At a hearing Wednesday to question President Donald Trump’s nominees for the Federal Trade Commission, Democrats expressed concern about some signals from the three Republican and one Democratic nominees that they intend to enforce consumer protection laws as long as there is evidence they have the indisputable authority to act.

What happens when corporate interests and special interest groups insist the FTC’s regulatory powers are uncertain, limited by precedent, blocked by court opinions, or contrary to the wishes of Congress remained uncertain after the hearing.

The Senate Commerce Committee is facing some urgency to approve the nominations to fill a large number of vacancies at the FTC, which currently prevents the agency from taking votes on actions. If all four nominees are approved, the FTC will still have a single open commissioner’s seat on the Democratic side.

The nominated FTC commissioners are:

Simons

Joseph J. Simons, nominated for chairman for the FTC, is a Republican antitrust lawyer who has taken a few trips through Washington’s revolving door, serving as chief of the FTC’s Competition Bureau, investigating mergers and anticompetitive conduct from 2001 to 2003 under President George W. Bush. During his tenure, the FTC mostly pursued high-profile cases that brought clear evidence of antitrust harm. Under Simons, the FTC blocked Libbey, Inc. from acquiring its chief glassware rival Anchor Hocking. Vlasic Foods International and Claussen Pickle found an unreceptive FTC for their merger, eventually also blocked. Simons was noted for investigating pharmaceutical companies that applied for misleading drug patents designed to delay the entry of cheaper generic versions of brand name pharmaceutical products. After his tenure at the FTC, Simons accepted a lucrative $1.9 million partnership at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, which handles corporate mergers and acquisitions for corporate clients.

Wilson

Christine S. Wilson, a Delta Air Lines executive, is also a frequent flyer through D.C.’s revolving door. During the George W. Bush administration, she was chief of staff for then-FTC chairman Tim Muris. She also held three other significant corporate-public policy positions that advised companies and the U.S. government about antitrust matters. In 2011, Wilson accepted a high paying partnership at Kirkland and Ellis, a firm well-regarded for helping corporations successfully complete antitrust reviews of their mergers and acquisitions. Wilson’s latest employer was Delta Air Lines, which offered her an executive position in August 2016 as the company’s senior vice president for legal, regulatory, and international affairs. In addition to the $521,000 in distributions Wilson earned from her partnership at Kirkland and Ellis, Wilson accepted an undisclosed cash signing bonus, $136,000 in bonuses in 2017 from a management incentive plan, and a regular salary of $390,000. Wilson retains various amounts of unvested Delta stock and stock options that would normally be lost after leaving the company, but Delta apparently wanted to part with Wilson on the friendliest of terms, granting her pro rata compensation for the stock and waiving the usual requirement that an employee leaving so quickly after being hired should pay back 50% of their signing bonus.

Phillips

Noah Joshua Phillips served as chief counsel for Republican Sen. John Cornyn at the Senate Judiciary Committee. Before coming to Capitol Hill, Phillips was an associate at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington and at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York. He focused on civil litigation.

Consumer Federation of America senior fellow Rohit Chopra is a Democrat and the only nominee with a long record of representing consumer interests and pushing for increased consumer protection and better oversight of financial services and products targeting consumers. Chopra was previously assistant director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he oversaw the agency’s agenda on students and young consumers. He specialized in targeting the student loan industry for abusive practices and secured hundreds of millions of dollars in relief for student loan borrowers.

Chopra

Because of the unprecedented number of vacancies at the Commission, President Trump’s nominees could have an enormous impact on the direction of the FTC over the next several years. Traditionally, three of the commissioners belong to the current president’s political party and two belong to the other party.

Observers suggest the nominees are not atypical for a Republican president to nominate and some have served at the FTC before. None have attracted the kind of controversy that followed Makan Delrahim, Trump’s pick for head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. Most expect the Republican majority-led FTC will bend towards the interests of businesses unless there is clear and convincing evidence of significant consumer harm, especially in cases of mergers and acquisitions.

“Traditionally, Republican commissioners tend to be more lenient in merger enforcement on the marginal case, and we haven’t seen any evidence to indicate that [Simons] would depart from the traditional Republican posture,” said Mary Lehner, a partner with Freshfields and a former FTC attorney who also served as an adviser to two chairmen of the agency.

A major concern for some Democrats is that the FTC is now being tasked with protecting what remains of net neutrality, the open internet protocol that was swept away by the Republican majority at the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC reclassified internet service providers once again as “information services,” under Title 1 of the Communications Act. That transfers oversight back to the FTC — an agency not known for careful oversight of internet providers’ business practices.

