As you may have read, just the other day AT&T announced its intended purchase of T-Mobile for $39 billion.  With the move, AT&T will be the largest mobile carrier in the nation, serving about 130 million Americans.

Many factors likely hastened the acquisition.  Chief among them is the lack of spectrum and related infrastructure for AT&T at a time when wireless broadband use is exploding (you may be reading this story on one such wireless broadband device – a smartphone or tablet).

The move is not a done deal, of course.  It needs regulatory approval from the FCC and DOJ.  And, this is where the horse-trading comes in.  There will be concessions. The trick for the company is to limit them, ensuring they’re narrowly tailored to the acquisition at hand.  The game for policymakers and anti-private property activists is to make them as expansive as possible, addressing policy considerations and other giveaways that could not be obtained in the legislative and regulatory arenas.

One area that will find increased scrutiny is the newly created Net Neutrality regulations – rules which were, many feel, strong-armed by the FCC onto the previously regulation-free Internet.  Notes Bruce Gottlieb, ex-Chief Counsel to FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski:

[T]he FCC’s recent network neutrality decision created less restrictive rule for mobile Internet access service, as compared to wired service, in part due to assumptions about competition in wireless. Expect calls to revisit this decision, as well.

This is not to suggest that the acquisition is bad for consumers.  In fact, I think it help them. They’ll benefit from a stronger company, which will more quickly be able to roll out the next generation of spectrum-guzzling, wireless broadband services we crave.  It will also spur direct competition, and competition in adjacent markets, such as landline broadband. The ecosystem for devices, applications and services will explode, too.  And prices – which have been below the CPI – will likely remain low and affordable (especially considering the added value of more bandwidth, enabling ever-more powerful tools on the network).

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From National Journal:

In a paean to deregulation, a group of top telecommunication companies and trade associations sent a letter to the White House Friday, complaining that the Federal Communications Commission isn’t doing enough to reduce federal rules.

Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Verizon joined organizations like CTIA and Broadband for America in arguing that the FCC, which regulates all of them, is not sufficiently following President Obama’s order to review, and if necessary, cut regulations.

While the group lauded FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s pledge to review the agency’s rules, current efforts are “plainly insufficient to carry out the President’s vision of meaningful regulatory reform,” the letter reads. The companies go on to call for a “far more rigorous and comprehensive effort to ensure that the governing regulatory framework is appropriately tailored to today’s broadband marketplace, and that outdated and needlessly burdensome rules do not stand in the way of continued investment and innovation.”

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When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rammed through net neutrality regulations last December, Chairman Julius Genachowski may have been hoping Americans would be too busy with their Christmas shopping to notice and that the matter would die as other issues grabbed at Congress’ and the public’s attention in the new year.

Judging by the response of House Republicans to the FCC, however, it appears that Genachowski judged wrong.

On Sunday, Speaker Boehner fired a shot across the FCC’s bow, telling a group of religious broadcasters that the FCC’s net neutrality rules demonstrate that the agency “is creeping further into the free market,” and suggesting that FCC regulation could impact freedom of speech, moving forward.

“The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over local broadcasters who have been serving their communities with free content for decades,” Boehner said in comments cited by the Washington Times.

The Speaker’s view seems to be shared by Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee, led by Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.).  That panel is set to vote tomorrow on a “resolution of disapproval” of the FCC’s regulations.

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As reported earlier, Representative Marsha Blackburn (R, TN) introduced a bi-partisan bill to preempt the December power grab by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. This issue is not just a boring technical issue, though, as it goes right to the core of Obama’s attempt to force his agenda by regulatory fiat.

Blackburn’s bill would place all rules governing the Internet in the purview of Congress and would take the issue out of the hands of the FCC. She is reporting that 60 members support her bill to halt the FCCs efforts to take control of the Internet without legislative action.

“The FCC’s Christmas week Internet-grab points out how important it is that we pass this bill quickly,” Blackburn said in a statement to the media.

Last year, Blackburn appeared at a Heritage Foundation meeting and discussed this issue.

“What we will do is first use this as a way to show how we’re going to keep that Pledge to America,” she said yesterday at The Heritage Foundation. “We said in the Pledge that any rule or regulation that had more than $100 million impact on our nation’s economy would be subject to review. … This is an area where we can keep that Pledge. We can go ahead and start congressional review and move forward on getting this off the books.”

This issue is not one of just Internet regulations but is one more example of Obama’s tendency to use regulation to get around the legislative process, to get around the courts, and to get around the voters in order to instill his left-wing agenda by regulatory fiat.

