The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: SirLinksALot on November 24, 2016, 09:38:59 pm
-
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES
URL: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-jamison-20161122-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-jamison-20161122-story.html)
by: Brian Fung
A top advisor to Donald Trump on tech policy matters proposed all but abolishing the nation's telecom regulator last month, foreshadowing possible moves by the president-elect to sharply reduce the Federal Communications Commission's role as a consumer protection watchdog.
In an Oct. 21 blog post, Mark Jamison, who on Monday was named one of two members of Trump's tech policy transition team, laid out his ideal vision for the government's role in telecommunications, concluding there is little need for the agency to exist.
"Most of the original motivations for having an FCC have gone away," Jamison wrote. "Telecommunications network providers and [Internet service providers] are rarely, if ever, monopolies."
The FCC declined to comment for this story, but its current leadership has disagreed strongly with that analysis. Its Democratic chairman, Tom Wheeler, has spoken of an Internet service "duopoly" in much of the country that limits competition. And he has compared telecommunications to the rail and telegraph networks of the 19th century, calling for new rules of the road as the Internet becomes the dominant communications platform of the 21st century.
Wheeler has used his agency to go after allegedly misbehaving companies, proposing record-setting fines against companies for slowing down "unlimited" data plans and for billing customers for content and services they didn't ask for. He passed proactive regulations such as net neutrality to prohibit anticompetitive behavior. And, in an unprecedented step, Wheeler made Internet providers obey the same privacy rules that legacy phone companies must abide by when handling customer data.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....
-
More good news, more points for Trump.
-
More good news, more points for Trump.
If he's serious, this would actually be one of his smartest moves. There's no need for the FCC anymore,
if ever there really was. We have way more listening and viewing choices now than in the years
the agency was born. And we have the single most effective way of declining to hear or view what
we don't like. It's called a channel changer or even an off button. The government should butt the
hell out of radio and television---for openers.
As for the Internet, that might fall more properly under the aegis of the Interstate Commerce Commission
by now, wouldn't it? In which regard, the less regulation the better.
-
Kill it. The FCC is toxic and no longer needed.
Good move for a Trumpcus admin. Take it.
-
Kill it. The FCC is toxic and no longer needed.
Good move for a Trumpcus admin. Take it.
Am I the only one who notices it's a pretty good move for, say, a billionaire wanting to move into the TV market too?
-
The FCC auctions off parts of the EM spectrum for commercial use. By doing so, it keeps cell phone companies from using the same frequency bands, which would cause everyone's cell phones to interfere with each other.
If you use AT&T, they bought a certain spectrum of bandwidth, Verizon... another. T-Mobile, yet another.
Furthermore, they keep commercial business from using military frequencies and bandwidth. This ensures that we aren't forced to see US military personel coming into businesses and shutting their communications down when they interfere.
It's the same for broadcast television and radio.
And they also work with the telecommunication industry so that as new technologies are developed, there can be an agreed upon portion of the EM spectrum dedicated for it's use. The planning helps keep business from spending money on transmitters that would interfere with other, already existing, industry and military.
Useless? Only to those that have no clue.
-
Am I the only one who notices it's a pretty good move for, say, a billionaire wanting to move into the TV market too?
Probably.
-
:0001:
Useless? Only to those that have no clue.
BINGO.
It's exactly the type of thing I'd do if I wanted to harm America.
-
Useless? Only to those that have no clue.
It will be interesting to watch this "we don't need the FCC" idea work its way through the nascent Trump administration. You are absolutely correct that the FCC has some functions that are fundamentally critical to the safe and smooth operation of the spectrum and it will be instructive to watch Trump to see if he's deft enough to separate the necessary functions from the political or if he just abolishes the whole agency because it's popular and he can.
73
-
The FCC auctions off parts of the EM spectrum for commercial use. By doing so, it keeps cell phone companies from using the same frequency bands, which would cause everyone's cell phones to interfere with each other.
If you use AT&T, they bought a certain spectrum of bandwidth, Verizon... another. T-Mobile, yet another.
Furthermore, they keep commercial business from using military frequencies and bandwidth. This ensures that we aren't forced to see US military personel coming into businesses and shutting their communications down when they interfere.
It's the same for broadcast television and radio.
And they also work with the telecommunication industry so that as new technologies are developed, there can be an agreed upon portion of the EM spectrum dedicated for it's use. The planning helps keep business from spending money on transmitters that would interfere with other, already existing, industry and military.
