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San Jose Mayor Quits FCC Advisory Committee, Says It is Dealing ISPs a 'Very Favorable Hand' (axios.com)
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo resigned today from a panel that advises the Federal Communications Commission on broadband deployment, alleging that the committee is dealing internet service providers "a very favorable hand" of policy recommendations, Axios reports. From the report: The Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee is a key element of Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's priority of making sure broadband internet reaches all Americans. "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," said Liccardo, a Democrat, in his resignation letter. He told Axios that he thought that the committee's draft recommendations were trying to "steamroll cities" in favor of industry access to infrastructure. He pointed to a draft model law that would give states power over permitting for wireless broadband infrastructure at the expense, Liccardo says, of cities' interests.
A Trump administration committee is advancing the interests of industry over the public. Who would ever have guessed?
I've never understood this move. So he gets his 15 minutes of "fame" and then is quickly forgotten. Meanwhile, the board/committee now has one less voice to advance the cause he represented. How is this effective?
And for those of you against "big government" (except when it serves your own interests), I will agree that regulations should be relaxed IF AND ONLY IF true, honest-to-goodness competition on the local level exists. It does not now and is unlikely to exist in the future because that last mile is a effective monopoly.
Of course, the solution to the Last Mile problem is to "nationalize" the infrastructure and let service providers compete without having to run a separate wire to your premise. But then this runs afoul of the "less government" crowd. So you can't win. They want to have their cake and eat it, too, but not only that they want extra icing.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
My favorite part about the scum bag ISPs is the pricing. Even though the pricing for transferring data has plummeted over the years the prices to the consumer have only gone up. Why aren't we paying $19 a month for unlimited Internet? Why aren't the states doing anything about this and protecting us from clear abuse? BTW for those of you with a lot of money to spare you can buy off of State Senators for a very very small amount of money just in case you were wondering.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If you were really trying to help the public you would have stayed any fought your hardest at anything that comes though the committee.
Unless you can't actually do anything. I spoke with a CEO once who was on one of Trump's committees and he had some interesting things to say about when you should stay on these committees and when you should leave.
When you should stay: You feel like your voice is heard. You feel like your opinions have real influence. You feel like you're representing an interest and that you can prevent harm to that interest. You aren't going to get everything you want, but you still are able to make a difference.
When you should leave: You feel like you can't make a difference because the deck is stacked against you. You feel like the one liberal on a Fox News opinion panel (you were put there basically to rally everyone else against you). You're only there so they can claim a false "balance" of interests. You're there only so they can claim they listened to both sides when their intention was to ram through their original plan regardless of what comes up. You feel like your name is being appropriated for acts that you're strongly against, that your personal reputation is being tarnished by this association. You feel like you can do more with a protest quitting than you can by being sidelined on the inside.
Said CEO had clearly been thinking about this, because he left the committee shortly after.