Jon Brodkin

Comcast should stop saying in advertisements that it “delivers the fastest Internet in America” and the “fastest in-home Wi-Fi," according to the advertising industry's self-regulation body. The evidence Comcast uses to substantiate those claims is not sufficient, ruled the National Advertising Review Board (NARB).

Verizon had challenged Comcast's advertising claims, leading to the ruling. Comcast said today that it disagreed with the findings but will comply with the decision. Comcast used crowdsourced speed test data from Ookla to make its claim about Xfinity Internet speeds. "Ookla’s data showed only that Xfinity consumers who took advantage of the free tests offered on the Speedtest.net website subscribed to tiers of service with higher download speeds than Verizon FiOS consumers who took advantage of the tests," today's NARB announcement said. The Ookla data's accuracy wasn't questioned, but it was judged to be "not a good fit for an overall claim that an ISP delivers 'America’s fastest Internet.'"

The Federal Communications Commission's new Republican leadership has decided not to defend FCC inmate calling rules that place a cap on intrastate calling rates. Chairman Ajit Pai and fellow Commissioner Michael O'Rielly repeatedly opposed attempts to cap the phone rates charged to prisoners while Democrats held the FCC's majority.

Republicans argued that the FCC exceeded its authority, and commission attempts to enforce rate caps have been stymied by a series of court decisions. Since the FCC prison rate order was adopted by a 3-2 vote in October 2015, Democrats Jessica Rosenworcel and Chairman Tom Wheeler have left the commission, FCC Deputy General Counsel David Gossett noted. "As a result of these changes in membership, the two Commissioners who dissented from the Order under review—on the grounds that, in specific respects, it exceeds the agency’s lawful authority—now comprise a majority of the Commission," Gossett wrote. Gossett is thus no longer authorized to defend the FCC's previous contention that it "has the authority to cap intrastate rates for inmate calling services" and cannot defend the FCC's assertion that it "lawfully considered industry-wide averages in setting the rate caps contained in the Order," he wrote. Gossett said he will continue to defend other parts of the commission's October 2015 order, which also lowered the price of interstate calls, those that cross state lines. The FCC's decision to stop defending the full order hurts the case for maintaining rate caps on intrastate calls in which both parties are in the same state, but it doesn't completely kill the case. The FCC is ceding 10 minutes of its allotted argument time to attorney Andrew Schwartzman, who is defending the rate caps on behalf of prisoners' rights groups.

In a press conference after the Federal Communications Commission meeting, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was asked several times about network neutrality. While Chairman Pai has repeatedly made it clear that he opposes the current rules and wants to overturn them, he has not said whether the commission will continue to enforce all of the rules while they are still in place. When asked by a reporter if the agency will continue to enforce the rules, Chairman Pai pointed out that he and fellow Republican Commissioner Michael O'Rielly already said they wouldn't punish small Internet service providers for violations of the net neutrality order's "enhanced transparency" rules.

The FCC is finalizing an order that will exempt ISPs with 250,000 or fewer subscribers from those truth-in-billing rules and will not enforce them against the small ISPs while they're still in place. But for now, Pai is not saying whether the commission will continue to enforce the core net neutrality rules that prohibit Internet providers from blocking or throttling traffic or giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment.

Comcast said it plans to offer a mobile phone service in 2017 with an emphasis on selling bundles of wireless and cable service. Launching the wireless product is a priority in 2017, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said. Comcast will be able to offer wireless service nationwide because of a reselling agreement with Verizon, but the company is expecting particularly good sales with existing customers in its cable territory.

"We plan to include wireless in our multi-product bundles in a way that is designed to add value to our customers, improve retention, and ultimately benefit lifetime customer economics for us," Roberts said. "Our offering will give customers access to a world-class wireless network, benefiting from our Wi-Fi [hotspots], with the best mobile devices and a simple, transparent experience, all for a great value." The Comcast "triple-play" bundle would thus expand to four major products: home Internet service, cable TV, landline phones, and mobile phones.

Google and Netflix joined a handful of advocacy groups and other companies lobbying against a proposed Virginia state law that would make it far more difficult for municipalities to offer Internet service. The "Virginia Broadband Deployment Act" would prohibit municipal broadband deployments except in very limited circumstances. For example, localities wouldn't be allowed to offer Internet service to residents if an existing network already provides 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds to 90 percent of potential customers. Even if that condition is met, municipalities would have to jump through several legal hoops before being allowed to build a network. "This bill would effectively ban new public broadband networks and public-private partnerships and cripple existing ones, harming both the public and private sectors, retarding economic growth, preventing the creation or retention of jobs around the Commonwealth, particularly in rural areas, hampering work force development, and diminishing the quality of life in Virginia," bill opponents including Google and Netflix wrote in a letter to State House Commerce Committee Chairman Terry Kilgore, a Republican.

