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3 ISPs Have Spent $572 Million To Kill Net Neutrality Since 2008 (dslreports.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the money-is-power dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from DSLReports: A study by Maplight indicates that for every one comment submitted to the FCC on net neutrality (and there have been roughly 5 million so far), the telecom industry has spent $100 in lobbying to crush the open internet. The group found that Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) have spent $572 million on attempts to influence the FCC and other government agencies since 2008. "The FCC's decision, slated to be announced later this summer, will be a clear indicator of the power of corporate cash in a Trump administration," notes the report. "Public sentiment is on the side of keeping the Obama administration's net neutrality policies, which prevented internet companies from blocking, slowing or giving priority to different websites." Congressional lobbying forms indicate that Comcast alone has spent nearly $4 million on lobbying Congress on net neutrality issues from the end of 2014 through the first quarter of 2017.

5 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. The interesting part by sarbonn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For me, what I find most interesting is the amount of attention at least two of those entities have paid to trying to convince people that they're not for gutting the rules, yet are waging huge campaigns with their own money to do exactly that.

    --
    Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
    1. Re: The interesting part by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It all depends on who you ask. To some people, NN just means that there's no restrictions on what you access. For some it means that every bit is equal, so nobody should be allowed to pay more for more bandwidth. For some it's about banning "zero rating".
      That's the problem... there's no agreed on definition and most people don't understand that codifying their desires in laws is going to result in an ugly mess of unintended consequences.

  2. This says two things to me by H3lldr0p · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First is that being a mega ISP is certainly a profitable business.

    Second is that we really need better regulations of that business because that is money which should have been more difficult for them to spend. ie, Economically speaking there should have been a place within the business where that money would have had a much higher return on investment. eg Competitive infrastructure upgrades, R&D, etc. Lobbying/bribing is a poor investment in a competitive environment. Therefore, the environment isn't competitive enough.

    1. Re:This says two things to me by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You haven't said anything that negates the parent's comment. The theory is that if the environment were more competitive, R&D would have a better ROI than lobbying. The current environment of ISPs in the US is a distinct lack of competition, so there's a greater ROI in lobbying than there is in R&D... because in the current state, building out better infrastructure isn't going to get them many more customers, and in many markets there aren't any other options for customers to move to, so they won't lose anything by letting their current infrastructure age and stagnate. In this case it makes more sense to lobby to build more walls against competition.

      So, to reiterate: Parent didn't say that Lobbying/bribing is a poor investment in itself. He said it's a poor investment under the condition that the environment is competitive; and the fact that lobbying/bribing is currently creating a better ROI than R&D would correlates to the fact that there's not nearly enough competition in the ISP market.

    2. Re:This says two things to me by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Suppose Congress decided that all ISPs should be taxed at a 95% rate...

      Strawman. Of course spending on lobbying on this hypothetical and non-existant case makes sense and will protect an investment made in infrastructure. No one here has stated that money shouldn't be spent on lobbying to protect investments. We are arguing that money spent on lobbying shouldn't be an investment in itself, and in an actual competitive environment, it couldn't be.

      Competition has nothing to do with this issue.

      I disagree. Competition is everything to do with this issue. In addition to the Net Neutrality issue, ISP A has used lobbying to prevent a potential ISP B (municpal broadband) from building out their own infrastructure in A's jurisdiction. They have also used lobbying to ensure that other existing ISPs aren't able to encroach on eachother's territories to increase regional competition. Net Neutrality is in part ensuring that ISPs cannot give preference to traffic generated by their own content applications (i.e. Cox's contour service) over that of other content application/producers (i.e. Hulu, Youtube, Twitch, Netflix, etc). This is exactly an example of the ISPs lobbying against fair competition of content. so, yes, competition is the crux of this whole issue.

      If the INDUSTRY, as a whole, had spent that money on routers instead, exactly how much money could the industry, as a whole, expect in return?

      Given that the INDUSTRY as a whole has made a climate against competition in the ISP marketplace through their lobbying efforts, they can't expect any real return on investment in any of their infrastructure. Take away the regional monopoly structure and introduce REAL competition in the ISP marketplace, returns on router and technology upgrades would be exponential.