FCC - the other Thanksgiving Turkey

Would you like to pay more for internet access, and suffer websites censored by your Internet provider? Because that is going to happen for every American in about 2 weeks time (Dec 14 2017), unless you do something now to stop it.

[Update, Jan 2018: we were not able to stop the FCC destroying net neutrality. There could hardly be a clearer case of regulatory capture than the FCC under the trump administration. This will have to be revisited after the trump administration].

The Federal Communications Commission is an agency of the United States government created by statute to regulate interstate communications. The FCC regulates the ISPs who bring the internet to your home and business. ISPs such as Comcast Xfinity, Hughes, and AT&T, and cellphone network carriers like Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon. Those ISPs need a constant firm hand - even with close oversight, large cable companies are continually probing the boundaries of illegal but highly profitable behavior. Here are some recent examples:

• For several years, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which the three companies had a stake in developing. Isis wasn't ready, but AT&T, Sprint and Verizon obstructed you from using - or even trying - a competing product.
• AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing computer phone services on the iPhone when it was first launched.
• The FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon violated the pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.

There is a long list of similar ongoing dishonest, illegal or anti-competitive behavior from ISPs and network operators. It happens in Europe, too, A recent report by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that service violations affected at least one in five users in Europe. ISPs and carriers frequently block or slow down connections to competing services like computer phone calls, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email. All illegal, all done by large corporations until the regulator catches them doing it, and commences a multi-year lawsuit to drag them back into compliance with the regulations.

What is "Network Neutrality"?

There's a huge controversy engulfing the FCC at present, but it has a meaningless name. The name is "Network Neutrality" and it is the FCC policy that forbids network carriers and ISPs from interfering with the content and services that their customers have paid to access. Carriers and ISPs still do it, but they keep having to find new ways, as the FCC closes old loopholes. A better name would be something like "equality of network access", "interference-free networking" or "customer choices respected"; maybe you can suggest a better term in the comments at the end.

The controversy is that Donald Trump appointed Ajit Pai in January 2017 as the chairman of the FCC - the latest in a long line of inadequate officials put in charge of vital offices. Perhaps the best known example is Trump's appointment of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to lead the Department of Energy—the very agency the hapless Perry wanted to abolish but infamously forgot the name of during a 2011 presidential debate. Pai is a similar disaster at the FCC, for ordinary working Americans. Before the FCC, Pai worked for Verizon. He brings a strong bias for "more corporate giveaways at the expense of customers" rather than "better service to customers".

As soon as he was installed, Pai started working to undermine net neutrality. There's a process that has to be followed, including gathering comments from the public. People who understood the issue and don't work for an ISP or carrier, submitted millions of comments. Almost all the comments asked the FCC not to make a change that clears the way for companies to charge more and block access to some websites. The final vote is on December 14, 2017. The vote will be along party lines, 3 - 2, and our network neutrality will end. Unless you do something about it.

Here's where the story turns weird. Along with the popular outcry asking the FCC to safeguard net neutrality, more than a million fake or automated comments asking for repeal were submitted to the FCC. That unfairly skewed the policymaking process and created a false perception that there was almost as much public support for higher costs and censored websites, as there was public feeling against it. You can read more about the unmasking of these millions of fake comments here and here. You can check if comments were submitted in your name here. There's really no doubt, and the critical questions are "who sent in millions of fake comments?", and "why isn't the chairman of the FCC taking immediate action to restore the integrity of public comments before the voting proceeds?"

Where did these fake comments come from? Who was behind it? Ask yourself who will benefit from the repeal of Network Neutrality. Who has the means, motive, and opportunity to organize more than 1.3 million fake comments? The carriers, telcos, and phone companies do. The NY state Attorney General protested this as a case of identity theft, and wrote 9 times to the FCC, asking for all the comments and technical information about bulk uploads, so they could trace the perpetrators. The FCC ignored all the letters from the NY Attorney General, and handed over no evidence. Why?

More to the point, what can you do to derail this FCC malfeasance? It comes down to calling your Congressional reps, and asking for this process to halt, while the dishonesty is investigated.

1. You can find out your congressperson and senators at this website https://whoismyrepresentative.com/ .
2. Click on the links to get their phone numbers.
3. Make 3 brief phone calls to the congressperson and the two senators. Briefly tell the low-level intern who answers the phone that you are upset with the FCC process to end net neutrality, and call on them to act swiftly to keep the regulations in place.
4. Sign this White House petition asking that Ajit Pai be replaced as chairman of the FCC. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/we-people-call-resignation-fcc-chairman-ajit-varadaraj-pai

More info about net neutrality and the effects of repealing it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2017/11/26/when-the-fcc-kills-net-neutrality-heres-what-your-internet-will-look-likehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/technology/fcc-net-neutrality.html https://www.inverse.com/article/38735-net-neutrality-timeline-fcc-meeting

Finally, here is a recent tweet from Comcast, giving all kinds of false reassurance. It is convincingly debunked by a response from an ordinary person who is aware of the issues. And now you are aware of the issues too. Please call your reps in Congress.