At the hearing, Simons equivocated on how the FTC will deal with allegations of ISP abuse and signaled his concern that a Ninth Circuit court ruling found that telecommunications companies that also serve as common carriers (ie. telephone companies) are completely exempt from FTC authority.

Some Democrats interpreted Simons’ remarks as suggesting he could adopt a “my hands are tied” approach to ISP oversight, claiming that the FTC lacks the authority to keep an eye out for industry abuses.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) seized on such comments, asking Simons to confirm if he believes the FTC specifically “lacks rulemaking authority” on net neutrality while the FCC, directly responsible for transferring net neutrality enforcement away from itself, “does have rulemaking authority to prevent blocking, throttling and paid prioritization by ISPs.”

Simons prevaricated in his answer, telling Markey, “We both have rulemaking, and they’re different types of rulemaking.”

Markey

“I’d want to talk to the general counsel’s office before I gave a specific answer to that, but I’m not entirely clear,” Simons said in response to a followup question pressing the issue.

“We are going to take the [statutory] authority we have and use it as best we can,” Simons told senators at the Senate Commerce Committee hearing. “I don’t know exactly what types of anti-competitive or deceptive and unfair practices may come up. If something comes up that we can’t reach under our statute, then I would certainly talk to you about a federal legislative fix.”

But observers note such a fix could take years, and the FTC often takes a year or more to complete investigations of alleged wrongdoing before starting to act.

Chopra, the lone Democratic nominee, agreed with Democrats that he also feared the FTC’s authority to act is uncertain, and that lack of certainty is likely to delay any enforcement actions. Chopra comments suggested the telecom industry is likely to use the Ninth Circuit court ruling to their advantage.

“I share a lot of the skepticism and concerns,” Chopra told the committee. “The FTC may face an unlevel playing field where some major market participants are exempt from the commission’s authority while others are subject to it.”

Blumenthal

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that single Ninth Circuit court ruling could provide the telecom industry with a ready-made loophole to escape the FTC’s jurisdiction altogether. An ISP could acquire “a minor side business” like a small rural telephone company subject to common carrier rules and win blanket corporate immunity from FTC oversight. Although Simons said he would support striking the common carrier exemption from the Federal Trade Commission Act which defines the FTC’s authority, such a change could take several years to get through Congress and a well-funded telecom industry lobbying effort.

Phillips seemed impatient about the net neutrality debate which occupied a significant part of the hearing, characterizing it as a side issue worth sidestepping to focus on broader issues.

“We can’t allow contentious issues to distract us from the bread and butter of the agency […] looking out for children, veterans, the elderly and Americans generally,” Phillips said.

Aside from the net neutrality debate, the Republican nominees signaled their interest in the possibility of investigating large tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook for antitrust activities. Republicans have been especially critical of Google, and some conservatives believe Twitter and Facebook exhibit political bias against them. The president has also frequently attacked Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos owns the Washington Post, one of the many news outlets Trump said has been unfair to him. Trump has also accused Amazon of stiffing the government on sales taxes.

“Oftentimes companies get big because they are successful with the consumer, they offer a good service at a low price,” Simons said. “And that’s a good thing, and we don’t want to interfere with that. On the other hand, companies that are already big and influential can sometimes use inappropriate means — anticompetitive means — to get big or to stay big. And if that’s the case then we should be vigorously enforcing the antitrust laws.”

Another issue the FTC nominees promised to prioritize: online security/data breaches which expose consumers’ private information.

Washington’s Attorney General on Monday issued a consumer alert targeting Comcast for billing customers for its Service Protection Plan (SPP) without consent.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced in December new evidence obtained as part of his ongoing lawsuit against the cable and internet giant revealed that Comcast may have signed up more than half of all SPP subscribers without their consent. Since Ferguson filed an amended lawsuit, the Attorney General’s Office received more than 100 complaints from Comcast customers, including 74 about the SPP. Of those, more than 50 claim Comcast added the plan to their account without their consent.

Comcast markets the $5.99/mo plan as insurance against surprising service call fees or inside wiring replacement costs. But Ferguson accused Comcast of not clearly disclosing that its service plan does not cover one important and common expense customers with wiring problems could encounter — repairing defective wiring “wall-fished” inside walls. In many cases, SPP customers were told to hire an independent electrician to manage wall-fish installations and repairs.

