Jon Brodkin

President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is reportedly pushing a proposal to strip the Federal Communications Commission of its role in overseeing competition and consumer protection. Harold Feld, senior VP of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, called this plan "a declaration of war on the most basic principles of universal service, consumer protection, competition, and public safety that have been the bipartisan core of the Communications Act for the last 80+ years."

Feld argued that this proposal would "poison the well for any serious effort to update the Communications Act." Feld also worries about the impact on rural areas, which are given special protections in the Communications Act, he said. Feld said that the FCC itself has "considerable latitude" to limit its own enforcement actions "and to use rulemakings and forbearances to strip itself of authority," but it still has to meet the requirements of the federal Administrative Procedures Act. Moreover, the proposal to shift FCC competition and consumer protection authority to agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission would require the writing of extremely complicated legislation in Congress, he said. "This level of radical restructuring makes the 1996 [Communications Act update] look trivial," Feld said.

Verizon Wireless is now charging a $30 upgrade fee when customers switch to a new phone, up from the previous fee of $20. The $30 upgrade fee must be paid "if you purchase a new device at retail price or through [Verizon's] device payment program," Verizon notes. The fee increase went into effect on January 5. In another change, Verizon stopped offering two-year contract renewals and device subsidies to existing customers (Verizon had already stopped offering contracts and subsidies to new customers).

When asked why the upgrade fee was raised, a Verizon spokesperson said, "These fees help cover increased cost to provide customers with America’s largest and fastest 4G LTE network." But Verizon's wireless capital expenditures have decreased, according to the company's latest earnings report. In Q3 2016, Verizon Wireless capital expenditures were $2.77 billion, down from $2.92 billion in Q3 2015, a decrease of 5.1 percent. The decrease was even bigger when looking at the first nine months of 2016. In that period, Verizon Wireless capital expenses were $7.78 billion, down from $8.47 billion for the first nine months of 2015, a drop of 8.2 percent. Verizon's total wireless operating expenses also declined more than 5 percent between 2015 and 2016. Verizon’s wireless operating revenue also declined in 2016, a fact that may help explain the fee increase.

Canada's telecommunications regulator declared that broadband Internet must be considered "a basic telecommunications service for all Canadians" and created a fund to connect rural and remote communities. With this decision, high-speed broadband is now treated as an essential technology similar to voice service. All Canadians should be able to purchase home Internet with 50Mbps download speeds and 10Mbps uploads, and they should have the option of purchasing unlimited data, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announcement said.

A new fund will make $750 million available over the next five years to support projects in areas where that level of broadband isn't available. Money will be distributed to applicants based upon a competitive process. Funding can be used either for fixed broadband service or to upgrade mobile networks, but the goals of 50Mbps/10Mbps and unlimited data for all is specifically for home Internet service. Currently, about 18 percent of Canadians, representing 2 million households, don't have access to 50Mbps/10Mbps service.

The Federal Communications Commission's two Republican members, Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly, told Internet service providers that they will get to work on gutting network neutrality rules "as soon as possible."

Commissioners Pai and O'Rielly sent a letter to five lobby groups representing wireless carriers and small ISPs; while the letter is mostly about plans to extend an exemption for small providers from certain disclosure requirements, the commissioners also said they will tackle the entire net neutrality order shortly after President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20. "[W]e will seek to revisit [the disclosure] requirements, and the Title II Net Neutrality proceeding more broadly, as soon as possible," they wrote, referring to the order that imposed net neutrality rules and reclassified ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. Commissioners Pai and O'Rielly noted that they "dissented from the Commission's February 2015 Net Neutrality decision, including the Order's imposition of unnecessary and unjustified burdens on providers."

AT&T and Verizon on Dec 16 urged the Federal Communications Commission to drop a network neutrality investigation into the companies' practice of exempting their own video from mobile data caps while charging competitors for the same exemptions. The wireless carriers have a good chance of avoiding any punishment because the FCC next month will switch to Republican control under President-elect Donald Trump, an opponent of net neutrality rules. For now, the companies are cooperating in the case, with each carrier sending replies to the FCC by the commission's deadline. AT&T lets its subsidiary DirecTV stream video without counting against AT&T mobile customers' data caps, while Verizon's Go90 video service doesn't count against data caps on the Verizon Wireless network. Other video providers must pay AT&T or Verizon to get the same data cap exemptions, also known as "zero-rating."

