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Ajit Pai Killed Rules That Could Have Helped Florida Recover From Hurricane (arstechnica.com)
sharkbiter shares a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission chairman slammed wireless carriers on Tuesday for failing to quickly restore phone service in Florida after Hurricane Michael, calling the delay "completely unacceptable." But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's statement ignored his agency's deregulatory blitz that left consumers without protections designed to ensure restoration of service after disasters, according to longtime telecom attorney and consumer advocate Harold Feld.
The Obama-era FCC wrote new regulations to protect consumers after Verizon tried to avoid rebuilding wireline phone infrastructure in Fire Island, New York, after Hurricane Sandy hit the area in October 2012. But Pai repealed those rules, claiming that they prevented carriers from upgrading old copper networks to fiber. Pai's repeal order makes zero mentions of Fire Island and makes reference to Verizon's response to Hurricane Sandy only once, in a footnote. Among other things, the November 2017 FCC action eliminated a requirement that telcos turning off copper networks must provide Americans with service at least as good as those old copper networks. This change lets carriers replace wireline service with mobile service only, even if the new mobile option wouldn't pass a "functional test" that Pai's FCC eliminated. Additionally, "in June 2018, Chairman Pai further deregulated telephone providers to make it easier to discontinue service after a natural disaster," Feld wrote. In response to Pai's deregulation, Feld wrote: "The situation in Florida shows what happens when regulators abandon their responsibilities to protect the public based on unenforceable promises from companies eager to cut costs for maintenance and emergency preparedness. This should be a wake-up call for the 37 states that have eliminated traditional oversight of telecommunications services and those states considering similar deregulation: critical communications services cannot be left without some kind of public oversight."
The Obama-era FCC wrote new regulations to protect consumers after Verizon tried to avoid rebuilding wireline phone infrastructure in Fire Island, New York, after Hurricane Sandy hit the area in October 2012. But Pai repealed those rules, claiming that they prevented carriers from upgrading old copper networks to fiber. Pai's repeal order makes zero mentions of Fire Island and makes reference to Verizon's response to Hurricane Sandy only once, in a footnote. Among other things, the November 2017 FCC action eliminated a requirement that telcos turning off copper networks must provide Americans with service at least as good as those old copper networks. This change lets carriers replace wireline service with mobile service only, even if the new mobile option wouldn't pass a "functional test" that Pai's FCC eliminated. Additionally, "in June 2018, Chairman Pai further deregulated telephone providers to make it easier to discontinue service after a natural disaster," Feld wrote. In response to Pai's deregulation, Feld wrote: "The situation in Florida shows what happens when regulators abandon their responsibilities to protect the public based on unenforceable promises from companies eager to cut costs for maintenance and emergency preparedness. This should be a wake-up call for the 37 states that have eliminated traditional oversight of telecommunications services and those states considering similar deregulation: critical communications services cannot be left without some kind of public oversight."
Problem is that they're allowing telcos to drop ALL fixed-line (copper OR fiber) service in certain locations.
Why is that a problem? You should be free to live in a remote area. You should not expect others to subsidize your lifestyle.
And wireless is only a good alternative if you like random slowdowns, high latency, and generally shit service.
They should spend their resources fixing this problem instead of maintaining lightly used but expensive legacy infrastructure.
Why are we not continuing to forcing a private entity to support deprecated technology because people refuse to move on?
While we're at it, let's force Microsoft to continue to support MS-DOS and Windows 3.1.
Linus should be regulated into supporting Version 1.0 of the kernel.
Let's get some legislation to make it illegal for Google to stop supporting my Motorola Droid running Gingerbread.
Wireless and fiber services are shit. Let's get that copper back up and running post haste! I need my 768/128 DSL line back online immediately! Because I'm positive Verizon, et al. are not going to ever be fixing any of the cellphone towers knocked out by the worst hurricane to hit the gulf in 60 years! I mean, it's been over a fucking week! Because in my dream utopia....you know, if only the government were in charge of the infrastructure, I'm sure it would be number one on Orange Hitler(tm)'s list!