DragonI

Verizon, Other ISPs Won't Say How Badly They Plan to F*ck You Over Now

Now that the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission has decided to toss a massive favor to their friends in the telecom industry and revoke open internet rules, there may soon be no regulatory barrier preventing ISPs from implementing paid prioritization schemes or outright blocking or censoring competitors.

gizmodo.com|Tom McKay

According to an Associated Press review of seven of the country’s biggest telecom providers, ZERO were willing to “rule out the possibility” of establishing fast or slow lanes for various streams of content. 

Three providers—Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile—declined to specifically say they would not block or censor content in the future.

Of course, trying to plumb these statements for actual commitments is a fool’s errand, since ISPs have 

• a long history of lying
• throttling applications they claim consume too much bandwidth, or blocking competitors and things like BitTorrent.

While ISPs trying to force their users back into AOL-style walled gardens is probably not going to happen, consumers should be prepared for telecoms to renege on their promises of self-regulation as soon as it’s convenient.

FCC approves changes to phone subsidies on tribal lands

Federal regulators approved major changes Thursday to a program that discounts phone service for low-income residents on tribal land.

www.washingtonpost.com

The FCC says the Lifeline program is in serious need of reform to cut down on waste, fraud and abuse.

The FCC says resellers have no incentive to expand communications networks on tribal land because they don’t own them.

People like Joe Redcloud of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota say eliminating resellers will give Native Americans fewer or no options for mobile service. “This will be a travesty to Indian Country because it will turn back the clock to times when consumers had but one choice,” he said this week.

Trump's FCC is stopping 9 companies from providing federally subsidized Internet to the poor

And it could signal broader restrictions for the program known as Lifeline.

www.washingtonpost.com|https://www.facebook.com/brian.d.fung

The move, announced Friday by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, reverses a decision by his Democratic predecessor, Tom Wheeler, and undercuts the companies' ability to provide low-cost Internet access to poorer Americans. In a statement,  Pai called the initial decisions a form of “midnight regulation.”

“In some cases, commissioners were given no advance notice whatsoever of these midnight regulations,”

“In other cases, they were issued over the objection of two of the four commissioners. And in all cases, their release ran contrary to the wishes expressed by the leadership of our congressional oversight committees. These last-minute actions, which did not enjoy the support of the majority of commissioners at the time they were taken, should not bind us going forward. Accordingly, they are being revoked.”

Google Outpaces Facebook on Getting India Connected to Internet

When it comes to connecting India’s population to the internet, Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is having better luck than his Facebook Inc. counterpart, Mark Zuckerberg.

www.bloomberg.com

Google began offering free Wi-Fi at about two dozen train stations in the country earlier this year, and now has 2 million people using the service each month, Pichai said in a recent earnings call. Millions more will gain access as the service expands to 100 locations by the year end. The search provider’s goal is to reach 400 stations. 

About a third of India’s population has internet access, with an estimated 462 million in June, according to a IAMAI report. The country ranked 131st out of 189 countries in broadband penetration, and has the lowest average connection speed in Asia, according to Akamai Technologies Inc. While Google isn’t targeting those using its Wi-Fi with advertising, it’s aiming to get more people online and betting that they will use the company’s services and see more ads.

Google will offer free broadband to low-income families in White House pilot program

The program will bring broadband to 275,000 families across the US

www.theverge.com|MicahSingleton

A new pilot program called ConnectHome may be the first step in changing the online experience of low-income families around the country. Today the White House announced that Google, along with ISPs like Cox, Sprint, and Century Link will be providing 275,000 low-income families with free or deeply discounted broadband service. President Obama is expected to announce the plan during a speech at a high school in Durant, Oklahoma later today.

ConnectHome will roll out in 27 cities across the country, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Newark, New Orleans, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The initial rollout is focused on reaching low-income families with school-aged children. "While many middle-class US students go home to internet access, allowing them to do research, write papers, and communicate digitally with their teachers and other students, too many lower-income children go unplugged every afternoon when school ends," the White House said in a statement, first reported by Bloomberg. The announcement comes after a new report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers that shows income is still the biggest barrier to gaining broadband access, even over geography.

Google Fiber will offer free service for low-income families in Atlanta, Durham, Kansas City, and Nashville, while Cox will offer broadband for $9.99 a month to families in cities including Macon, Georgia, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and New Orleans. The Department of Housing and Urban Development will also require new public housing developments to support broadband going forward. Best Buy PBS, the American Library Association, and Boys and Girls Clubs of America will offer internet training to low-income families as well in a number of cities.