Tom Wheeler was sworn in to the Federal Communications Commission in November 2013, and he knew the industry well because he was a former lobbyist. From 1979 to 1984, he led the cable industry's top lobby group, and from 1992 to 2004 he was the chief lobbyist for the mobile phone industry. Looking back, Chairman Wheeler says it was easier being a lobbyist. "To make decisions that are in the common good is tough," Chairman Wheeler said. "Remember: I have been on the other side. Making demands that benefit a specific constituency is easy, as is attacking the decision-makers when you don't like that decision."

Chairman Wheeler said his greatest lesson from being chairman "is how malleable the definition of the public interest becomes when it comes to protecting self-interest. Good people would come into the office and explain that what benefited them was in the public interest, and those of an opposing view would argue that the public interest was only as they defined it." Chairman Wheeler said he concluded that "I needed to define the public interest as the common good. At a time when everyone is wrapping their self-interest in their definition of public interest, the question has to be what is the best way to serve the common interests of the most [people]."

The Nashville (TN) metro government wants a court to throw out a Comcast lawsuit that seeks to overturn rules designed to speed up deployment of Google Fiber. Nashville filed a motion to dismiss Comcast's lawsuit in US District Court in Tennessee on Nov 30, saying that Comcast incorrectly claimed Nashville's rules are preempted by state and federal law. The case is about Nashville's "One Touch Make Ready" ordinance that gives Internet service providers faster access to utility poles. One Touch Make Ready (also known as "Climb Once") lets new competitors move existing ISPs' wires in order to make room for new pole attachments, instead of having to wait for the incumbent ISPs to send work crews to move their own wires. The metro government passed the rules to help Google Fiber install wires faster, but both AT&T and Comcast are seeking to invalidate the ordinance.

President-elect Donald Trump announced a third advisor to oversee the Federal Communications Commission's transition from Democratic to Republican control. Roslyn Layton, Trump's new addition, joins Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison on the FCC transition team. All three are outspoken opponents of the FCC's Title II network neutrality rules and are affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Layton argued on the AEI blog that government regulations aren't necessary to protect net neutrality.

"Regulation proponents argue that without such rules your Internet provider would speed up or slow down websites," she wrote. "There have never been rules against this, but Internet providers don’t do it anyway. Simply put, the business opportunity to deliver an open Internet is far greater. Failing that, antitrust laws deter discriminatory behavior, already ensuring net neutrality." Layton opposed proposed rules intended to provide alternatives to set-top boxes that must be rented from cable TV companies and customer privacy rules for Internet providers. She also supports ISPs' right to accept money in exchange for exempting some services from data caps.

The mere presence of gigabit Internet speeds in a metro area drives down the price of plans with slower speeds, according to new industry-funded research. Thus, the data suggests that even customers who don't purchase gigabit Internet benefit from its availability. This research also found—to no one’s surprise—that having more Internet service providers in a particular region drives prices down and that the presence of fast speeds encourages other ISPs to offer higher-speed plans to match their competitors.

The study, titled “Broadband competition helps to drive lower prices and faster download speeds for US residential consumers,” analyzed DSL, cable, and fiber broadband plans from the 100 largest DMAs (designated market areas) in the US. It was written by Analysis Group, an economics consulting firm, with research funding from the Fiber to the Home Council, an industry consortium founded by fiber network equipment manufacturers.

As Republicans prepare to take over the Federal Communications Commission, outgoing Chairman Tom Wheeler defended his Democratic majority’s decisions and said he hopes the FCC will continue to protect consumers under President Donald Trump. Chairman Wheeler said: "Certain of my colleagues identified the items on today's proposed agenda as controversial and asked that they not be considered today. I hope that this doesn't mean that these issues won't be quickly addressed after the transfer of leadership of this agency. It is unfortunate that hospitals and small businesses in search of competitive alternatives will be denied that opportunity. They deserve better from this commission. It is truly disappointing that 1.4 million Americans living in rural areas without LTE service will continue to be so deprived. They deserve better from this commission. And it is tragic that 1.3 million Americans who are blind and millions more who are visually impaired will not be able to enjoy expanded video description. They deserve better from this commission. All of these matters are so-called 'controversial' because they are opposed principally by the largest incumbent firms in the sector. As the deferred items reflect, when so-called controversy is the result of choosing between the broader common good or those incumbents preferring the status quo, I believe the public interest should prevail."

“Taking a fast, fair and open internet away from the public would be a real mistake,” a somber and steely-eyed Chairman Wheeler told reporters after the FCC’s monthly meeting. “Taking away network privacy that consumers enjoy as a result of our decision would be a real mistake.”