Mayor quits FCC committee, says it favors ISPs over the public interest | Hacker News Reader

Mayor quits FCC committee, says it favors ISPs over the public interest

arstechnica.com

228 pointslainon30 comments

Although this probably won't get discussed much in the blogosphere, it actually bothers me more than the recent reversal of the Title II classification for ISPs, over which so many electrons were spilled. In my view, actual competition from municipal fiber would produce better outcomes than we could ever get with Net Neutrality regulation. That Pai's FCC is moving in the wrong direction on this front as well is very disheartening, albeit, alas, unsurprising.

This is a pretty uncontrovesial opinion. A lot of both pro and con network neutrality advocates will agree on that what we actually need is more competition, rather than more regulation.

In fact those that oppose network neutrality will use this very argument to assert that network neutrality should be repealed and all efforts should be made to advance competition and investment instead.

Too bad that when it comes to actually enabling that competition there's a deafening silence.

How is quitting going to help anything? If you're in it, at least you can try to fix it. Maybe slow things down a bit like Ron Swanson to minimize the damage they do?

It sounds like he tried, and determined that he was unable to sufficiently influence the outcomes on his own. It's conceivable that, by drawing attention to his concerns, his resignation can prove to be more productive than remaining on the committee.

He says that an industry representative came in after months of work and was allowed to rewrite stuff to benefit the telecom industry. The model state rules let ISPs sue cities that set up their own broadband network.

Staying could be construed as consent. This is the Mayor of San Jose, California, he wants it very clear that he's not on board.

Time is a finite resource. At some point it's no longer worth the opportunity cost to stay in for a minimal change in the outcome. I'm sure a mayor has more important things to do.

You're also neglecting the possibility that publicly quitting and explaining why will have a bigger effect than staying in and trying to influence a rigged outcome.

How effective are most of the things mayors do?

Trying to steer the ship in a less shitty direction might be the best use of their time

If you believe that a mayor's time is worthless, it makes sense to waste it in a useless committee. Apparently this mayor feels differently than you about the value of his time.

You can avoid association with what is happening for the kickback later.

AT&T just got a 25 year contract to operate a national first responder network (aka have the Feds pay for network expansion). Verizon is feverishly building out capability to deliver diminished levels of service to people who pay less to match AT&T. The fix is in, no mayor has the juice to block that.

If you think governments are bad you should see what the private sector is doing with your data.

It’s a publicity statement and an act of protest that he can list on his political resume in his next election.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Politicians getting publicity for doing what the public wants leading to the politician staying in office is how I want the system to work.

GP felt matter-of-fact to me and didn't seem to have negative connotations.

It seemed kinda cynical to me.

As the GP (now GGP), I’ll settle this argument for you! :) I was being both cynical and matter of fact.

I agree that in some sense this is what politicians are meant to do. However I was commenting in the context of the GGGP comment asking what purpose this serves. The cynical tone was referencing the fact that it could indeed be more effective for the mayor to “Ron Swanson” the committee, yet he chose a more self-serving alternative that is more akin to paying lip-service to his constituents’ preferences than it is to practically serving them.

He got into the news with the message, media is over it. It worked out.

Quitting can send a clear message

In politics, quitting something like that is often just a social cue that you disagree with what's going on. Oftentimes there will be an identified successor waiting, especially for appointed committees with forced allocations of seats among parties.

Its far less meaningful compared to quitting a full-time job, but it sounds meaningful to people with full-time jobs. :-)

I am an architect at one of the companies that has a representative on this committee. When I have brought up discussions of localized broadband public partnerships I have been mercilessly shut down. Capex is a limited commodity, but so is qualified legal and engineering resources. The short and medium returns on investing our growth capabilities on limited return partnerships is insufficient to warrant the effort.

Regulatory Capture background must-read: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

I am all for locally based ISPs. It would be amazing if local municipalities could create incentives for financing the last mile of connectivity exclusively to local ISPs.

I absolutely abhor the idea of government supplied Internet. I’m too cynical to believe that there is some magical force field that differentiates local government ethics from federal level ethics. If Snowden tells us our internet habits are snooped at a National level, I expect it at a local level. The current proposals are binary in a stupid way.

Incentives local ISPs, not municipal ISPs.

I think it's easy to make this mistake and to associate government == bad ethics, when it's clear that you see similar misbehavior in government AND business.

The problem is size, not public vs. private. Size equals power and that is usually the heart of the problem.

Businesses are accountable to local government.

While local government is accountable in elections, I don’t think that is a reasonable stick for day to day operations.

I find your contexting my comment as a “mistake” to be arrogant to the point of almost irredeemability. Are you trying to be that obnoxious?

We've warned you repeatedly about posting uncivil comments to Hacker News. If you keep doing it, we're going to ban you. Could you please fix this? The idea on HN is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. And personal attacks are right out.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

In that case I recommend this :)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI

How does that really address the problem? Or are you suggesting incentivizing multiple ISPs running cable for the last mile? There is a physical plant problem here. Why not let the gov't or a quasi-gov't utility run the last mile cable with a charter that prohibits them from shining light down it? Then let ISPs compete to over service.

Kinda like we had ever so briefly after we forced telcos to offer unbundled loops.

Because government overreach is always a risk.

It is easier to throw business people in jail than it is government employees.

Doesn't happen. Where are all these business people in the jail?

I haven't ever seen any real repercussions for businesses acting against the interest of their customers, aside from high profile scandals. And even then the penalty is usually a tiny fraction of what would be appropriate.

At least the gov't has some plausible accountability to the citizens every time an election rolls around. Especially local gov't.

Always assume anything travelling over the internet is compromised unless its both signed and competently encrypted.

If Snowden is telling us that our internet habits are snooped on at a national level, then what makes you believe they didn't already use local connectivity to perform such a thing without the local government's authority? Who says they didn't use private connections without authority? I don't think the government had a monopoly on connectivity then. Why would it be different now no matter who controls what?

There is a small city in my area that provides internet service to the citizens living in city limits. At one time, it was twice as cheap as Time Warner (Spectrum) and had faster speeds with more reliable connections. I am not against government provided internet service so long as it operates like this.

The entire situation comes down to how one uses the power they have been given. It is evident that an ex-Verizon lawyer should not be the poster child of the future for obvious reasons. I don't know who he thinks he is fooling with his statements either.

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