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How Much Money Anti-Net Neutrality Members Of Congress Have Received From The Telecom Industry

July 24, 2018 Rachel Kraus, Mashable.com , ,
The House of Representatives is sitting on its hands instead of calling a vote to protect net neutrality. But those same members of Congress have had their hands in the pot of the anti-net neutrality telecommunications industry for years. The net neutrality advocacy project BattleForTheNet.com on Monday released an updated interactive scorecard that compares where members of congress stand on a proposed net neutrality protection resolution with how much money they've taken from companies like AT&T and Comcast. BattleForTheNet.com is a joint initiative of progressive organizations Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press Action Fund.

The Most Important Surveillance Story You’ll See For Years

June 28, 2018 By Jake Johnson, Mintpressnews.com , , ,
“The most important surveillance story you will see for years just went online, revealing how AT&T became the internet’s biggest enemy, secretly collaborating against its customers and partners to destroy your privacy.” That was how whistleblower and privacy advocate Edward Snowden reacted to the publication of an explosive story by The Intercept on Monday, which reveals for the first time how “fortress-like” AT&T buildings located in eight major American cities have played a central role in a massive National Security Agency (NSA) spying program “that has for years monitored billions of emails, phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory.” “It’s eye-opening and ominous the extent to which this is happening right here on American soil,” Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told The Intercept in an interview.

Media Outlets Cover ILSR’s Community Networks Map Expansion

April 2, 2018 Nick Stumo-Langer, Ilsr.org , ,
The growing interest in building local networks in Truckee and many other communities, according to a Harvard study, is due to lower prices, transparency, and less confusion compared to big providers like Comcast, Verizon, or AT&T. In addition, recent opposition to net neutrality and broadband privacy protections has only made big providers less appealing. Even a policy brief from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance suggests Comcast has a threat looming over the horizon. “A real choice in broadband services could reduce Comcast’s revenues by millions of dollars per month,” according to the policy. Even so, some of these local networks have faced lawsuits from private companies and more than 20 states have passed laws to restrict local efforts.

AT&T/Verizon Lobbyists To “Aggressively” Sue States That Enact Net Neutrality

March 29, 2018 Jon Brodkin, Arstechnica.com , ,
A lobby group that represents AT&T, Verizon, and other telcos plans to sue states and cities that try to enforce net neutrality rules. USTelecom, the lobby group, made its intentions clear yesterday in a blog post titled, "All Americans Deserve Equal Rights Online." "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," USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter wrote. "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." The USTelecom board of directors includes AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, CenturyLink, Windstream, and other telcos.

More Than 750 Communities Have Created Internet Networks

January 25, 2018 Staff, Muninetworks.org , ,
A new map from Community Networks shows that more communities than ever are building their own broadband networks to end big telecom's monopoly. Communities invest in telecommunications networks for a variety of reasons - economic development, improving access to education and health care, price stabilization, etc. They range from massive networks offering a gig to hundreds of thousands in Tennessee to small towns connecting a few local businesses. This map tracks a variety of ways in which local governments have invested in wired telecommunications networks as well as state laws that discourage such approaches. Our map includes more than 750 communities...

Harvard Study: Big Telecom Terrified Of Community-Run Broadband

January 17, 2018 By Karl Bode, Motherboard.vice.com , ,
A new study out of Harvard once again makes it clear why incumbent ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T are so terrified by the idea of communities building their own broadband networks. According to the new study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, community-owned broadband networks provide consumers with significantly lower rates than their private-sector counterparts. The study examined data collected from 40 municipal broadband providers and private throughout 2015 and 2016. Pricing data was collected predominately by visiting carrier websites, where pricing is (quite intentionally) often hidden behind prequalification walls, since pricing varies dramatically based on regional competition.

Don’t Let Corporations Pick What Websites You Visit

July 28, 2017 Razan Azzarkani, www.otherwords.org , , , ,
By Razan Azzarkani for Other Words - Think about the websites you visit. The movies you stream. The music you listen to online. The animal videos that are just too cute not to share. Now think about the freedom to use the internet however and whenever you choose being taken away from you. That’s exactly what Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), are trying to do. Right now, those companies are constrained by a principle called net neutrality — the so-called “guiding principle of the internet.” It’s the idea that people should be free to access all the content available online without ISPs dictating how, when, and where that content can be accessed. In other words, net neutrality holds that the company you pay for internet access can’t control what you do online. In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission adopted strong net neutrality rules that banned ISPs from slowing down connection speeds to competing services — e.g., Comcast can’t slow down content or applications specific to Verizon because it wants you to switch to their services — or blocking websites in an effort to charge individuals or companies more for services they’re already paying for. But now the open internet as we know it is under threat again. Net neutrality rules are in danger of being overturned by Donald Trump’s FCC chairman Ajit Pai and broadband companies like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

10 Things AT&T Could Do To Actually Support Net Neutrality

July 12, 2017 Craig Aaron and Candace Clement, www.freepress.net , , ,
By Craig Aaron and Candace Clement for Free Press - We’re still picking ourselves off the floor from all the laughing we did when AT&T issued a press release this afternoon announcing that it was joining the “Day of Action for preserving and advancing the open internet.” As co-organizers of this day of action and people who have been fighting for internet freedom for more than a decade, we’d be thrilled to finally have AT&T’s full-throated support of Title II protections for Net Neutrality. Because that is, indeed, what it means to join the Day of Action that more than 80,000 companies, websites, organizations and internet users have pledged to take part in tomorrow. If only it were true. In reality, AT&T is just a company that is deliberately misleading the public. Their lobbyists are lying. They want to kill Title II — which gives the FCC the authority to actually enforce Net Neutrality — and are trying to sell a congressional “compromise” that would be as bad or worse than what the FCC is proposing. No thanks. AT&T has spent more money than maybe anyone except Comcast and Verizon to undermine the open internet and destroy Net Neutrality. It has hired hundreds of lobbyists.