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From the Associated Press:

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski now has the three votes needed for approval, despite firm opposition from the two Republicans on the five-member commission. Genachowski’s two fellow Democrats said Monday they will vote for the rules, even though they consider them too weak.

The outcome caps a nearly-16-month push by Genachowski to pass “network neutrality” rules and marks a key turning point in a policy dispute that began more than five years ago.

“The open Internet is a crucial American marketplace, and I believe that it is appropriate for the FCC to safeguard it by adopting an order that will establish clear rules to protect consumers’ access,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Yet many supporters of network neutrality are disappointed.

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This is but the latest in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski’s ongoing terrible interpretation of his self-appointed role as Captain Transparency.

As we have much discussed, the FCC has decided to power grab Internet authority on December 21^st.  The Commission must seize said authority because it does not have it unless and until Congress writes a law saying so – which The Chairman himself admits Congress has not done.

The Chairman will do so via a three unelected bureaucrat Democrat Party-line vote (that’s counting him).  He intends to do so under cover of Christmas – slamming it through less than 96 hours before the Big Day.

The Chairman will do so by writing (and rewriting, and rewriting some more, and rewriting again) an 80-plus page “order” – which sounds an awful lot like he’s appropriating Congress’ job and writing law.  (Because, again, Congress has never written a law that allows him to do this.)  He is in perpetual revision mode to continue to capitulate to the demands – and induce the vote – of the FCC’s most Leftist member – Commissioner Michael Copps – driving this Web takeover to the outer limits of illegal usurpation.

The Chairman will do so without a new Public Comment period on this (law and) order.  A new Public Comment period would be most appropriate given the continuing newness and dramatic scope of the Internet control he is writing and voting for himself.  (The Internet is now 1/6^th of our nation’s entire economy – and [for now] growing.)

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Next week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is anticipated to try to push through net neutrality regulations in the course of its December 21 meeting.  But as a letter released this week by thirty Republican senators makes clear, key members of the legislative branch are having none of it, and will force a confrontation on the Senate floor if the FCC proceeds.

In the letter, according to the Washington Examiner, Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, John McCain, R-Ariz., Kit Bond, R-Mo., Judd Gregg, R-N.H., Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Jim DeMint, R-S.C., James Risch, R-Idaho, Mike Johanns, R-Neb., John Thune, R-S.D., Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Robert Bennett, R-Utah, John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., John Cornyn, R-Texas, David Vitter, R-La., Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., Jim Bunning, R-Ky., Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, state that:

[The FCC has] admitted in published statements that the legal justification for imposing these new regulations is questionable and “has a serious risk of failure in court.” It is very clear that Congress has not granted the Commission the specific statutory authority to do what you are proposing. Whether and how the Internet should be regulated is something that America’s elected representatives in Congress, not the Commission, should determine.

Rep. Fred Upton, who is set to take over the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction where net neutrality is concerned, has already signaled his disapproval of the move in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, which reads in part:

The FCC does not have authority to regulate the Internet, and pursuing net neutrality through Title I or reclassification is wholly unacceptable. Our new majority will use rigorous oversight, hearings and legislation to fight the FCC’s overt power grab.

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The news to be culled from this latest Federal Communications Commission (FCC) attempt to usurp Internet regulatory authority and impose Network Neutrality is – there really is no news.  At least in the broadest – and most important – sense.

What was true before FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s Tuesday midnight run to grab power over the Web remains true today – the FCC does not have the authority to do what they have just announced they will do on December 21^st.

Unless and until the Congress enacts law making it so, the FCC doesn’t have the authority to do anything.  December’s vote to commandeer control of the Internet is no more legitimate than – and just as capricious as – if they were to vote themselves masters of all the nation’s pizza joints.

The FCC – no government agency – can just decide they want to regulate an industry – and then vote themselves power over it.  That’s not constitutional, representative, limited government – that’s Hugo Chavez-style expropriative despotism.

And it’s not as if The Chairman has been suffering from a dearth of people pointing out his lack of authority.  We have repeatedly pointed it out.  And it hasn’t just been us.

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It’s an eerie echo of last year’s health care debate, but without nearly as much public attention.  Another Christmas Eve, another sixth of the economy taken over by Washington.

This time it’s so-called “network neutrality” regulation.  President Obama’s Federal Communications Commission is obsessed with regulating the Internet.  They apparently won’t be stopped by common sense, courts of law, public opinion, or a resounding electoral defeat for big government policies.  They made it official last night at midnight when they announced the agenda for their December 21 meeting: the FCC is going to regulate the Internet.

