Michael Hiltzik

Spectrum, like other big companies, seeks to abandon its merger promises

Back in 2016, the giant cable company Charter Communications made several promises required by federal regulators as conditions for the approval of a merger deal that would make Charter even more gargantuan. Are you shocked that, now that the merger has long been completed, Charter is asking the Federal Communications Commission to rescind some of those conditions? Me neither. Especially given that the result of any such FCC action would be to allow Charter, which operates its cable and broadband systems under the Spectrum brand, to raise prices on many of its internet users. 

With its Sprint merger in the bag, T-Mobile is already backing away from its promises

T-Mobile and Sprint completed their merger on April 1. And now — no surprise to the deal’s opponents — the merged company is already reneging on some of conditions regulators imposed to approve the deal. Most recently T-Mobile has moved to overturn several conditions imposed by the California Public Utilities Commission, including at least one the company specifically promised Atty. Gen.

Coronavirus will hurt us all. But it will be worst for those who have the least

The rift between the experience of Americans able to work from home and those in the service sector, now out of work, underscores how dramatically the crisis is separating the haves in the U.S. economy from those who don’t have much. When a crisis strikes, it’s the latter who bear the brunt of the damage. That’s going to play out this time with particular ferocity in the United States for several reasons. One is that since the last recession we’ve become increasingly dependent on low-income jobs with poor benefits and fragile guarantees of continued employment.

5G will be the next revolution in global communications, but the US may be left behind

Harvard Law School's Susan Crawford has written a new book,  “Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution — and Why America Might Miss It.” She's assembled her concerns about US connectivity, along with her suggestions how to alleviate them. The data-carrying capacity of the next generation of fiber-optics, known as “5G” (as the fifth generation of wireless telecommunications technology), will give countries that invest in those advanced networks a huge advantage over those that don’t.

Sonic is a small ISP that competes brilliantly with the big guys — so they're trying to throttle its business

For years, the big internet service providers have striven to hamstring competition across the telecommunications landscape. And in June 2018, they essentially asked the Federal Communications Commission to finish the job by repealing a rule granting competing phone and internet companies wholesale access to their copper-wire phone infrastructure.

The blueprint for the disastrous AT&T-Time Warner deal was written years ago by the Comcast-NBC merger

[Commentary] The AT&T/Time Waner deal is not unique. Its template was laid out in 2011 by what was then the biggest such “vertical” merger in the information and entertainment sectors: Comcast’s $30-billion takeover of NBCUniversal.  That earlier deal united a big Internet service provider with a big purveyor of content. It was pitched as bringing huge benefits to the public — improved cable TV and internet technology, more innovative TV programming, lower prices. Have you seen any of that since 2011? Me neither. 

FCC Chairman Pai defends his attack on net neutrality by substituting ideology for history

The world of the internet, as seen by Federal Communications Chairman Ajit Pai, is a simple one. Regulation is bad, deregulation is good. Conservatives are victims, and liberals reign supreme. And history doesn’t matter. In defending his campaign to repeal FCC regulations governing network neutrality, Pai got the history of regulation and the history of internet technology wrong, repeated his cherry-picked version of internet economics, and took irrelevant potshots at some of his critics in the information industry.

The FCC's abandonment of network neutrality will end the internet as we know it

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s assertion that consumers will be served by Internet service providers’ “transparently” offering them “the plan that’s best for them” is fatuous in the extreme. The more likely outcome is that consumer options will shrink. They’ll “transparently” know that they’re being offered fewer choices, none of which will genuinely encompass an open internet. The truth is that competition among ISPs is shrinking, and their power already is enormous.

AT&T's rollout of broadband serves the rich, shunts mid- and low-income families to the slow lane

The argument that the private sector can do things better, faster and cheaper than government never seems to go out of style. But a new report on AT&T’s strategy for rolling out high-speed Internet service in California underscores what may be the biggest flaw in that argument: When critical infrastructure construction is left entirely to private companies, much of the public gets shortchanged.

In deciding where to build its network, AT&T chooses to “follow the demand for high internet speeds and determine where there are solid investment cases and receptive policies,” and prefers cities that have “established a strong environment for investing.” By their nature, these are likely to be more affluent communities with residents who appreciate the benefits of high-speed communications because they have experience using them. But that also leaves behind communities whose residents don’t voice a demand for the best services because they don’t know what they’re missing—or who don’t have the money to buy the Internet-connected goods and services that put additional revenues in the ISP’s pocket. At its heart, this is a strategy in which the rich get richer—widening, not narrowing, the digital divide. One can’t blame a private company for responding to the profit motive any more than one can blame a dog for drinking from the toilet. But that’s what government regulation is for — to ensure that a private company endowed by government with a largely monopolistic franchise compensate the community for its windfall in part by serving all residents equally.

