In a major victory for net roots groups, President Barack Obama today announced his support for the strongest possible Net Neutrality protections, asking the Federal Communications Commission to quickly reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service” subject to oversight and consumer protection regulatory policies that would prohibit paid fast lanes, the blocking or degrading of websites for financial reasons, and more transparency in how Internet Service Providers handle traffic.

“For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business,” said the president. “That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call, or a packet of data.”

“’Net neutrality’ has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation — but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted,” President Obama added. “We cannot allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. That is why today, I am asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to answer the call of almost four million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect Net Neutrality.”

The president’s call will likely force FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler to abandon efforts to reclassify only certain types of Internet traffic under Title 2 regulations while leaving consumers vulnerable to paid fast lanes and other traffic monetizing schemes. Wheeler was rumored to be working on a limited Net Neutrality plan that would protect large online video content distributors like Netflix and Amazon from unfair compensation deals with ISPs. The plan would have given the FCC authority to review agreements between your Internet provider and some of the net’s biggest traffic generators.

President Obama’s statement goes beyond Wheeler’s tolerance for “individualized, differentiated arrangements” that could let cable and phone companies offer compensated “preferred partnership” deals with websites and applications, granting them special treatment or exemptions from speed throttles or usage caps not available to others.

The president’s four principles for a free and open Internet represent “common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe:”

• No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business;
• No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences;
• Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet;
• No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.

The president also expressed a desire to see the same rules applied to mobile networks. That is a significant departure from the policies of the FCC under Wheeler’s predecessor Julius Genachowski, who served as chairman during the Obama Administration’s first term in office. His Net Neutrality policies exempted wireless carriers.

“The rules also have to reflect the way people use the Internet today, which increasingly means on a mobile device,” said the president. “I believe the FCC should make these rules fully applicable to mobile broadband as well, while recognizing the special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/111014_NetNeutrality_Final.mp4[/flv]

President Barack Obama recorded this message supporting strong Net Neutrality protections for the Internet. (1:56)

Republicans in Congress and large telecommunications companies both immediately pounced on the president’s Net Neutrality plans.

Cruz

“Net Neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) “The Internet should not operate at the speed of government.”

Cruz’s spokeswoman,  Amanda Carpenter, added that Net Neutrality would place the government “in charge of determining pricing, terms of service, and what products can be delivered. Sound like Obamacare much?”

The National Cable and Telecommunications Association expressed surprise over the president’s strong public support for Net Neutrality action.

“We are stunned the President would abandon the longstanding, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and call for extreme Title II regulation,” the NCTA wrote. “The cable industry strongly supports an open Internet, is building an open internet, and strongly believes that over-regulating the fastest growing technology in our history will not advance the cause of Internet freedom. There is no dispute about the propriety of transparency rules and bans on discrimination and blocking. But this tectonic shift in national policy, should it be adopted, would create devastating results.”

“Heavily regulating the Internet will lead to slower Internet growth, higher prices for consumers, and the threat of excessive intervention by the government in the working of the Internet,” stated the NCTA release. “This will also have severe and profound implications internationally, as the United States loses the high ground in arguing against greater control of the Internet by foreign governments. There is no substantive justification for this overreach, and no acknowledgment that it is unlawful to prohibit paid prioritization under Title II. We will fight vigorously against efforts to impose this backwards policy.”

AT&T shareholders concerned the company is risking its reputation and future profits by excessively cooperating with the National Security Agency have been told to mind their own business by company executives.

AT&T roundly rejected a resolution demanding greater transparency offered by New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who administers the $160.7 billion NYS Common Retirement Fund, which has investments in AT&T.

AT&T recommended the resolution be excluded from the ballot for AT&T’s annual shareholder meeting this spring, noting shareholders have no business getting involved in the “ordinary business operations” of AT&T, which are under the purview of company executives.

In his shareholder resolution, DiNapoli said there was a real issue of customer trust at stake for AT&T. Customers upset with AT&T could switch providers, hurting revenue.

But with Verizon also providing access to customer records, wireless customers may have few alternatives. AT&T also passes along information about non-customers whose calls happen to cross into AT&T’s extensive network.

In November, the New York Times found AT&T is well-compensated for monitoring and disgorging customer records to federal officials, earning at least $10 million annually. AT&T also has important business before the Obama Administration regarding the future of the landline telephone network, its multi-billion dollar wireless service, and its campaign for greater deregulation.

The news does not inspire confidence in Stop the Cap! reader Earl, who shared the story with us.