Ferguson initially filed a $100 million lawsuit against Comcast in August 2016 alleging deceptive conduct and racking up more than 1.8 million violations of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. More than half a million Comcast subscribers in the state subscribe to its SPP, delivering Comcast more than $73 million in revenue  from 2011-2015. Ferguson claims many customers were told they would be enrolled for free, only to later discover an ongoing $5.99 fee on each monthly bill.

“This new evidence makes clear that Comcast’s conduct is even more egregious than we first realized,” Ferguson said. “The extent of their deception is shocking, and I will hold them accountable for their treatment of Washington consumers.”

Ferguson

Comcast’s fight to keep Washington’s Attorney General from hearing how it markets its SPP

In May 2017, King County Superior Court Judge Timothy Bradshaw ordered Comcast to provide the Attorney General’s Office with “telephone calls that exist in which [Comcast] sold the SPP to Washington consumers.” In response to the court order, Comcast turned over to the Attorney General’s Office recordings of calls between Comcast and 1,500 Washington consumers whom Comcast signed up for the SPP.

The Attorney General’s Office analyzed a random sample of recorded sales calls between Comcast and 150 Washingtonians. Comcast did not even mention the SPP to nearly half the sample. Additional consumers in the sample explicitly rejected the SPP, but Comcast signed them up anyway. Consequently, Comcast enrolled more than half of these subscribers without their consent.

Even when Comcast actually mentioned the SPP on the sales call before signing consumers up for the SPP, Comcast continued to engage in deception. Comcast deceptively failed to disclose the SPP was a monthly recurring charge to 20 percent of the Washingtonians in the sample. Rather, Comcast often told subscribers the SPP was added for “free” to their account.

According to Comcast’s own data, more than 75% of SPP subscribers sign up via the telephone. Comcast operates call centers in Washington state, Colorado, Minnesota and Texas, as well as throughout the world in the Philippines, Mexico and Guyana. Comcast paid call center staff up to $5 for every SPP sale they made.

Comcast does not instruct its employees to send customers any information about the SPP via email, text message, mail, or refer the customer to Comcast’s website while the call is occurring and the customer is considering whether to enroll in the SPP. Rather, Comcast only provides oral representations about the SPP.

The Attorney General’s Office alleges this pattern of deception is a systemic issue throughout Comcast’s marketing and “sale” of the SPP, and represents potentially tens of thousands of new violations of the Washington state Consumer Protection Act.

Comcast had spent over a year fighting the Attorney General’s Investigative Demand notice that required the company to preserve and produce recordings between Comcast employees and customers who bought the SPP. In May 2017, Comcast’s attorneys finally admitted the company deleted 90% of the call recordings it was originally compelled to produce.

Damages

Ferguson is seeking full restitution of the $73 million Comcast collected from Washington subscribers along with penalties that will cost Comcast over $100 million if the company is found to be liable.

Ferguson is still enlisting affected customers in his legal effort. Check your bill — if you believe you’re being charged for the SPP without your consent, file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office.

Residents of a handful of multi-dwelling apartments and condos in Boston, Washington, and Los Angeles will be able to kick the phone and cable company out of their units and switch to a fixed wireless provider offering 200 Mbps internet access for $50 a month.

Starry Wireless, from the man who brought you Aereo, the now defunct streaming service that used to offer local over the air stations but was sued out of existence, has spent more than a year testing its millimeter wave wireless technology in Cambridge, Mass. apartment buildings and is ready to expand.

A company promotional video explains Starry’s internet service. (1:53)

Starry is considered a startup, but is relying on budget-conscious pre-existing technology to deliver point-to-multipoint wireless internet service over a limited area. Using pre-standard 5G technology that relies on unlicensed millimeter wave spectrum, Starry’s service is provided from antennas mounted on multi-story buildings.

Because the technology isn’t revolutionary, Starry can utilize equipment already for sale in the marketplace. Some commercial fixed-wireless services already exist using a similar approach, and Google itself is developing a wireless gigabit internet service that is likely to eventually overtake its limited fiber rollouts.

Starry currently offers one plan – 200/200 Mbps with no data caps or contracts for $50 a month. The company claims it can deliver gigabit service using the same technology, but has chosen not to offer it at this time.

Reviews in the Boston area give the service high marks for performance, even in bad weather that was expected to create some problems for the line-of-sight technology. But the service also has its skeptics who believe the technology’s downsides limit its scale.

