[opendtv] Re: Commissioner Clyburn blog on net neutrality

From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2017 09:14:21 -0500

On Dec 7, 2017, at 4:13 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2017/11/29/fcc-should-not-give-broadband-providers-keys-your-internet-freedom

Well, everyone is certainly free to read the blog and the public comments to
it, then make up their own minds as to where the public sentiment lies. Once
again, a topic which elicits more comments than any other the FCC has ever
dealt with, in spite of people who feel obliged to claim otherwise.

That should tell you something Bert.

The blog and the responses to it are exactly what we would expect from a bunch
of lemmings that will do whatever they are told by their progressive leaders...

It is really ironic that the reason that these yahoos are able to file millions
of public comments about net neutrality, is the inherent neutrality of the
Internet; this was true before the Title II decision, when the neutral Internet
allowed them to spam the FCC servers with millions of meaningless comments. It
is still true today.

I guess this is a good thing, as receiving 21 million comments by snail-mail
might have caused the building the FCC leases to collapse under the “weight” of
the comments.

Almost everything the Commissioner wrote in her blog is fake news. I’m not
going to take the time to point out her misconceptions; I’ve spent far too much
time in recent weeks debunking this garbage.

Bert points to the comments, which sound allot like Facebook ‘likes.” What else
would you expect?

Yesterday I was searching for the name of a brewery in Tampa and went to a site
that lists all the breweries in the area. Instead of landing on the expected
home page, I was presented with a countdown clock - the number of days and
hours until the Internet dies...

These people need to get a life. As do the people at Fight for the Future. It
is very informative that this group fought a bill in Congress that would have
given Hollywood more leverage to prevent Internet piracy. How can you be taken
seriously when your organization is working to protect Internet piracy?

And as this quote from the blog shows, I'm not the only one who has noticed
how this Chairman says one thing, with well-rehearsed rhetoric to put people
to sleep, and then means, and does, precisely the opposite. "Restoring
Internet freedom," his slogan for doing exactly the opposite, being just one
example. He wants to "restore" the freedom of three or four companies, to
screw over everyone else.

Are you talking about Google, Twitter, Amazon or Facebook?

"Chairman Pai's own bio states that '[t]he FCC is at its best when it
proceeds on the basis of consensus; good communications policy knows no
partisan affiliation.' I agree. In practice though, this is not the approach
the Chairman has chosen to take on more than a dozen actions this year that
directly harm consumers and small businesses, including opening the door to
massive media consolidation, and weakening a program designed to provide
low-income Americans with affordable phone and broadband service. Nor is it
the path we are heading on when it comes to net neutrality."

Opening the door to massive media consolidation?

Seriously?

She’s talking about the ownership cap proceedings. Does she not understand that
the FCC has protected the interests of a handful of broadcasters since 1934,
creating a powerful media oligopoly that controls almost everything we watch on
TV, and increasingly on the Internet.

Does she not understand that local broadcasters do not have the power to
challenge this oligopoly? They depend on it - and retransmission consent - to
stay in business.

Does she not understand that allowing more voices to have a national broadcast
footprint DECREASES media consolidation?

With respect to Internet for low income Americans, is she unaware that several
ISPs have introduced low cost Internet plans? Does she not understand that the
cost per bit for Internet access has been declining for two decades?

Cox just announced several new broadband plans here in Gainesville, starting at
$19.95/mo. Here is the promo page:

100 GBs service for $49.99...

!00 GBS service plus the TV bundle for $74.95.

This is what happens because of competition Bert.

The yahoos running around saying that the ISPs will block and throttle,
increase rates, and build fast lanes for preferred services are living in
another world - the world where a powerful centralized government controls
everything...

Chairman Pai needs to appreciate that the public, thankfully, is not as
ignorant or as uninvolved as he thinks. People do care, and people aren't put
to sleep so easily, by oily, formulaic rhetoric. Best to tell it like it is,
and then pay close attention to what your bosses think.

He is telling it like it is. He IS supporting the regulatory approach to
preserve Net Neutrality that the majority of Americans prefer. And he IS
listening to the people the FCC is paid to listen to. Just read the Report and
order and pay attention to all of the comments that are included. This
proceeding is not a popular vote - it is a normal FCC proceeding asking the
businesses affected by the proceeding to comment.

Here's one a propos comment, from Drod PC-Geek:

"I'm not gonna let a corrupted chairman take our internet freedom away!"

What is this yahoo going to do?

More important, what freedom is he seeking to protect?

No caps on bit torrent downloads of pirated movies?

The ability of Edge Providers to discriminate against points of view they
disagree with?

Oh wait - the FREEDOM to make the Internet a safe place for the snowflakes...

That's it, in a nutshell. How exactly would a corrupted FCC behave any
differently? I'm not the only one wondering. There are more than 120
comments, and just scanning them quickly, the *very* vast majority disagree
with the Chairman. Yet again.

How would an FCC that has been a corrupt regulatory institution for nearly a
century, an institution designed to protect regulated monopolies and a
broadcast oligopoly that carries the water for the progressive efforts to end
constitutional law in the U.S. behave Bert?

We already know. They violated the law and ordered that ISPs be regulated as
Telecoms.

How would an FCC that actually honors the fundamental premise of the 1934
Telecommunications Act - to protect the public interest - behave Bert?

The current FCC is behaving in a manner that is consistent with the law, the
efforts of Congress to deregulate the communications industry, and the public
interest.

They have no obligation to listen to a handful of yahoos who have used the
Internet to amplify their voices...

There is a tiny number of ambivalent and confused, among the commenters. For
these, ask yourselves why, from 2000 to 2015, i.e. when broadband was allowed
to be non-neutral, extra competition among fixed broadband companies was just
as non-existent as it is now.

That’s absurd. FAKE NEWS.

It is ROI that keeps competitors away, not neutrality regs. Using neutrality
regs as the reason is just another form of distraction, from this Chairman,
so he can go ahead and do the bidding of those three or four special
interests. And ignore everyone else. He fools an exceedingly small percentage
of people with his cynical rhetoric. The perennially and hopelessly clueless,
or those on the take.

WOW. Bert just used an acronym that they teach in business school - Return On
investment.

Too bad he is clueless as to what this means.

If he understood the issues involved he would stop trying to convince us that
the heavy handed regulations of the Telecoms under Title II was based on a very
simple principle...

“As a regulated monopoly your return on investments is GUARANTEED. If this
means increasing rates for consumers, we will happily approve the rate
increase.”

The reality, as I pointed out this week, is that the telcos could not enter the
broadband business BECAUSE of FCC regulation and the Congressional requirement
to unbundle the regulated lines operated by the Telcos. Only AFTER these
restrictions were removed did the Telcos start to deploy DSL and overbuild
cable systems with FTTH technology.

Why did the FTTH deployments slow in recent years?

A poor RETURN ON INVESTMENT.

Why are the Telcos starting to trial fixed wireless broadband?

A good RETURN ON INVESTMENT.

And then there is the reality that over the years that the Internet was
regulated s an Information Service there was $1.5 TRILLION in broadband
investment, including many municipalities, Google Fiber, and the cellular
wireless data services we all rely upon today using mobile devices.

Bert is, as usual, the champion of the perennially clueless.

Keep up the good work Bert!

Regards
Craig

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References:
- [opendtv] Commissioner Clyburn blog on net neutrality
  - From: Manfredi, Albert E

[opendtv] Re: Commissioner Clyburn blog on net neutrality

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