Cell Phone Price Controls: The FCC’s Next Power Grab

We’ve already seen the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in illegal and extraordinary fashion commandeer control of the Internet – so as to then impose the ridiculous notion that is Network Neutrality.

Which remains a solution running around looking for a problem – government rushing to drastically increase government to allegedly address a non-existent “crisis.”  (Even the fake ones are never allowed to go to waste.)

In addition to being a horrendous overreach of the FCC’s non-existent statutory authority, it is an incredible and unwieldy disruption of the free market.

A free market which has thus far worked amazingly well – as the government-free Web has rapidly developed into the free speech, commerce-rich Xanadu we all know and love.  (Internet business now represents 1/6^th of the U.S.’s entire economy – an equal share to that of health care.)

The Internet – free from stifling and sloth-inducing regulation – is reinvented for the better again and again, on an almost moment-to-moment basis.

The government, meanwhile, cannot successfully deliver snail mail.  It therefore cannot hope to keep up with the mercurial, improvisational Internet – nor should it try.

But Net Neutrality is not just the oppressive burden of ham-handed regulation of the inter-network – it is also a backdoor, stealth imposition of price controls.

Which never work at controlling prices (just ask anyone from the Richard Nixon Administration).  They will instead create caps on Internet investment.

Who will want to invest the big-time coin necessary to continue to grow the Web if said investors are mandated by the government to charge less in the aggregate than what they’re in the aggregate investing?

Scarcity – and then government-controlled Web rationing – will be the inevitable result.

And price controls are just what the Media Marxists – for whom and by whom the FCC’s Net Neutrality order was written – want.  As demonstrated by the absurd complaints they’ve already filed.

The ultimate objective?  To demand via federal fiat that wired and wireless Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do said providing – for free.

After all, as former Obama Administration Internet Czar Susan Crawford insists: “The Worldwide Web belongs to everyone.”

Those who pay for it – and those who don’t.

It’s as if these Leftists are saying “Thanks for the trillion dollar Internet investment – now, fork it over.”

As President Barack Obama promised – spreading that wealth around.

Which brings us to cell phone data roaming.  Which is basically this:

Cell Phone Provider A does not have a network in a certain area.  Cell Phone Provider B does.  So A & B reach an agreement where A pays B to use B’s network in that area.

The reason B has coverage there is because they spent the big-time coin necessary to build their network there.  A’s ability to contract with B to use B’s network saves A the big-time coin investment necessary to build their network there.

It’s like renting versus buying an apartment or house.  Those who can’t afford to buy rent from those who can.

This data sharing happens ALL the time, and has since cell phones first roamed the Earth.

Not anymore, say the Media Marxists – and the FCC again doing their bidding.

So as to execute yet another regulatory assault on the free market, these Leftists have created yet another non-crisis “crisis” – “bill shock.”

Translation: Someone somewhere is actually having to pay for the cellular service they are using.

“Bill shock” is – like Net Neutrality – just another ruse.  A fake “problem” whose big government “solution” allows these Marxist hacks to again batter the private sector and spread the wealth around.

And – like with Net Neutrality – to begin the inexorable slide to the imposition of price controls.  With all the attending scarcity and government-enforced rationing to follow.

And – like with Net Neutrality – their ultimate objective is to demand via federal fiat that cellular providers do said providing – for free.

As Ms. Crawford would say, the cellular networks belong to everyone – those who pay for them and those who don’t.

And on Thursday the FCC is poised to again do as the Media Marxists demand – they will at their monthly meeting vote on whether or not to start the “bill shock” rule-making process.

Which – just like with Net Neutrality – they have exactly ZERO authority to do.

But the 3-2 Democrat majority hasn’t yet let that stop them, so….

This latest FCC power grab is not yet an inevitability – the rule-making process is made up of several steps, of which this is only the first.  But it appears the Commission is energetically headed that way.

Towards yet another Marxist mess for We the People to clean up.

But thankfully, this is one we can still prevent.

So please, let us do so – before we all have to grab yet another mop.