from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
When Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr was selected last November, I was quick to point out that the U.S. press was completely disinterested in what this meant for stuff like broadband consumer protection. Outlets at the time were quick to push quotes about what a “nice guy” Carr was. Few could be bothered to mention he’d be taking a hatchet to essential consumer, labor, media, and market protections.
Carr is already doing all sorts of terrible shit, whether it’s illegally leveraging FCC power to trample the First Amendment, bullying media companies that aren’t kissing Trump’s ass, or attacking FCC civil rights reforms. But he’s also now hard at work on rubber stamping AT&T and Comcast’s every last wish, in stark contrast to Trumpism’s pseudo-“populist” man of the people nonsense.
That of course means killing off the FCC’s inquiry in to predatory broadband usage caps. And killing popular net neutrality rules. And eliminating media consolidation limits so NBC Universal Comcast can get bigger and shittier. And eliminating all FCC inquiries into predatory fees. And eliminating enforcement of rules requiring that your broadband and cable company be transparent about pricing.
Carr is finishing a generational project by giant media and telecom companies to completely neuter the FCC so giant companies can fuck you and your family over without constraint. And you’d be hard pressed to find much mention of this fact in the highly consolidated U.S. press (some of them owned by… Comcast).
There’s a lot of this that won’t see much coverage in the clickbait era under the din of more terrible policies. One key policy agenda for Carr is to rubberstamp AT&T’s long-desired effort to eliminate any rules governing the country’s aging (and heavily taxpayer subsidized) copper-based DSL and phone lines:
“The Federal Communications Commission is making it easier for telcos to turn off old copper phone and DSL networks with four changes that relax requirements related to copper shutoffs. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr—who is also pushing a “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative to get rid of as many rules as possible—said in an announcement today that agency rules have prevented providers from upgrading to faster networks.”
Carr (and AT&T’s) narrative here is bullshit.
Four years years ago AT&T, a heavily taxpayer subsidized company that has historically cheaped out on upgrading its broadband lines to fiber, effectively stopped selling DSL. While that’s understandable given the limitations of the dated copper-based tech, the problem is that thanks to concentrated telecom monopolization, many of these customers were left without any replacement options due to a lack of competition.
AT&T has, for decades, received countless billions in tax cuts, subsidies, merger approvals, and regulatory favors (remember how killing net neutrality, broadband privacy rules, or approving a wave of doomed mergers were all supposed to unleash untold innovation, job creation, and fiber network expansion? Yeah, AT&T doesn’t either).
In many states, AT&T has managed to lobby lawmakers into removing any requirement that the company continue servicing these users, many of whom are elderly folks still using traditional landlines used for 911 access. That’s been easier in some states than others. It was caught bribing Illinois lawmakers to pass such “reform.” California’s also been resistant to letting AT&T off the hook.
But thanks to Carr, AT&T will finally get what it wants: the ability to turn off these taxpayer-subsidized networks without having to worry about the pesky reality of what happens to users left in a lurch. Users suddenly without access will likely be shoveled off to more expensive wireless (likely congested due to, again, a lack of investment by AT&T in local rural fiber), or told to buy Elon Musk’s Starlink service, ignoring the fact it’s congested, expensive, and destroys the ozone layer.
There’s no substitute for future-proof fiber.
Again, it’s essential to note that AT&T has received untold billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks in exchange for near-Utopian promises of new fiber deployment. It received $42 billion alone from the last set of Trump tax cuts. It has spent untold millions of dollars lobbying to successfully defang the FCC and eliminate whatever’s left of consumer protections. It’s been accused of ripping off low income programs for the poor and rural school broadband programs.
Nobody’s ever done an audit of AT&T’s fraud, waste, and abuse because AT&T’s a trusted domestic surveillance partner effectively immune from meaningful government accountability. Instead of taking the company to task, we’re going to expedite their quest to terminate old people’s traditional copper 911 connections without much in the way of oversight.
The GOP’s telecom policy has long been to let terrible telecom monopolies do whatever they want, under the delusion that this will somehow result in amazing free market innovation. Instead, it routinely results in expensive, shitty, patchy broadband access provided by massive, unconstrained regional telecom giants. I hope you enjoy that sort of thing, because there’s a whole lot more of it headed your way.
You know, in service to “populism.”
Filed Under: brendan carr, dsl, fcc, fiber, regulations, telecom
Companies: at&t, comcast