Cox is continuing the trend of bringing data caps and overage fees to customers in new cities. Cox, the third largest cable company in the US after Comcast and Charter, has 6 million residential and business customers in 18 states. Much like Comcast, it has instituted a 1TB (1,024GB) monthly data cap and charges $10 for each additional 50GB block of data. Also like Comcast, Cox has been bringing the overage fees to a few cities at a time instead of deploying them to its entire territory all at once.

Cox brought the data caps first to Cleveland (OH) and then to Florida and Georgia in October 2016. This week, Cox expanded the overage fees to Arkansas; Connecticut; Kansas; Omaha, Nebraska; Iowa; and Sun Valley (ID). Customers can get data usage alerts from a browser, e-mail, text message, or automated phone call when they hit 85 percent, 100 percent, and 125 percent of their monthly data plans.

Comcast, AT&T, and industry lobbyist groups representing Internet service provider are heaping praise on Ajit Pai, who was appointed Federal Communications Commission chairman by President Donald Trump yesterday. Pai, a Republican commissioner and former lawyer for Verizon, has vowed to undo net neutrality rules and opposed numerous consumer protection regulations passed under his predecessor Tom Wheeler. With Republicans taking control of the commission, Pai has promised "to remove outdated and unnecessary regulations" imposed on ISPs.

Donald Trump's election has put Republicans in position to eliminate network neutrality rules and gut the Federal Communications Commission's authority to regulate broadband providers. But Trump voters need the consumer protections provided by the FCC as much or more than anyone, said Tom Wheeler, whose resignation as FCC chairman takes effect Jan 20.

In making the case for continued net neutrality rules and consumer protections, Wheeler pointed out that Trump voters in rural areas are vulnerable to the actions of major broadband providers. "The Trump administration campaigned that they are the voice of the forgotten," Wheeler said. "Well you know, the half-dozen major carriers [lobbying against FCC regulations] are hardly forgotten." The people who are forgotten are the "two-thirds of consumers in America who have one or fewer broadband choices," Wheeler said. "Where are those choices most limited? In the areas where Donald Trump got the strongest response, in rural areas, outside of major cities. If indeed this is an administration that is speaking for those that feel disenfranchised, that representation has to start with saying, 'we need to make sure you have a fast, fair, and open Internet because otherwise you will not be able to connect to the 21st century.'"

AT&T has raised its non-contract phone activation and upgrade fee from $20 to $25, the latest increase for a fee that didn't even exist until July 2015. As the mobile carrier switched from contracts to device payment plans, AT&T initially did not charge an activation and upgrade fee for customers who brought their own phone or bought one from AT&T on an installment plan. But in July 2015, AT&T started charging a $15 activation fee to customers who don't sign two-year contracts. (AT&T also raised the activation/upgrade fee for contract customers from $40 to $45 in July 2015.)

The activation fee for non-contract customers was raised from $15 to $20 in April 2016 and was just raised again to $25. The $25 fee is charged for new activations or upgrades when customers purchase devices on installment agreements, AT&T says. Customers who bring their own phone to the network are charged the $25 fee when they activate a new line of service, but not when they upgrade phones on an existing line.

New privacy rules that protect the Web browsing data of broadband subscribers went into effect just two weeks ago, but they could be overturned shortly after Republicans gain a majority at the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC voted on the rules on Oct 27, and they partially took effect on Jan 3. Also on Jan 3, trade groups representing Internet service providers filed petitions asking the FCC to reconsider the rulemaking, said an FCC public notice issued Jan 17. Normally, these petitions for reconsideration would be rejected by the FCC, and ISPs' next option would be to sue. But in this case, the privacy rules were passed 3-2, with three Democrats voting for the rules and two Republicans voting against them. Those two Republicans, Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly, will enjoy a 2-1 majority after President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration Jan 20.

Once the public notice is published in the Federal Register, supporters of the privacy rules will have 15 days to file oppositions to the petitions for reconsideration. After that, there will be another 10 days allotted for replies to oppositions. Commissioners Pai and O'Rielly will presumably then get the process for overturning the rules moving. Even if the FCC does eliminate the privacy rules in response to the petition for reconsideration, that action could be appealed in court by supporters of the privacy rules.