Apparently, Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has been tapped to head the House Communications Subcommittee. Rep Blackburn has been active on the subcommittee, opposing the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules, broadband privacy framework and set-top box revamp. She has been vice chair of the full committee. She is also on President-elect Donald Trump's transition team executive committee.
Even as congressional cable bill line item critics were targeting retransmission and sports net fees, the outgoing administration was taking aim at some cable bill line items as well. In a report on hidden fees in various sectors—event ticketing, resorts, airlines—the White House's National Economic Council devoted a section to cable and phone fees, their own and third-party fees, that increase the price of service above the advertised price. "Hence, the subscriber to a $39.99 monthly plan might pay a real price of $46.99 thanks to the addition of an industry-imposed $4 'regulatory cost recovery fee' [the FCC charges cable operators a regulatory fee] and a $3 'administrative fee,' which are all paid to the telephone company, and therefore represent the real price of the service," the report said.
It called the complexity of fees on telecommunication bills a cause for independent concern. The report slammed carriers for "sometimes" adding third-party fees without notice to the consumer. "While carriers may argue that the fees are optional in the sense that they can be removed, given that customers do not affirmatively opt-into paying these fees, they are effectively hidden." The White House suggests that market forces, alone, will not and have not been effective in discouraging hidden fees but gives consumer groups credit for helping moderate them.
T-Mobile is trying to simplify how it and other wireless companies sell you phone service — and how they bill you for it. If it works, it could help clear up those headaches you may get while trying to decipher what you're actually paying for month after month.
T-Mobile said that beginning Jan 22, it will only sell a single cellular plan to new customers: a plan that gives you unlimited talk, text and data (though heavy users may still experience reduced Internet speeds during periods of high demand). This plan, known as T-Mobile One, has been around for a while now. But T-Mobile's decision to sell only this plan moving forward is an effort to streamline what can be a confusing jumble in the industry of different-size data buckets, temporary promotional discounts and opaque billing that adds up to billions every year, according to the company. The centerpiece of this new approach is the notion of single-figure billing: You see one number on your bill, and you pay it. That's it — no additional line items for taxes or other fees. As an example, a family of four might previously have paid $40 a line, and then additional miscellaneous charges on top of that, upping the total.
[Commentary] If we just blindly build networks of roads and bridges that are just like the ones we built in the 1950s, we could miss out on opportunities to nurture the autonomous car industry, innovative energy technologies, drone delivery airspace, and expanded broadband infrastructure. Or, heck, we might only need half as many actual roads if autonomous cars really do end up dramatically reducing the number of vehicles on them. Infrastructure investment is a stated goal of President-elect Donald Trump—he originally promised a $1 trillion investment, which then dropped to about half, according to the Trump transition website.
But by most analyses, that plan actually depends on investment by private companies who’ll get big tax breaks for embarking on infrastructure projects. There’s some skepticism about why those private companies might get involved in such large, expensive undertakings, but if they do, maybe that’ll mean they’re also investing in high-tech experiments that could pay off for all of us in the long run. Or maybe the chance to develop and eventually sell futuristic tech will motivate them to invest in the first place.
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