Trump TV, Coming To A Market Near You

June 2, 2017 Craig Aaron, www.otherwords.org , ,
By Craig Aaron for Other Words - Political appointees are changing the rules to let administration allies crowd out local voices on local TV. Donald Trump’s favorite local TV chain is about to get a lot bigger thanks to — wait for it — Donald Trump. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission is paving the way for Sinclair Broadcast Group — already the nation’s largest TV conglomerate — to take over Tribune, which owns 42 stations in many of the country’s big cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Denver. You may not have heard of Sinclair. But if you watch your local news, there’s a good chance you’re already watching a Sinclair-owned station. Sinclair already owns 173 stations, which are local affiliates in different cities for national networks like ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. If this merger goes through, Sinclair will own a whopping 215 stations. No company has ever had that degree of control over local TV news, which is still the top news source for a majority of Americans. This deal would have been unthinkable in any other administration. But Trump’s FCC is actually rewriting the rules to make it happen — and to give one of the administration’s loudest media boosters an even bigger megaphone.

Cable Industry Lobbyists Write Republican Talking Points On Net Neutrality

May 29, 2017 Lee Fang and Nick Surgey, www.theintercept.com , ,
By Lee Fang and Nick Surgey for The Intercept - FOLLOWING THE VOTE last week by the Federal Communication Commission to unwind the net neutrality rules enacted during the Obama administration, House Republican lawmakers received an email from GOP leadership on how to defend the decision. The email was shared with The Intercept and the Center for Media and Democracy. Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers must treat all web traffic in the same way. If the FCC eventually undoes the Obama-era regulations in their entirety, an ISP like Comcast could demand that websites pay it fees in order not to slow or block them. Large companies like Facebook would easily be able to afford such charges, but smaller companies might not, creating an uneven playing field. “Want more information on the net neutrality discussion?” wrote Washington state Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference. “Here is a nifty toolkit with news resources, myth vs reality information, what others are saying, and free market comments.” The attached packet of talking points came directly from the cable industry.

Cable Industry Lobbyists Write Republican Talking Points On Net Neutrality

May 25, 2017 Lee Fang and Nick Surgey, www.theintercept.com ,
By Lee Fang and Nick Surgey for The Intercept - FOLLOWING THE VOTE last week by the Federal Communication Commission to unwind the net neutrality rules enacted during the Obama administration, House Republican lawmakers received an email from GOP leadership on how to defend the decision. The email was shared with The Intercept and the Center for Media and Democracy. Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers must treat all web traffic in the same way. If the FCC eventually undoes the Obama-era regulations in their entirety, an ISP like Comcast could demand that websites pay it fees in order not to slow or block them. Large companies like Facebook would easily be able to afford such charges, but smaller companies might not, creating an uneven playing field. “Want more information on the net neutrality discussion?” wrote Washington state Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference. “Here is a nifty toolkit with news resources, myth vs reality information, what others are saying, and free market comments.” The attached packet of talking points came directly from the cable industry.

Newsletter – United To Save The Internet

May 21, 2017 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. The former Verizon lawyer, Ajit Pai, who now chairs the Federal Communications Commission has taken the first official steps to destroy the free and open Internet by proposing the end of Title II net neutrality rules on May 18. This would be a giveaway to Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and other large Internet Service Providers that would allow them to control access to content on the Internet and charge users more fees. Chairman Pai, a former lawyer for Verizon, is an example of the revolving door between government and industry that serves big business interests, and not the people. Pai has demonstrated during his first few months as chairman that he will say anything, including obvious lies, to serve the telecom industry. We must act quickly to save the Internet from going the road of cable TV

On Net Neutrality The Dishonesty Of The Telecoms Is Evident To All

May 4, 2017 Nilay Patel, www.theverge.com ,
By Nilay Patel for The Verge - The fight over net neutrality is starting to heat up — and the big difference between this time and 2015 is that big ISPs seem incredibly emboldened to say whatever they want without any regard for the truth. For example: here’s some sponcon from Verizon, where someone named Jeremy “interviews” Verizon general counsel Craig Silliman about what the FCC is up to and the resultant backlash, and Silliman says a bunch of things that are just flatly not true. How not true? He casually ignores the fact that Verizon sued the FCC to kill net neutrality in the past; losing that case is why the agency had to use the stronger Title II approach in the first place. (I’m not the only one to notice this; Motherboard pointed it out earlier.) Anyway, I’ve lined up almost everything Silliman says in this video against that simple fact. It is astounding. Enjoy.

Stop One Of The Biggest Mega-Mergers In History

October 26, 2016 Candace Clement, www.freepress.net , , , ,
By Candace Clement for Free Press - AT&T is an enormous media, telecom and internet gatekeeper with a horrible track record of overcharging you, limiting your choices and spying on you. It’s still fighting Net Neutrality. It helps the government spy on people by turning over its customer records to the NSA. It tries to stop communities from building their own broadband networks.

Win For Telecom Giants As Court Puts Dagger In Municipal Broadband

August 12, 2016 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org , ,
By Andrea Germanos for Common Dreams - For his part, Wheeler, who had promoted the policy,said the decision "appears to halt the promise of jobs, investment, and opportunity that community broadband has provided in Tennessee and North Carolina," adding, "The efforts of communities wanting better broadband should not be thwarted by the political power of those who, by protecting their monopoly, have failed to deliver acceptable service at an acceptable price."
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