[opendtv] Re: Chairman Pai Blog: But Wait, There's More

From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 10 May 2017 09:34:11 -0400

On May 9, 2017, at 11:02 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

But that clearly has not happened in any areas, as State
regulators have used their power to advantage incumbents over
new competitors.

My apologies: the sentence was supposed to read:o

But that clearly has not happened in (M)any areas,

Which is a generally false statement. Incumbents have obvious advantages that
have nothing to do with state regulators giving them special deals.

Missed it completely. Read the damn paper Bert before making a fool of yourself.

In MANY areas state regulators did not allow wireless carriers to become
designated as Eligible Telecommunications Carriers (ETCs) in order to qualify
for Universal Service subsidies.

In other words they ignored the "neutrality" requirements that were established
by the FCC.

Take a look at Google Fiber, as one obvious example. Perhaps Craig's problem
is one of "abductive inference," i.e. finding an outcome surprising, but only
because he's missing certain key fundamental concepts going in. Google Fiber,
for example, did not fail because regulators made it fail. Google Fiber
failed because installing FTTH is *the* most expensive way to deploy
broadband service. Once you get that concept, suddenly the fact that Google
Fiber failed, that FiOS deployment stopped dead in its tracks, and that
Google, AT&T, and Verizon are all looking at 5G fixed wireless, makes perfect
sense. Has NOTHING to do with those nefarious regulators or their "black
helicopters."

And Google Fiber was never qualified as an ETC, nor did it receive USF funding.
The reality is that Google has done NOTHING to address the need for broadband
in rural markets.

What makes perfect sense is that technology has trumped the need for the FCC,
the Universal Service Fund, and natural monopoly regulation.

First, that general mandate, on the FCC, is perfectly reasonable. So there's
nothing wrong with a USF, or a similar cost redistribution scheme, as that is
the only way to achieve any semblance of price parity. Secondly, wrong,
Craig. By eliminating the rate floor, Pai is taking away any form of
guideline for the telcos to use. So what's the result? Unless you believe in
magic, only two possible outcomes: (1) rural service will cost a lot more, or
(2) the USF will have to grow. It's too STUPID to believe that rural service
can be equal cost to urban service. So, those two possibilities are the
outcomes. You would have to have serious problems with basic logic to not
understand something so clear.

Apparently you have serious problems with basic logic.

The rate floor broke the law, requiring the telcos receiving USF subsidies to
charge more than they do for urban customers.

The cost to provide service has NOTHING to do with this. And the reality is
that the cost to provide rural telephone services was recovered in the last
century.

It is rather obvious that Bert did not read the paper I linked to. If he had,
he would have read the following in the introduction:

I. DEVOLUTION OVER DEREGULATION, RETRENCHMENT OVER REFORM

Federalism, unbound, dominates American constitutional law. Particularly in
matters affecting Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce,1 to
enforce rights guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment,2 and to subject the
states to federal suit,3 the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William
Rehnquist has built a formidable jurisprudence favoring the devolution of
power from the federal government to the states.4 For good or for ill,5
decentralization dominates today’s constitutional Zeitgeist.

At the same time, Congress and the federal regulatory agencies have led a
‘‘great transformation’’ of the law of economic regulation.6 The last two
decades have witnessed natural gas wellhead decontrol,7 two federal schemes
for regulating cable television,8 the displacement of the Interstate Commerce
Commission by the Surface Transportation Board,9 the Energy Policy Act,10 and
substantial progress toward comprehensive deregulation of the electricity
industry.11 The command-and-control techniques that once typified the law of
regulated industries have yielded to ‘‘complete detariffing, elimination of
all entry restrictions, and [even] outright abolition’’ of regulatory
supervision.12 In the few remaining ‘‘market segments that have natural
monopoly characteristics,’’ a ‘‘new set of regulatory obligations including
the duty to interconnect, to lease unbundled network elements, and to sell
services for resale’’ will prevent incumbents from using their control of
‘‘bottleneck facilities . . . to discriminate against competitors.’’13 The
full extent to which the common law and schemes of private ordering will fill
the legal vacuum left by this regulatory retreat remains to be seen.14

We are moving away from heavy handed Federal regulation Bert. Unfortunately in
many cases it is being replaced with heavy handed state regulations.

The author clearly indicates that the few issues that still remain with
"natural monopolies" can be dealt with easily by the legal system.

The paper I linked to above notes that it is entirely feasible to
manage these issues with a few basic LAWS.

In truth, the paper only addresses the USF and rural service, Title II
underlies all such service, and the regs it mentions in this regard are the
FCC regs.

No they are provisions of the 1996 Telecommunications Act; the FCC is the
Federal agency tasked with implementing the law.

The real question is why we need Title II and the USF at all.

Title II neutrality laws, or similar laws, have been with us for well over
100 years. Read it again, Craig.

Yup, and for the most part we have suffered for it through monopoly pricing and
piling on by regulators at the Federal, State and local levels.

There is NO REASONABLE JUSTIFICATION for the fact that I use pay nearly $18/mo
in taxes and fees on my $31/mo VOIP service.

Truth is, there's no credible reason to pretend that Internet access is any
less essential than telephone service has been, with its USF. And, to keep
the USF under some semblance of control, we need pricing guidance such as a
rate floor. All extremely obvious.

It's ILLEGAL Bert.

Rural telephone service is subsidized so that it should not cost more than the
equivalent urban service. But the FCC created an illegal rate floor that caused
the price to be HIGHER.

Well, as always, Craig, you do not have any justification for your
proclamations. I told you that people would send boat loads of hate mail to
the FCC, if the neutrality mandate were threatened. You made the claim that
people have WAAAAYYYY more important things to worry about. Ooops, looks like
you were wrong. Especially when you pay attention to that DOS attack, claimed
by the FCC. Oh well, huh?

I repeat: I could care less about millions of comments generated by Bots and
people who behave like bots. What I care about is comments that ACTUALLY and
FACTUALLY deal with the NPRM.

Scare mongering is not productive.

The vast majority of applications have nothing to do with
Telecommunications.

Only for Internet illiterates, Craig. People do the very vast majority of
what they used to do on the telephone over the Internet, these days, and a
whole lot more. I spend days never touching the telephone. You simply need to
learn these new technologies, because otherwise, you end up spouting complete
nonsense.

You build a good case for the abolition of the FCC and common carrier
regulation. We no longer live in the early '1900s.

Saw this yesterday Bert:

http://www.global.nationalreview.com/article/447386/health-care-living-conditions-poor-americans-beat-those-billionaires-past

I'm not a big George Will fan, but he makes some good points.

Would Bert be willing to be a billionaire living in 1916?

Would he have been among the industrialists pressuring the politicians to
regulate their natural monopolies?

Regards
Craig

References:
- [opendtv] Re: Chairman Pai Blog: But Wait, There's More
  - From: Manfredi, Albert E

[opendtv] Re: Chairman Pai Blog: But Wait, There's More

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