The biggest con to millimeter wave internet is that its range is extremely limited. Starry is only expected to serve multi-dwelling units in dense urban areas, where its mounted rooftop antennas can reach enough customers to cover the company’s costs. Neither Google or Starry have targeted their services to residential customers living in single home neighborhoods. Starry also must find receptive landlords willing to offer or lease space for its antenna equipment and tolerate mounted equipment, as needed.

Starry’s technology approach offers a concentrated signal with extensive bandwidth available to customers. Because its reach is so limited, each antenna will reach a smaller number of customers, making it unlikely the company will oversell its wireless capacity. Starry’s decision to not get into the gigabit business yet may be a way of ensuring it has enough capacity to deliver the speeds it advertises to customers before speeding things up.

Customers are strongly encouraged by the company to use its included Starry Station, a triangular Wi-Fi hub with a built-in Android-powered touchscreen controller to manage in-home Wi-Fi. This device normally retails for around $300, so bundling it with internet service makes it a good deal. But the device gets mixed reviews. Some criticized it as over-engineered and unstable. Many reviewers complained about poor Wi-Fi coverage and randomly dropped wireless signals. Others complained it tends to lock up, which may be the result of overheating. Many noticed the unit generates a lot of heat, presumably from its built-in power supply and Android touchscreen interface. It requires a noticeably loud built-in fan, which runs continuously, to manage cooling duty.

The Starry Station did not get great reviews for its performance or the amazing amount of heat it generates. (2 minutes)

Despite the expansion into Los Angeles and Washington, Starry can still be considered a beta level service and availability will remain spotty for some time. During 2018, Starry expects to begin limited service in: New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami and Minneapolis.

Wave Broadband, an independent cable operator providing service in the Pacific Northwest, has announced it now offers gigabit broadband service across its three state footprint of Washington, Oregon, and northern California.

Wave has been testing gigabit service in select multi-dwelling units in Seattle, Portland, and portions of greater San Francisco, but has now expanded service to all of its residential and business customers.

“We are thrilled to launch gigabit speeds throughout our coverage areas in Washington, Oregon, and California,” said Harold Zeitz, Wave president and chief operating officer. “During the past several years, Wave has focused on growing our fiber network specifically to accommodate gigabit and faster connections for our customers. The demand for fast, reliable internet connections at an affordable price is growing, and our Gig Speed Internet is the ideal solution for both residential and business customers.”

Details:

Wave Fiber 1000: 1,000/10Mbps for $80/mo year one, $99/mo thereafter. Unlimited data included (on slower plans, it costs an extra $20/mo).

In contract, Wave also offers a 100/5Mbps plan that includes a 400GB data cap for $50 a month. Doubling the cap to 800GB costs an extra $10 a month. Removing the cap entirely costs an extra $20 a month. That means customers seeking an unlimited experience can spend $10 more to move from 100Mbps to 1,000Mbps service.

Wave currently serves 673,000 homes in communities bypassed by Comcast, the region’s dominant cable operator.

Antenna tower operator Crown Castle International has announced it will buy privately held Lightower Fiber Networks for about $7.1 billion in cash to acquire the company’s extensive fiber assets across the northeastern United States that will be used to connect small cell 5G networks.

The acquisition will allow Crown Castle to market an extensive fiber backhaul network in large cities like New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia, as well as smaller cities particularly in upstate New York, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and northern New England. Crown Castle, which already owns many of the cell towers where AT&T and Verizon place their equipment, will now be able to market fiber backhaul connectivity for AT&T and Verizon’s forthcoming 5G networks.

LIghtower’s fiber footprint.

Lightower’s fiber network was originally focused on major markets like Boston, New York City, the District of Columbia, and Chicago. Its partner, Fibertech — acquired by Lightower in 2015, focused on 30 mid-sized cities from Indiana to the west to Maine in the east. The network’s customers are large companies and independent ISPs. In Rochester, where Lightower maintains a Network Operations Center, Greenlight Networks relies on a fiber backhaul network originally built by Fibertech to connect its fiber-to-the-home broadband service. That fiber is likely to soon be shared with AT&T, Verizon, and potentially T-Mobile and Sprint to power any 5G buildouts in the region.

“Lightower’s dense fiber footprint is well-located in top metro markets in the northeast and is well-positioned to facilitate small cell deployments by our customers,” said Crown Castle CEO Jay Brown in a statement. “Following the transaction, we will have approximately 60,000 route miles of fiber with a presence in all of the top 10 and 23 of the top 25 metro markets.”

This acquisition marks Crown Castle’s first major diversion outside of its core market — leasing out the cell towers it owns or acquires.