As the FCC opens the floor to public comment on its "third way" to Net Neutrality, telecoms are spending millions to influence lawmakers -- and hiring former lawmakers to do the dirty work. According to Politico, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, NCTA and US Telecom spent $20.6 million lobbying various federal agencies and congressional committees in the first quarter of this year.
Meanwhile, the revolving door spins and spins as former politicians sign up to handle the telecoms' interests on Capitol Hill. Eighteen former lawmakers from the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, the House committee with telecommunications jurisdiction are working for various lobbyists groups. In 2010, lobbying organizations hired former Energy & Commerce Committee members Jim Davis (AT&T), Jack Fields (Verizon), Ron Klink (Comcast), Chip Pickering (Comcast and National Cable and Television Association) and Al Wynn (US Telecom Association).
Other notables handling telecom interests include Former Sen. Don Nickles (Comcast), who was the Republican Majority Whip from 1996 to 2001. Comcast also hired the former House Majority Whip William H. Gray. AT&T has hired John Breaux and Trent Lott, who operate the Breaux Lott Leadership Group, along with former House Republican Conference Chair J.C. Watts and California Democrat Vic Fazio.
Telecoms are also hiring a number of lobbyists who have worked on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation or the House Committee on Energy & Commerce. Fourteen of those lobbyists used to work on the House committee and thirteen worked at the Senate committee. Six organizations employ 26 former staffers of current members of the House committee and 22 former staffers of current members of the Senate committee. The list includes the former chief of staff, Lane Bailey, and deputy chief of staff, Patrick Robertson, to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. Robertson is lobbying Comcast, while Bailey is focusing on efforts related to the National Cable and Television Association.
Source: Politico
Comments
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
"AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, NCTA and US Telecom spent $20.6 million lobbying various federal agencies and congressional committees in the first quarter of this year" that likely could have been better spent on network upgrades versus lobbying against your customers desires. There is no justification for breaking US capitalism. All companies do in this exercise is foster fear, uncertainty, and doubt which I think is a marketing 101 failure? Why a company would ever make this an us vs. them argument with your own customer base is beyond me.
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
Comm companies can get away with pissing off their customer base because their customer base has no other option but to buy from them.
Due to the limited availability of infrastructure, Communication companies are allowed to have regional monopolies. It's for this reason if you want cable, you only have one option. If you want a landline for your phone, you only have one option. If you want power, gas, utilities, etc, you only have one option.
Because of this, there's no reason to please your customer base. So they don't like your service? Sucks to be them. If they want X-utility, then they'll have to go through you. But others point out satellite service. Sure, that's always an option everywhere, but it also has its downsides (slow upload speeds, costly installation, sucks when the weather's bad, etc). Satellite has its limits, so as long as landlines have competitive pricing and service, then the landline company doesn't need to invest more into infrastructure.
Sure, if they put more money into their infrastructure, they'd get better speeds and better customer happiness, but very quickly the cost of upgrading their infrastructure has less benefits, dollar for dollar, of customer bill payments coming in. In other words, they wouldn't get the return costs that they put into their new infrastructure in a timely matter. This would drive their stock prices down, and make major stock holders not as pleased as numbers aren't as far into the black as possible.
So basically, Comm companies don't care if you hate them. They don't care if they could upgrade their infrastructure to provide better service. To them, it's cheaper to pay off politicians and hire good lobbyists so that they don't have to spend money to make their customers happy than to actually make their customers happy. What are you going to do if you're not happy? Not pay for internet service?
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
Well, it's not that they won't get their gratification i na timely manner, they won't get it instantly like they do now.
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
Well the power company in chattnooga got into TV and phone and fiber net. In these times the land lines need to be taken over and be made public domain and companies rent the use of them from the goverment.
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/what-is-cigital-disobedience/
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
In a way, that is how they work. While private companies own the lines, they are required to lease them out to other entities.
DLS (in what I would consider its squandered golden age) used to work this way too. You could contract with any ISP you wanted, and the local telco leased the lines out to them. When I got my first DLS I litterally had dozens of choices and they provided a wide range of services. After that requirement was lifted though, my choices dropped to one.
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
The argument is that government-imposed net neutrality ITSELF breaks capitalism -- that the free market will decide whether networks should treat all packets equally or not, and that if a provider does something its users don't like, they'll just go to another.
Which is bullshit, of course; my area only has two broadband providers, and if they both decide to screw their customers, you can't just go somewhere else. Broadband is not a free market, not where I live and not in many places in the US.
Which also, I think, answers your question about why the broadband providers would so vocally oppose their own customers' interest: because their customers have nowhere else to go except to another provider who ALSO opposes their interest.
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
The free market is a fallacy as you need regulations that force fair play in order to be free of monopolies and monopolization of power and consumers.
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/what-is-cigital-disobedience/
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
*nod* pure free markets are like anarchism, they are unstable and devolve into traditional forms at the drop of a hat.
Re: Net Neutrality and the Revolving Door
Companies do this all the time. They just want to make as much money as possible, the hell with their customer base.