Verge, The

Feb 26 marked the two-year anniversary of network neutrality passing at the Federal Communications Commission. Unfortunately for advocates, the anniversary hasn’t been so sweet. “It’s kind of tragic that we're observing the second anniversary of its passing with all signs indicating a frontal assault is going to be launched against it,” said Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner.

You’d think that with net neutrality now in effect, we’d be able to look around to see what kind of impact the policy has had — whether it’s lived up to advocates high hopes or whether it’s destroyed the internet as opponents warned. But for the most part, net neutrality opponents are sticking with the same arguments they used two years ago: the rules rely on law that’s too old, they’ll hurt investment, and they’ll leave internet providers uncertain of their fate. “Contrary to the over-hyped fears of the carriers and their friends, nothing bad has come to pass,” says Gigi Sohn, who worked as a counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler while the net neutrality rules were being put in place. “They continue to invest heavily in their networks, they’re buying other properties ... they continue to buy edge companies and other telecoms.”

A primer on 5G.

The 2017 Mobile World Congress trade show kicks off next week, and in addition to the plethora of new smartphones, 5G network news is expected to show up in a big way. But what exactly is 5G? Is that the same as gigabit networks? LTE Advanced? Is the whole thing just a marketing trick, like when AT&T and T-Mobile renamed HSPA+ as “4G” data to cover for their lack of LTE support? In the simplest possible definition, 5G is the fifth generation of cellular networking. It’s the next step in mobile technology, what the phones and tablets of the future will use for data, and it should make our current LTE networks as slow and irrelevant as 3G data seems now.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has had a whirlwind first month, taking immediate action to scale back network neutrality, slow broadband subsidies for low-income households, and block efforts to reform the exorbitant calling rates to prisons. But in the background of all of this, Chairman Pai has also made a series of changes at the commission in the name of transparency.

He’s explored publishing FCC orders a month before they're voted on, alongside a one-page summary (instead of close to one month after they’re voted on); limited the extent to which the commission can edit orders after a vote; and given commissioners more oversight of enforcement actions (fines, mostly) that punish companies for violating FCC rules These appear to be positive developments for the public. We get more insight into what the FCC is up to, and more assurance that the commission won't try to meaningfully alter orders at the last second. Politicians and former FCC insiders seem to agree, to a point. But many also express concerns that the changes could backfire, by working in lobbyists’ favor, slowing down the commission, or putting its rulings in a legally precarious position. Some also questioned how committed Chairman Pai was to transparency, pointing out that he’s been less than forthcoming about the commission’s most controversial actions.

Newly-appointed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has already chipped away at network neutrality, slowed a program that assists low-income households with broadband access, and hurt efforts to reform exorbitant calling fees for inmates — and that’s just his first two weeks on the job. The chairman of the FCC has exceptional power over what the commission does and how it functions. And that means Chairman Pai, more than anyone else right now, has control over the fate of not just hot-button issues like net neutrality, but the competitive landscape of the cable and wireless industries. Pai’s oft-repeated mission statement has been to “[eliminate] unnecessary and burdensome rules” at the commission. But so far, that’s meant scaling back vital protections for the internet that advocates and millions of consumers loudly fought for and won. As Chairman Pai continues to tweak regulations, he has the ability to undermine core tenets of net neutrality and broadly reshape the FCC in the process.

Some Republicans have long hoped to turn the FCC into a toothless management office, and these early actions demonstrate Pai’s power to help them do it. There are two ways Republicans can go about curtailing the power of the FCC. The more transformative method is to overhaul telecom law in order to strip out its strength as a regulator and its mandate to look out for the public good. The easier, if less transformative method — since core functions of the FCC are ultimately dictated by law — would be to have the FCC reorganize itself, which it can do in small ways on its own and in larger ways with a nod from Congress.

In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission moved in to cap what many consider to be exorbitant rates for inmate phone calls. Shortly thereafter, the agency was sued by the prison phone industry, which challenged the agency’s authority to set rates for calls within state lines. The lawsuit has been advancing, but the presidential election brought a new administration to the White House. Ajit Pai, the new, Donald Trump-appointed Chairman of the FCC, said in a letter that the agency would no longer defend the agency’s in-state rate caps in court.

