a certain level of megabits per second are consistent with federal law as long as ISPs meet their disclosure obligations under the net neutrality rules, the groups said. There should be a national standard enforced by the FCC instead of a state-by-state "patchwork of inconsistent requirements," they argue. Another cable lobby group, the American Cable Association (ACA), asked the FCC to approve the petition in a filing on Friday. An FCC ruling in favor of the petition wouldn't completely prevent states from filing lawsuits, but such a ruling would make it far more difficult for the states to protect consumers from false speed claims.
I don't blame the cablecos for the shit way they treat their customers. I blame the bribed local governments that keep giving those cablecos monopolies no matter how many citizens are fucked over by them.
It's a cableco's job to make as much money as possible. But it's my local government's job to represent *ME*. One of these two is failing miserably at their job.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You dont seem to get it.
The big companies want the FCC to regulate them. Federal regulations are written by corporate lobbyists. That "Net Neutrality" regulation everyone is so in love with was written by AT&T. AT&T's DSL service cannot compete with a cable industry that can threaten to offer "DSL speed + fast lanes for stuff" at a tiny fraction of the cost that AT&T can rig up.
State-by-State regulation is the worst-case scenario for the big corporations, but it doesnt effect them all equally.
That whole stink about Netflix being "throttled" by various ISP's. This was congestion at the interlinks between the backbones, a problem that grew worse as Netflix became more and more popular. It is not Net Neutrality to demand a fast lane for a specific companies benefit, but somehow a demand for a quite-specific fast lane became the poster child for "net neutrality." AT&T's P.R. firm was hard at work twisting the public narrative while their "consultants" wrote the legislation.
The corporations want it to be a federal issue. Wile they may disagree about what the federal rules should be, they can all agree that duping you suckers into demanding it to be a federal issue is a great idea.
"His name was James Damore."
Lets take a look at the Telco bribes shall we?
https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/03/30/this-is-how-much-money-telecom-companies-paid-ohio-republicans-to-sell-off-your-browser-history
This is JUST Ohio bribes (not even 2% of the bribes they paid out), I can see you're trying to do some weird "Telco good Obama bad" thing there, but if Telco's are innocent, how come they pay so many bribes?
U.S. Sen. Rob Portman
$89,350
U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (5th District, Bluffton)
$91,000
U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson (6th District, Salem)
$56,500
U.S. Rep. Patrick Tiberi (12th District, Worthington)
$53,250
U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci (16th District, Wadsworth)
$48,000
U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers (15th District, Lancaster)
$27,000
U.S. Rep. Steven Chabot (1st District, Cincinnati)
$25,500
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (4th District, Bucyrus)
$24,750
U.S. Rep. David Joyce (14th District, Russell Township)
$16,500
U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (2nd District, Cincinnati)
$9,400
U.S. Rep. Bob Gibbs (7th District, Ashland)
$8,000
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (1oth District, Dayton)
$6,000