Quietly but decisively, Trump's FCC is delivering big favors for big broadband companies

[Commentary] The Trump administration’s determination to roll back regulations protecting the environment, voting rights and financial services consumers has been drawing most of the public’s attention. But a stunningly swift and thorough deregulatory campaign is happening elsewhere in Washington: at the Federal Communications Commission.

Under its new chairman, the Republican former telecommunications industry attorney Ajit Pai, the FCC has cancelled, suspended or stayed a whole checklist of consumer-friendly regulations affecting broadband services, telecommunications, video content and customer privacy rights. Consumer advocates say the consequences may include higher rates for Internet service, less privacy for customers going online and a narrower choice of content. In what may be his most far-reaching act, Pai announced Feb. 27 that the FCC would take a hands-off approach to the AT&T-Time Warner merger, an $85-billion deal between a content distributor and content producer that could remake both industries. That leaves jurisdiction over the merger to the Department of Justice, which is unlikely to block it. President Trump has said he opposes the merger, but he also held a closed-door meeting with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson just before the inauguration, so whether he will intervene to block the deal remains unknown.

As Google Fiber scales down its broadband business, San Francisco moves ahead on its own

[Commentary] Hopes that Google would establish a nationwide model for fiber Internet service were dashed, when the company suddenly declared a “pause” in its plans to lay fiber in as many as 18 municipalities. The disappointed suitors will have to wait for this strategy to play out or move ahead on their own. They would be well advised to keep an eye on San Francisco. That city is contemplating what would be the largest and most ambitious public broadband system in the country, with the ultimate goal of running fiber into every home and public building.

San Francisco has some advantages other communities lack. It’s geographically compact and densely populated, with a technophile citizenry. But the city of 865,000 residents is facing a daunting challenge. No city of comparable size has deployed a system of fiber to every building. The technical and physical obstacles to laying fiber citywide could sink the project at birth. The cost, which could come close to $1 billion, could raise public and political opposition. Existing Internet providers such as Comcast and AT&T can be expected to fight the project through lobbying and lawsuits. Still, this is a city sensitive to its digital inadequacies. As of 2014, the legislative analyst reported, only 2.6% of San Francisco residents had gigabit-per-second access, the gold standard for broadband connectivity. To this day, service in a city closely identified with high technology is spotty and often atrocious.

Cable and telecom firms score a huge win in their war to kill municipal broadband

[Commentary] Cable and telecommunications companies chalked up their biggest victory yet — in a courtroom, not a legislative chamber. The 6th Circuit US Court of Appeals shut down an effort by the Federal Communications Commission to foster the spread of municipal broadband. The FCC, arguing that the public interest was served by more competition in the broadband market, had tried to overturn state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina blocking the creation or expansion of municipal systems.

But what’s intriguing about the ruling is that it accepted the FCC’s reasoning that competition from municipal systems works well. The restrictions imposed by Tennessee and North Carolina were “onerous,” agreed Judge John M. Rogers, writing for the court. Thanks to this week’s appeals court ruling, supporters of community broadband will have to continue their work without the assistance of the FCC. But by providing lousy service, the cable and telecommunications industries may make their job easier.

The net neutrality battle: FCC chairman backs away, but not enough

[Commentary] Fans of network neutrality -- the idea that Internet service providers shouldn't be able to block, slow, or favor some content providers over others -- should show Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler a little love.

Obviously, that's not because Chairman Wheeler's open Internet proposal, scheduled for presentation to his fellow Federal Communications Commission members, upholds the net neutrality principle. It doesn't; by condoning "paid prioritization," through which some content providers can pay to get better access to users than others, it does immense violence to the principle.

No, Chairman Wheeler deserves some love because his ham-handed way of putting out his plan has placed what might otherwise be an obscure proposal followed mainly by techies on a much bigger burner. Chairman Wheeler has responded to the public uproar generated by his plan to back off it, a wee bit. It's still bad for the Internet.

The upcoming vote wouldn't implement Chairman Wheeler's proposal, but open it up for public comment. But it would be a major step in the wrong direction.

There is no question that allowing such arrangements would be a major retreat for the FCC. The agency would be placed in the position of ruling on commercial deals that already had been put in place, and trying to unwind those it didn't like, based on very murky standards. This would be like trying to dismantle a skyscraper after it's been built.