Internet/Broadband

Broadband industry lobby groups want to stop individual states from investigating the speed claims made by Internet service providers, and they are citing the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules in their effort to hinder the state-level actions. The industry attempt to undercut state investigations comes a few months after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against Charter and its Time Warner Cable (TWC) subsidiary that claims the ISP defrauded and misled New Yorkers by promising Internet speeds the company knew it could not deliver.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and USTelecom, lobby groups for the cable and telecom industries, in May petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for a declaratory ruling that would help ISPs defend themselves against state-level investigations. The FCC should declare that advertisements of speeds "up to" a certain level of megabits per second are consistent with federal law as long as ISPs meet their disclosure obligations under the net neutrality rules, the groups said. There should be a national standard enforced by the FCC instead of a state-by-state "patchwork of inconsistent requirements," they argue.

The cable industry’s top lobbying groups filed comments related to an April Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) intended to spur deployment of fiber wireline services. “Attachers face problems in obtaining access to poles, ducts, and conduit for two primary reasons. First, many utilities oppose mandated access to these facilities and have little, if any, incentive to provide access on a reasonable basis,” said the American Cable Association. “The second problem attachers face is that the Commission’s complaint process has proven to be of little value to attachers, especially smaller entities, in addressing all but the most serious and substantial attachment problems,” ACA added.

[Commenary] On June 19, California Assemblymember Ed Chau introduced a bill to give people in that state the broadband privacy rights that they lost in Congress. This legislation has all of the key elements that are needed to protect broadband users’ privacy.

States have long recognized the importance of protecting privacy. There’s no federal law that requires commercial websites to post their privacy policies, but California and Delaware require it. There are state laws protecting the privacy of e-book users, and on biometrics, monitoring of employees’ e-mail, data security, and much more. The California Broadband Internet Privacy Act is another example of states leading the way. Consumer Federation of America strongly endorses it.

The small city of Hull in northern England is planning to be one of the first places in Europe to consign its telephone lines to history. By the end of 2017, between 150,000 and 180,000 of Hull’s 210,000 buildings will be using the city’s super-fast fibre broadband network. That means it is time, according to Bill Halbert, the head of the local telecoms company KCOM, to start thinking about decommissioning the old copper telephone network. “Copper cannot handle the future,” said Halbert, who pointed out that most British households are now running seven to nine devices off their internet network and that fibre-optic cables are the only option. “It has to be fibre all the way. That’s one of the big national challenges for our economy.” If the city gets rid of its phone lines, it would follow in the footsteps of Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago, and the Channel island of Jersey. Palaiseau, outside Paris, is also planning to ditch the old wires in 2018.

A former CenturyLink employee claims she was fired for blowing the whistle on the telecommunications company's high-pressure sales culture that left customers paying millions of dollars for accounts they didn't request, according to a lawsuit filed in Arizona state superior court. The company's shares fell the most in six weeks on the news, while the shares of merger partner Level 3 Communications Inc. also dropped sharply.

The plaintiff, Heidi Heiser, worked from her home for CenturyLink as a customer service and sales agent from August 2015 to October 2016. The suit claims she was fired days after notifying Chief Executive Officer Glen Post of the alleged scheme during a companywide question-and-answer session held on an internal message board. The complaint alleges CenturyLink "allowed persons who had a personal incentive to add services or lines to customer accounts to falsely indicate on the CenturyLink system the approval by a customer of new lines or services." This would sometimes result in charges that hadn't been authorized by customers, according to the complaint.

Verizon is supporting a controversial rule that would help network operators deploy fiber much more quickly by giving them faster access to utility poles. So-called "One Touch Make Ready" rules let Internet service providers make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles themselves instead of having to wait for other providers like AT&T and Comcast to send work crews to move their own wires.

Some cities passed their own One Touch Make Ready rules in order to help Google Fiber compete against incumbents. When Nashville passed such a rule, it was sued by Comcast and AT&T. When Louisville passed a similar rule, it was sued by AT&T and Charter. Verizon outlined its support for One Touch Make Ready in a blog post and an FCC filing. Verizon notes that it is in a unique position as "one of the few broadband providers with experience both as a pole owner and as a wireline and wireless attacher to other people’s poles."

The Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council has joined with a handful of groups to raise a red flag at the Federal Communications Commission over an Oregon Supreme Court ruling upholding a 7% fee on broadband provided by cable operators. They argue that it is an attempt to circumvent the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which Congress made permanent in 2016. The Permanent ITFA prevents states and localities from imposing taxes on internet access, but the Oregon court ruled that the 7% levy, imposed by the city of Eugene, was a license rather than a tax. MMTC wants the FCC to preempt the Eugene fee and any similar ones that might follow. It is also concerned that other states and localities, which fought ITFA, will follow suit given the signal from the court.

Rep David McKinley (R-WV) has introduced a bill that would require the Federal Communications Commission to establish a standard for whether wireless and wired broadband services in rural areas are reasonably comparable to those in urban areas.

The bill would "direct the Federal Communications Commission to promulgate regulations that establish a national standard for determining whether mobile and broadband services available in rural areas are reasonably comparable to those services provided in urban areas." The bill, the Rural Reasonable and Comparable Wireless Act of 2017 (HR 2903), has been referred to the House Energy & Commerce Committee. The bill is co-sponsored by Rep Peter Welch (D-VT).

[Commentary] The political left is very vocal in their criticism of science deniers. After all, the denial of reality ultimately harms humanity. Unfortunately, the left has a similar blind spot when it comes to regulation. Economic fundamentals also have a claim on reality, a claim we ignore at our peril. This blind spot is on stark display over so-called network neutrality rules. By forbidding Internet bandwidth pricing to reflect economic costs, they are engaging in a form of science denial. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai is absolutely right in his efforts to undo these delusional and ultimately harmful Obama-era rules.

[Barry Fagin is senior fellow in technology policy at the Independence Institute]

[Commentary] What makes for a persuasive comment that can help build a record to preserve network neutrality rules? Here are four suggestions:
1. Write about yourself and how the net neutrality rules have affected you
2. Write about what you understand you are buying when you purchase broadband Internet access
3. Write about the choices you have (or don’t) for broadband Internet access
4. Write about what role you think the Federal Communications Commission should have in overseeing the market for broadband Internet access

Don’t worry if you’ve already filed a comment that doesn’t address these issues – you can file new comments addressing these and/or other issues. Over the course of a proceeding like this, companies and organizations on both sides of the debate will file many comments, including after they visit FCC Commissioners and staff to make their cases. So don’t hesitate - we need to build the strongest possible record if the net neutrality rules, and an open Internet, are to be preserved.

[Gigi Sohn is a Fellow with Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy, the Open Society Foundations and Mozilla. She served as Counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from November 2013-December 2016.]