Network neutrality (also known by the even more lovely sounding marketing term “open Internet”) is an outgrowth of the larger so-called media reform project of radical left-wing activists like Robert McChesney, the socialist founder of the misnamed group Free Press, which has enormous influence on the FCC, where its former communications director, Jen Howard, is FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s press secretary.

McChesney explained where net neutrality leads to SocialistProject.ca:

You will never ever, in any circumstance, win any struggle at any time. That being said, we have a long way to go. At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.

The FCC’s new rules, likely to be approved on a final 3-2, party-line vote on December 21, take McChesney’s first step.

Network neutrality sounds simple – force phone and cable companies to treat every bit of information the same way – but modern networks are incredibly complex, with millions of lines of code in every router, and constantly evolving.

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The FCC is trying to walk a careful line on net neutrality, according to Democratic and Republican sources in Congress and the FCC.

Earlier this year, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed regulations giving his agency wide authority over broadband services, including the right to set limits on new services and innovation.

Lately, however, Genachowski seems on a more cautious approach, distancing himself from the more fanatical regulations. Word coming from the FCC is that Genachowski decided that he couldn’t satisfy the net neutrality fanatics and still have good policy. So if he couldn’t get both, he decided, he should focus on good policy.

Naturally, the Professional Left is outraged but at this point, most policymakers recognize that as a political pressure game and they are increasingly disregarding it. In fact, Genachowski is even getting a great deal of credit – especially within Congress – for having the courage to withstand the political pressure from Free Press and Moveon.org.

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Word has it that the Internet is on the brink of a takeover.

Egged on by radical interests, the FCC is poised to impose onerous regulations to guide the medium to a more “open” future.  No matter that the Internet is perhaps one of the greatest success stories ever.  And that a key to its success rests in the fact that government has stepped out of the way, letting developers and networks do what they do best – serve Americans with cutting-edge communications tools at affordable prices.

All of this is meaningless, of course, when the whip count and brute bureaucratic force are in your favor.

You see, Washington just learned that a bill, which could stop the FCC’s plans, is in deep jeopardy.  The bill’s sponsor – Representative Henry Waxman – doesn’t have enough Republican support to credibly move the legislation through Congress.  Lacking this, the proposal is basically dead in the water (even before formal introduction), having virtually no practical effect on the rogue FCC.

On any other day I wouldn’t shed a single crocodile tear hearing this news.  Not today, however.  Said Waxman, “If our efforts to find bipartisan consensus fail, the FCC should move forward.”

This will have significant repercussions.

I have long advocated that the Internet does not need regulating.  Technology, marketplace dynamics, consumer education, reputation management, current competition law and industry best practices all work together to make sure that the Internet remains open.  Though the naysayers cry otherwise, the still-unregulated Internet is anything but broken.  With each day, new services come on line, serving more and more Americans with Internet services.

But since the present Administration came to town, radical interests have captured policymakers at the FCC.  Over the past two years, they have enjoyed immense success in peddling the idea that the Internet is in danger of breaking unless Washington comes to the rescue.

How so?

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The Germans have a word called Schadenfreude, which roughly translates into taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.  It’s the feeling most of us had when we read about Paris Hilton’s latest arrest.

Usually you feel a little guilty, but sometimes life brings an example that’s so crazy it becomes almost funny.  In other words, you get Free Press.  This is the Professional Left group founded by the avowed socialist Robert McChesney around the time he called the United States “by any honest account, the leading terrorist institution in the world today.”

This week, Free Press became so hysterical as to be almost unhinged, acting like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.  The organization launched a full-throated “shock and awe” broadside to get the FCC to begin regulating “neutrality” over the Internet.   Along with fellow liberal travelers at Public Knowledge, Free Press posted scathing attacks suggesting that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski had become a tool of corporate interests and a “toothless bureaucrat.”

As enjoyable as it is to watch these guys work themselves into a frenzy on Net neutrality, it’s even more fun to admire the irony: Free Press is pushing exactly the kind of Executive Branch power-grab that liberals scorned loudly during the Bush years!

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Former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Glen Robinson wrote yesterday about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed “Third Way” solution to Commission Internet regulation – whereby the FCC unilaterally rips the Internet out of its current lightly regulated framework and places it under the antiquated and oppressive Title II telephone regulatory regime.

Mr. Robinson deems this to be not the “moderate” solution the Chairman – and pro-Net Neutrality zealots – purport it to be.  Of course, he is exactly right.

