Elected Officials Keep Pressure on FCC Over Upcoming Broadband Rules
Groups representing minority elected official organizations continue to worry that the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed rules on net neutrality will negatively impact minorities and low income communities, leaving them on the wrong side of the digital divide.
In a conference call today, several organizations who submitted comments last week to the FCC reiterated their concerns that the body may move quickly without fully considering the impact, similar to past actions.
“Again and again well-intended FCC rules designed to help minorities failed to do so,” said David Honig, Executive Director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, referring to programs designed to support minority ownership of telecommunications, radio and television entities. Honig outlined three areas where net net neutrality rules could exacerbate adoption issues:
- By increasing the price of broadband services for consumers. Many recent surveys have found the price of broadband services to be a significant barrier to entry, even when access exists;
- By potentially leading operators to limit their investment to expansion in underserved communities
- By limiting growth and economic opportunity
Calvin Smyre, president of the National Conference of Black State Legislators, said his group is concerned that corporate interests will outweigh the publics in the process.
“Our voices get drowned out at the FCC by those who claim to know our constituents better than we do, said Smyre. “Broadband is too important to our communities and our country, and we can no longer afford to have our voices ignored.”
The group is issuing a letter to the President and members of Congress today outlining these points and other concerns, and will hold series of meetings with government leaders in the coming weeks to encourage the FCC to consider how its regulations will impact all communities now, as the process is in its inception, rather than down the line.
“Its possible to have rules that get it right,” said Honig. “We just aren’t even close to that point yet.”
Category: News | Tags: broadband, FCC, Net Neutrality
About the Author Lesly Simmons is a freelance writer and interactive communications and events specialist based in San Francisco, California.
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But after pressure from liberal advocacy groups, the FCC ….. When the elected officials don't let you do what you want, just think up a way to do it anyway!
hi, Do you really distrust your elected representatives so much? …. Neither the FCC nor the phone company tells you what you can say over your phone!
“Pro Network Neutrality supporters are spending over $74 million annually.” Freudian slip much? Your comment raises an interesting point though about the other side of the debate. People tend to assail infrastructure companies for the amount of money and lobbying support they put into this issue, but all too often folks get a case of amnesia when it comes to talking about what content/application providers do to get their point across.
Google, Yahoo and the likes spend hundreds upon thousands upon millions of dollars each year supporting different organizations and so-called consumer groups. It's by no means a one-sided battle, and there is plenty of money being thrown around to promote net neutrality as THE principle of Internet equality and protection. Don't be confused, corporate interests are being perpetuated ON BOTH SIDES of this issue. If you doubt that, you're really just fooling yourself.
@cjoona. Here's something specific. Over 200 lobbyist. Pro Network Neutrality supporters are spending over $74 million annually.
This amount of money could have been used to upgrade & update the internal network infrastructure. Instead, it's being used to lobby “the hill” to push restrictions/control and “payout minority community organizations” to mis-educate the uninformed (i.e. those that do not have access or limited access) — Digital Divide.
We both know, this is not a goodwill gesture. It's an aggressive determination to:
1) Control the net
2) Force consumers and businesses into a tiered pay structure
3) Prioritized content
4) Continue to lockout people of color
Can we please stop spinning this unnecessary hypothetical? “A world without net neutrality” does not currently exist, nor is it likely to exist in the future. Communications companies and the FCC already abide by net neutrality principles — remember the Four Internet Freedoms that then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell introduced back in 2004? We’ve been using them ever since, and in that time, you’ve only heard of three actual incidents of potential infringement of those principles, all of which the FCC dealt with. So, the question you pose doesn’t really make sense.
Um, and “would blackweb 2.0 have to pay to be carried on AT&T’s network”…what does that even mean? My prior point notwithstanding, we have to pay to use the Internet. We always have —remember Prodigy, America Online? Back when the Internet first went public, we had to pay a lot more to get online, and our bandwidth was a lot narrower (thus slower) and we couldn’t do a fraction of the things we can do online now. Again, this hypothetical makes no sense to me.
To your first point about the digital divide, here are some questions for you — what if the current rules the FCC is considering in its net regulation proceeding are adopted? What if, by requiring unmanaged networks, the Internet gets congested and starts to break down?
Ever been on a crowded highway with lots of potholes? What happens to the people trying to navigate around all those potholes? Not only are there traffic jams and traffic accidents, but the general flow of traffic has to slow down to accommodate the parts of the highway that aren’t properly able to maintain all that traffic. Now, if someone has to swoop in to fix all those potholes in the midst of heavy traffic, it’s going to cause even greater delays, it’s going to cost a lot of money, and people are going to get frustrated and try to get the heck up out of dodge. On top of that, if the bulk of resources go to fixing potholes, how are you supposed to build new roads to new communities?
Now let’s apply the pothole example to the Internet—the information super highway. Think about it…If a large chunk of Americans are already offline, making it more expensive or more tedious for them to get online will only increase the likelihood that they will stay OFFLINE. If new net neutrality rules result in the Internet being flooded with people, competing for bandwidth but absent any management of the network – no traffic lights, so to speak – to help normalize the flow of traffic, then the likely result is that people will get frustrated with trying to use the Internet because it’s not moving fast enough, or not performing consistent with their expectations. Also, back to the potholes example, if the Internet’s functionality breaks down and network providers have to expend large sums of money to fix the problem, those costs will trickle down to regular people, the end-users who are least likely in the position to bear that kind of expense.
I think when you could at it like that, it’s hard to not see how net neutrality could impact the digital divide. Thoughts?
Executive Director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council David Honig said:
“By increasing the price of broadband services for consumers. Many recent surveys have found the price of broadband services to be a significant barrier to entry, even when access exist”
Memo to Executive Director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council David Honig..
this is nothing new because the price of broadband services has always been a significant barrier (dating back to the 90's) even before this discussion of Net Neutrality became the new hot topic.
Please come up with real solutions to the problem versus telling us things we already know about this topic..
Can someone here please explain why net neutrality would harm the digital divide? Or why we should believe that companies like AT&T and Comcast, who have for years ignored and redlined low-income communities, would all of a sudden lower prices in a world without net neutrality? Would blackweb2.0 have to pay to be carried on AT&T's network in a world without net neutrality?
Executive Director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council David Honig said:
“By increasing the price of broadband services for consumers. Many recent surveys have found the price of broadband services to be a significant barrier to entry, even when access exist”
Memo to Executive Director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council David Honig..
this is nothing new because the price of broadband services has always been a significant barrier (dating back to the 90's) even before this discussion of Net Neutrality became the new hot topic.
Please come up with real solutions to the problem versus telling us things we already know about this topic..
Can someone here please explain why net neutrality would harm the digital divide? Or why we should believe that companies like AT&T and Comcast, who have for years ignored and redlined low-income communities, would all of a sudden lower prices in a world without net neutrality? Would blackweb2.0 have to pay to be carried on AT&T's network in a world without net neutrality?