“With AT&T it’s always about the bottom line, even at the price of privacy.”

A portion of your cable bill pays for much more than programming, with millions diverted to Koch Brothers-backed astroturf groups, tea party candidates, fat paychecks for former public officials taking a trip through D.C.’s revolving door, and generous allowances for travel  expenses racked up by high-flying industry lobbyists.

The Center for Public Integrity took a trip through the 2012 tax return of America’s top cable trade group: the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), which collected $60 million last year in membership dues from America’s top cable operators, who in turn were reimbursed by you when paying your monthly cable bill. They needed a shower when the journey was over.

NCTA president and CEO Michael K. Powell, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during President George W. Bush’s first term, was well compensated in his new role representing the same cable industry he used to barely oversee, taking home more than $3 million in pay last year. Eight other employees, including NCTA’s executive vice-president, collectively cleared over a million dollars in salary according to the groups’ Form 990 filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

The revolving door at NCTA headquarters is kept well-greased, with 78 out of 89 federal-level NCTA lobbyists formerly working in government jobs representing the American people. Now they work for the interests of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and other large operators.

Collectively, the NCTA spent $19 million on lobbying activities last year, much of it bankrolling “dark money” groups that refuse to disclose their donors and consider it their life mission to defeat President Barack Obama and blockade Democrats in Congress — the ones still most likely to demand more oversight and regulation of the free-spending cable industry. Among the groups receiving cable’s cash:

Americans for Prosperity, which received $50,000, spent $33.5 million opposing Obama during the 2012 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign spending. Americans for Prosperity often supports Tea Party causes and candidates and is the main political arm of billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. As the Center reported Thursday, the group spent a staggering $122 million overall in 2012. Americans for Prosperity is also actively involved in blocking community-owned broadband projects and advocates passing laws forbidding communities getting into the broadband business if a cable company got there first. Now you know why.

Phil Kerpen with Glenn Beck

Americans for Tax Reform, which received $50,000, spent $15.8 million on the 2012 federal election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The group’s president and founder, Grover Norquist, is famous for his Taxpayer Protection Pledge, by which legislators and candidates promise to oppose all tax increases. The cable industry is also an advocate of tax forgiveness policies that would let cable operators repatriate the cash they stashed overseas, avoiding the same taxman they snuck around opening overseas bank accounts.

American Commitment, which received $10,000, spent $1.9 million on the 2012 federal election to advocate for and against political candidates — mostly to help U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) defeat Democrat Richard Carmona. American Commitment also spent some of its money to oppose Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Obama. American Commitment Founder and President Phil Kerpen is the former policy and legislative strategist at Americans for Prosperity and previously worked at Club for Growth, another group that doesn’t disclose its donors. Kerpen joined Glenn Beck on his program in 2009 to nod agreement when Beck hopped aboard the crazy train suggesting the Obama Administration’s support for Net Neutrality represented a Marxist-Maoist takeover of the Internet. Silly Beck, doesn’t he realize AT&T already called dibs?

The Center for Individual Freedom, which received $20,000, has been actively fighting against proposals for increased disclosure of donors to politically active nonprofits. It spent $1.8 million during the 2012 election cycle mostly opposing Democratic congressmen Steven Horsford, Bill Owens and Dan Maffei, all from New York.

‘Your money is always good here, whether it comes from AT&T or the cable industry.’ — LULAC

The cable industry also bankrolls a number of our “favorite” sock puppet groups that reflexively support cable’s cause even when straying far beyond their alleged core missions and constituencies the groups claim to represent. Among those on cable’s payroll, sharing $5.8 million in “grant” funding, are some very familiar names to any regular Stop the Cap! reader:

• The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
• The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• LULAC
• The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce
• The National Urban League

The largest grant – $2 million, went to the industry mouthpiece Broadband for America, the largest telecom industry astroturf group in the United States, featuring honorary Democratic co-chairman Harold Ford, Jr., who now spends most of his life in MSNBC green rooms after being bounced from office in a failed Senate bid in 2006.

Ford landed on his feet after losing the election, fleeing Tennessee for big money New York, peddling his inside the beltway influence to Merrill Lynch, winning him the position of vice chairman and senior policy adviser, until Merrill Lynch nearly collapsed in the Great Recession and was bailed out by U.S. taxpayers. Ford kept his $2 million annual salary and bonuses, but it wasn’t enough.

He quickly upgraded to a senior managing director at Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley, supplying him with enough cash to buy a $3 million co-op in a tony Manhattan neighborhood.