Useless? Only to those that have no clue.
Bingo you beat me to it. First reading the article I was wondering how out of tech touch the adviser was. Frequency allocation and distribution could be argued as the modern 'postal road' as authorized by the Constitution and are a critical component of modern infrastructure. Its scope and power can be greatly reduced but I don't even want to imagine the frequency chaos without some sort of governance. It could be privatized I suppose. Imagine if Sprint for example wanted to block out AT&T from a market so started blasting frequency interference on their 700mhz allocated frequency to block all their signals. Add to that blocking emergency services and other communication frequencies. Add to that, financially devastating telecommunication companies that lease frequency bandwidth and do so off existing contracts with the government that will be broken.
It will be a litigation nightmare at best. Currently hundreds of companies have contracts with the government for bandwidth allocation. Contracts that have to be honored.
-
According to my GPS, and confirmed on my phone using wi-fi, I live just over two miles from the Tampa Intl Airport and I see no problem with this.
-
If he's serious, this would actually be one of his smartest moves. There's no need for the FCC anymore,
if ever there really was. We have way more listening and viewing choices now than in the years
the agency was born. And we have the single most effective way of declining to hear or view what
we don't like. It's called a channel changer or even an off button. The government should butt the
hell out of radio and television---for openers.
As for the Internet, that might fall more properly under the aegis of the Interstate Commerce Commission
by now, wouldn't it? In which regard, the less regulation the better.
What prevents me from broadcasting on 101 FM?
-
Am I the only one who notices it's a pretty good move for, say, a billionaire wanting to move into the TV market too?
I could have predicted this when I posted the CHALLENGE to the Donny to BUY a TV Network ...over on FLEA REPUBLIC!!!
(http://i.imgur.com/Jh0L9t5.gif)
-
BINGO.
It's exactly the type of thing I'd do if I wanted to harm America.
donny thinks were ALL too DUMB to know jack about ANYTHING...his only contacts with the less than WEALTHY ...are with his alt-wrong supporters..... who on fact don't appear to have much OF a clue about ANYTHING !
-
What prevents me from broadcasting on 101 FM?
A radio station that already has the band, depending on where you're thinking of doing it, unless
the station hires you to broadcast. (From the look of it there are thousands of FM stations around
the country and elsewhere who have that band, but I don't think it's occupied in every known
radio market.)
If you're in an area where no one's broadcasting on it, you could do it, assuming you have the
capital to build and operate a powerful FM radio station. Without the FCC, you'd have
a better chance of entering through a free market, assuming there aren't other regulatory hurdles
you'd need to clear. I think that's how it works, though I could be mistaken. (Sometimes stations
have a band with decimal point and advertise themselves up to the next non-decimal number; I
once worked for a pair of stations under the same ownership, one AM and one FM, and the FM
station's actual band was 103.9 but it advertised itself as "Cool 104.")
-
If you're in an area where no one's broadcasting on it, you could do it, assuming you have the
capital to build and operate a powerful FM radio station.
That's a lot of work. Why not just move up some, say to 108-137Mhz. :silly:
-
More good news, more points for Trump.
Not if he wants to replace it with something worse
-
So the FCC won't let me be or let me be me so let me see....
-
We have to remember that many on the Trump Dark Side think he has the power to take over the TV networks and shut them down
-
First, the FCC should have no jurisdiction over wired networks - telephone and cable for example.
Second, the FCC is very much required to manage radio frequency transmission or they would be unusable.
-
Am I the only one who notices it's a pretty good move for, say, a billionaire wanting to move into the TV market too?
No. Actually, you aren't, but nice of you to notice.
-
So everyone will try to broadcast on the same frequencies? This should work out well... :thud:
I'm small government as much as anyone else but c'mon here... some functions of the FCC are legitimate.
-
I dug deeper into the story:
Jamison has argued that the FCC could be replaced by a much smaller agency charged with handing out licenses for wireless airwaves — essentially acting as a traffic cop for the spectrum over which cellphone calls, mobile data and TV signals travel.
So he's not arguing that we would allow people to broadcast on whatever frequency they wanted.
Not bad...
-
So everyone will try to broadcast on the same frequencies? This should work out well... :thud:
I'm small government as much as anyone else but c'mon here... some functions of the FCC are legitimate.
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.
-
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.
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
That's a lot of work. Why not just move up some, say to 108-137Mhz. :silly:
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.
-
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..
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.