Although that would seem to suggest a legal win by default for the phone industry, that’s not the case. Instead, a hearing continued as scheduled, with the FCC simply refusing to make its case. Other parties, however, continue to advocate for the caps in court, with the FCC on the sidelines. “It’s harder than usual to figure out what’s going on,” says Georgetown law professor Andrew Schwartzman, who argued for the rate caps in front of the court. “I’m not at all sure, however, that [Pai’s] letter… doesn’t have legal significance,” one member of the three-judge panel said as the court heard arguments. “There’s not a lot of precedent to deal with this kind of situation,” Schwartzman says.

Snap, Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, filed its IPO paperwork Feb 2, and there’s lots of information about the company and its business contained inside. The company is required to list the various risks and threats it might face as it attempts to grow, and while some of them seem obvious — the company points out that it doesn’t control the iOS and Android operating systems the Snapchat app runs on, for example — there’s also a pointed callout of potential network neutrality changes. They wrote, "If the FCC, Congress, the European Union, or the courts modify these open internet rules, mobile providers may be able to limit our users’ ability to access Snapchat or make Snapchat a less attractive alternative to our competitors’ applications. Were that to happen, our business would be seriously harmed."

President Donald Trump’s long-held Android phone is a security nightmare for a high-level politician, but according to a report from The New York Times, the newly inaugurated president is still using the device. In a profile of the president’s time so far in the White House, the Times reports that President Trump has held on to his “old, unsecured Android phone” — previously reported to be a Samsung device — despite some protests by his aides.

According to the Times, he used it to tweet Jan 24, suggesting he would “send in the Feds” to Chicago. (The tweet was apparently sent in response to a Bill O’Reilly segment.) Another Times report said Trump “traded in his Android phone for a secure, encrypted device approved by the Secret Service with a new number that few people possess,” but Trump has reportedly kept the Android phone to continue tweeting, and is even getting calls on it. In the Times profile, Trump did have kind words for the security of the White House phones, saying “words just explode in the air.” What he meant was that no one was listening in and recording his words.

T-Mobile says that from January 2017 forward, all of the postpaid plans it sells will offer an unlimited amount of data. John Legere, the company’s CEO, says the change reflects the way that people have begun using mobile data, where it’s in frequently the primary way they access the internet. “The internet was meant to be unlimited,” Legere said. “Why the hell are carriers still selling the mobile internet this way?” T-Mobile will stop offering plans with data limits as of January 22nd, only offering its “unlimited” T-Mobile One plans. The carrier telegraphed this move several months back, when it first unveiled the new plan’s branding, but it’s only now fully removing other options. While T-Mobile won’t be selling postpaid plans with data caps, it will still offer prepaid plans with specific data limits.

Google has been sued by the Department of Labor for withholding data in an ongoing audit. In a complaint filed Jan 4, the Department says Google refused to provide compensation data as part of an anti-discrimination audit, and seeks a court order forcing the company to comply. The case stems from Google’s federal contracting business, which provides advertising and cloud computing services to a number of federal agencies. The lawsuit doesn’t allege that Google actually engaged in discrimination, only that it dragged its heels as the Department of Labor conducted the necessary audit. According to the complaint, officers launched the audit in September 2015, requesting a series of compensation snapshots drawn from current Google employees that could be compared over time. A few months later, Google replied with a letter declining to produce the some of the data. Google says it withheld that data for privacy reasons, but has produced hundreds of thousands of records over the course of the audit.

Newscorp CEO Rupert Murdoch may have a significant influence in the next four years of American telecommunication policy. According to a new report from New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman, President-elect Donald Trump has asked the conservative Australian broadcast titan to submit names of his preferred candidates for chair of the Federal Communications Commission. There’s no guarantee Trump will follow Murdoch’s recommendations, but the news suggests Murdoch already wields significant influence in the incoming administration. Apparently, Murdoch is also lobbying for further conditions on AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner, potentially because he sees the new conglomerate as a threat to his holdings.