Broadband for America, brought to you by America’s Big Telecom companies.

From his perch in New York City, Ford pretends to know what is best for the little people across America suffering from no broadband, rationed access, or overpriced service.

His answer: buy it, if you can, from your cable company.

Ford’s co-chair at BfA is former Republican Sen. John Sununu who, by the way, also happens to sit on the board of Time Warner Cable. Need we say more?

There is no reason NCTA lobbyists shouldn’t travel in style when performing their advocacy efforts either. In 2012, they ran up nearly $800,000 in travel expenses.

Unsurprisingly, nobody involved was willing to comment.

Cruz Control

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has blocked the Senate from voting to confirm Tom Wheeler, the Obama Administration’s pick for the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Cruz, a Tea Party favorite, does not object to Wheeler’s credentials. He’s upset Wheeler might support a regulatory implementation of portions of the Disclose Act, a bill requiring full disclosure of who pays for political advertising. The bill would require corporations, super PACs, astroturf groups and other special interests to report to the Federal Election Commission when they spend more than $10,000 on airtime for campaign ads.

Cruz and several other Republican senators wrote the FCC in April to warn the bill violates corporate First Amendment speech rights and was unconstitutional.

With no chance the legislation will pass a Republican-controlled House and deadlocked Senate, the bill’s supporters have turned to the FCC with the idea the agency could act independently to require campaign ad disclosures, a suggestion that infuriated conservative Republicans who disapprove of any enhanced oversight powers for the regulator.

Cruz placed a formal hold on Wheeler’s nomination last week as the Senate prepared to vote an end to the 16-day federal government shutdown.

A spokesman from Cruz’s office made it clear as long as Wheeler continued to vacillate on a commitment not to regulate campaign ads, he will not get an up or down vote on his nomination in the Senate.

Observers suggest Cruz’s hold will stall spectrum auctions and, if extended beyond the fall, could eventually freeze Internet expansion programs for schools and libraries.

Acting FCC chairwoman Mignon Clyburn will continue in that role until Wheeler gets confirmed or another appointee is nominated and approved.

Moffett

A consolidated cable industry envisioned by Dr. John Malone, currently bidding for a merger between Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable, would feature widespread usage caps and usage billing and could obliterate competition from over-the-top online video providers, predicts a cable industry analyst.

Craig Moffett, now out on his own as co-head of independent Wall Street research firm MoffettNathanson, says broadband usage pricing is the sleeper issue of the last five years.

“I’ve written for years that [usage based pricing] is the single most important issue in all [the telecom sector],” Moffett said in an interview last week. “I’ve always been amazed by how little attention people have always paid to the issue.”

The Street reports that a unified cable cartel limiting consumer access to the Internet or more importantly monetizing that access would immediately devastate streaming video competitors including Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and Hulu.

If usage based pricing were implemented across the cable industry tomorrow, Moffett believes Netflix’s subscriber base would immediately fall from 30 million to 10 million. Nascent video players like Intel and Apple would likely find their business plans untenable, and some analysts believe the sweeping price changes would probably end the shift towards integrating streaming technology into large flat panel television sets.

Consumer backlash

Moffett says the impact would be broadly felt. Other analysts predict it could cause a national consumer uprising, especially at a time when other countries are swiftly moving to get rid of usage limits and consumption-based billing that have never been popular with customers.

“I think it will become clear that over the summer the window may have already closed for the cable operators to move to a usage based pricing theme,” Moffett said.

The Federal Communications Commission has done almost nothing about the issue of usage caps and usage pricing. Former FCC chairman Julius Genachowski even applauded the unpopular price scheme, calling it an important innovation.

Customers call it something else, and an uproar from consumers and competitors alike could overshadow the broadband successes of the Obama Administration. It would represent “a laughable setback for the nation’s communications infrastructure,” predict increasingly pessimistic Wall Street analysts concerned about the inevitable backlash.

The Street:

In a new broadband pricing regime, regulators would have to condone what consumers and competitors would immediately recognize as anti-competitive. Meanwhile, immensely popular content providers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, YouTube and the like would have to lose a Washington lobbying battle to the interests of cable monopolies, their arcane billing and off shored customer service.

Hollywood and broadcast networks would lose marginal new content buyers such as Netflix. Tablet makers such as Apple, Google, Samsung and Amazon would see the value of their fastest growing products put at risk.

Most importantly, it would be an affront to one of the few clear consumer victories for the Department of Justice in the Obama administration.