'We don't need the FCC': A Trump advisor's proposal to dissolve America's telecom watchdog

[Cripplecreek]

See my post above, he doesn't advocate anarchy, just reducing the FCC to a "traffic cop" function of regulating broadcast frequencies and that's it.


Not the worst idea I've ever heard.

If you believe that's what he actually means.

I just know he's a compulsively lying fecal smear who has repeatedly threatened to restrict 1st amendment rights.

[goatprairie]

See my post above, he doesn't advocate anarchy, just reducing the FCC to a "traffic cop" function of regulating broadcast frequencies and that's it.


Not the worst idea I've ever heard.

I'm not a "no government ever" person....I'm a "government as small and ubobtrusive as possible" person. Somebody will have to point out to me the harm of the FCC as it stands. There might be good reasons for reducing its power, but from things I've read it does do good things.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I'm not a "no government ever" person....I'm a "government as small and ubobtrusive as possible" person. Somebody will have to point out to me the harm of the FCC as it stands. There might be good reasons for reducing its power, but from things I've read it does do good things.

No, it's not on Conservative's chopping block like the Department of Ed and Energy are. The problem is the FCC is trying to regulate the internet.

[jpsb]

That's a lot of work. Why not just move up some, say to 108-137Mhz. 

I used to broadcast at 87.5 FM, 40 watts on a 50' tower, that freq was reserved by the FCC as a buffer so no one was using it.  I had a little pirate station, but then 911 happened and I said to myself "I'll bet the feds are going to get real serious about enforcing federal law" so I shut everything down and moved all the equipment except for the tower.  The very next day the building (my little beer joint) housing my little pirate station was raided. LOL, good thing I had the sense to shutdown after 911.

The FCC (or some other federal agency) is needed to control who broadcasts on what frequency. Without someone in control there would be total chaos.

[kevindavis007]

I dug deeper into the story:



So he's not arguing that we would allow people to broadcast on whatever frequency they wanted.


Not bad...

If true, not bad idea..

[DB]

The FCC is about the most unobtrusive of the federal agencies and actually does the job largely as intended. Only a moron would think Trump could do the job better after his repeated complaints about free speech.

Radio spectrum wise, for the most part. But for wired networks, e.g. phone land lines, cable and wired Internet they should have zero jurisdiction. All of that is private property not utilizing the public airwaves.

[EC]

Radio spectrum wise, for the most part. But for wired networks, e.g. phone land lines, cable and wired Internet they should have zero jurisdiction. All of that is private property not utilizing the public airwaves.

Problem is, what happens in cable doesn't stay in cable, if you'll forgive the misquote. Especially regarding the phone system, where most long distance is bounced off satellites.

[HonestJohn]

Problem is, what happens in cable doesn't stay in cable, if you'll forgive the misquote. Especially regarding the phone system, where most long distance is bounced off satellites.

Not to mention that it'll be digitized, mixed with a thousand other calls, placed into the internet framework, bounced through 4-6 different company's servers, travelled via fiberoptic cable, satellite, and underwater cable before being separated from the datastream and recontituted as your phone call.

If at any point, the players in this dance decide that they aren't going to play anymore... our communications suffer or, in the worst case, stop.

Let's not forget that there is also our military DSN phone system that runs on standard corporate phone lines.  That requires our telecommunication companies prioritize these lines above all others.  The FCC makes sure they actually do so, by providing all the phone number information to the companies and ensuring they actually comply. 

And it was critical for our military immediately after 9/11, so that our military units could coordinate with each other.  That the President and the Pentagon could actually pick up a phone and call their component commanders to direct subordinate units.  Not to mention that it was critical for individual units, as they had to conduct telephonic recalls to get their personnel in ASAP.

During 9/11, our phone system was overloaded with civilians calling friends and family in the affected areas.  Had there been no FCC and no oversight of our DSN system, our military would have been paralyzed for some time.

[DB]

Problem is, what happens in cable doesn't stay in cable, if you'll forgive the misquote. Especially regarding the phone system, where most long distance is bounced off satellites.

Not really a problem. The satellite equipment is regulated in regard of frequency usage, not interfering with adjacent satellites and spurious signals that cause interference to other systems. The information going over those satellites be it video, internet, voice, private business doesn't (shouldn't) really matter. If it is important information security or value wise it is encrypted. So when some service is using a radio link within their own private system, only that part of the service that is transmitting should be regulated so that all the other radio systems play nice with each other, not the actual content of what is being transmitted.

The FCC has moved far beyond its original intent to manage the radio spectrum which is required. They've become content nannies deciding what is "fair" as well and regulate wired networks that have zip to do with radio spectrum management.

[Smokin Joe]

I'm not a "no government ever" person....I'm a "government as small and ubobtrusive as possible" person. Somebody will have to point out to me the harm of the FCC as it stands. There might be good reasons for reducing its power, but from things I've read it does do good things.

If anyone wants an agency that is a trainwreck, start with the EPA. When they are done there, clean out Interior. Between the two they've wrecked more acres of timber and shut down more resources and the industries that use them than the others.

[Smokin Joe]

We should also dump the Federal Department of Education which is just one more big mistake of the Carter years.

Yep. We had standardized tests. Any school system could see how they were doing by administering them and checking the results. In those days, Junior High and High School classes were grouped by academic ability. The smartest were in the same classroom together, the next smartest in the next group, and so forth. The best and the brightest were allowed to move along at their own pace, just as the other groups were.