Telecom Lobbyists: We'll Fight State Efforts To Protect Net Neutrality For A 'United And Connected Future'

Legal Issues

from the we're-the-phone-company-and-we're-here-to-help! dept

Since the FCC rushed to give telecom monopolies a sloppy kiss with its net neutrality repeal late last year, more than half the states in the country are now pursuing their own net neutrality rules. Some states (most recently Washington and Oregon) have already passed legislation that effectively takes the FCC rules and encodes them on the State level (in some cases with a few improvements). Other states have signed executive orders that prohibit states from doing business with or subsidizing ISPs that engage in anti-competitive behavior.

With the FCC’s repeal on shaky legal ground and states now passing even tougher net neutrality rules, ISP lobbyists have truly begun reaping what they’ve sown. And it’s becoming increasingly clear they’re both annoyed and nervous as the true scale of their poor judgement comes into view.

For example, US Telecom, a top lobbying arm of the telecom sector (primarily funded and operated by AT&T), this week penned this blog post making it clear that major ISPs would fight tooth and nail against state efforts to (gasp) actually protect consumers from predatory telecom monopolies:

“It is said that ?the road to hell is paved with good intentions.? Nowhere can we find a more perfect modern example for this sentiment than in the cacophony of disparate calls by state and local regulators across the country each seeking to impose their own brand of ?net neutrality? regulations on consumers? internet experience.”

Right. State level net neutrality protections that wouldn’t exist if AT&T and USTelecom hadn’t sued to overturn meaningful rules (both in 2010 and again in 2015), then prodded revolving door regulator Ajit Pai to repeal the FCC’s extremely popular, modest and consistent federal protections. From here USTelecom makes its real agenda clear: reiterating the call for fake net neutrality laws it knows its member companies would get to write:

“Broadband providers have worked hard over the past 20 years to deploy ever more sophisticated, faster and higher-capacity networks, and uphold net neutrality protections for all. To continue this important work, there is no question we will aggressively challenge state or municipal attempts to fracture the federal regulatory structure that made all this progress possible.

We also will continue to work with Congress to enact one consistent set of national and permanent consumer protections. All Americans deserve equal rights online. Standing up for them means not merely saying no to state-level regulation, but hell no to the idea of dismantling what must be a united and connected future.”

It takes an over-abundance of hubris to lobby and “donate” to government to kill extremely popular, uniform and modest consumer protections, then lecture people on the need for a “united and connected future.”

US Telecom’s blog post only really serves two purposes. One, telecom lobbyists are signaling they’ll fight any state that actually tries to protect consumers from anti-competitive behavior by telecom monopolies (a “united and connected future” indeed). But while the FCC included language in their net neutrality repeal attempting to ban states from protecting consumers from privacy or net neutrality violations (at telecom lobbyist behest), the repeal they lobbied for leaves the FCC with shaky legal authority on that front (nice work, guys).

Two, they’re again pushing for a fake net neutrality law they’ll get to write. One that contains so many loopholes as to be useless when it comes to actually protecting consumers, but would pre-empt tougher state-level measures, and even the 2015 FCC rules should the FCC lose in court.

The more worried the telecom sector becomes about this whole thing blowing up in their faces, the harder you’ll see them push for a new law they’ll write that will only make the whole thing worse. For now if you support net neutrality, your best path forward remains hoping that the FCC loses in court, and if not, voting out lawmakers that prioritize AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Charter revenues over the will of the public and the health of the internet.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, net neutrality, state's rights
Companies: at&t, us telecom