The Hill’s Sara Jerome gets the goods:

“If this new middle way seems moderate, that appearance is an illusion,” writes Glen Robinson, a member of the board of academic advisers at the free-market think tank the Free State Foundation. Robinson served as a commissioner in the ’70s.

Under the “third way” plan, the FCC would seek more power to police broadband service providers and enforce net-neutrality rules. To do that, it would place broadband services under telephone regulations.

But Genachowski promises that the FCC would not hold onto the complete set of rules that govern telephone services. In an effort at moderation, he says the FCC would give up the power to enforce the strictest telephone provisions through a process titled “forbearance.”

Please forgive us if we do not trust a federal agency to forever restrain itself as to what it takes under its authoritative auspices.

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In step with federal government intrusion into the health care system, the auto industry, and the financial industry, the FCC and the Obama Administration has had its eye on asserting control over the Internet.

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) closed its official public comment period “In the Matter of Framework for Broadband Internet Service.”  In English?  Despite broad opposition, three of the five unelected members of the FCC are one step away from officially regulating the Internet under laws originally intended for monopoly telephone carriers in the 1930s.

So how can the FCC make this dramatic change in the way the government treats the Internet?  Well, according to the Democrats on the Commission and far left advocacy organizations like Free Press, it’s a surprisingly simple process – one that does not include the approval of Congress approval or any elected officials.

Just since June 17, the FCC: opened a Notice of Inquiry to seek the “best legal framework for broadband Internet access” on a partisan 3-2 vote; accepted comments on these proposed regulations; and then allowed for reply comments so that policy, advocacy, and industry leaders would have a chance to refute whatever points were made during the initial comment period (to whomever might be interested in a seemingly obscure telecommunications issue, in the middle of August!).

And that’s it, folks!

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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski continues his persistent push to dramatically increase his Commission’s regulatory authority over the Internet.

He remains just as persistent in refusing to offer a substantive legal authority for doing it.

This could be because there really isn’t one.  And it’s not just me saying it.  It’s also a unanimous D.C. Circuit Court (in the Comcast-BitTorrent case), 282 members of Congress – including 74 House Democrats, and even seventeen minority groups who almost NEVER line up against any Democrat anywhere.

The consensus being that legislation is required to better delineate FCC authority over the Internet.

Way back on May 27, Michigan Democrat John Dingell sent Genachowski one of his famous “Dingell-grams” requesting an explanation.  On July 26 – nearly two months later – Genachowski finally responded.  Dingell was underwhelmed.

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Amazon.com, the online retailing powerhouse, last week announced a shift in stance on net neutrality that has tech policy observers in the nation’s capital buzzing.

The company, a long-time backer of the controversial policy and member of the pro-net neutrality Open Internet Coalition, signaled in an op-ed by its Vice President for Global Public Policy, Paul Misener, openness to a compromise measure, which would allow what are known as “managed services” to be offered by Internet Service (ISPs) subject to certain conditions.

Specifically, Misener argues that “Internet content providers (and consumers) should be able to purchase ‘quality of service’ or ‘managed services’ from network operators on the same basis–equal availability and no harm to other content.”

Previously, net neutrality proponents had been unwilling to sanction the marketing of such services, irrespective of equal availability or non-prejudicial impact—a position still held by many on the “pro” side of the debate.

The shift was therefore dubbed a “major departure” by one expert tracking the net neutrality debate with whom Capitol Confidential spoke, and one that could have significant ramifications for the way the net neutrality battle plays out moving forward.

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The number of congressional Democrats who oppose the Federal Communications Commission’s bid to reclassify broadband as a traditional telecommunications service has reached seventy-six.  Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, last week urged Commission chief Julius Genachowski to search for a legislative solution in the adoption of so-called Network Neutrality rules.

Stabenow, whose disapproval of the FCC’s controversial undertaking promises to spur similar statements from colleagues in the upper chamber of Congress, asked Genachowski and his four fellow commissioners–two of whom are Democrats, and both approve of the measure–to stay the implementation of the agency’s reclassification proposal until Congress can revise the Communications Act.

“I urge the Commission to withdraw its Title II classification effort and work with the Chairs of the appropriate Congressional committees to develop [a] suitable and clear statute that will help us achieve our national broadband goals,” Stabenow wrote in a letter to Genachowski.

Democratic legislators chairing the relevant communications, commerce and technology committees in the House and Senate said last month that Congress will soon “launch a process to develop proposals” to overhaul the bill, which established in 1934 the FCC’s jurisdiction over traditional telecommunications services. Polls indicate that legislative action on net neutrality is slightly more palatable–though only marginally, and still faces broad public skepticism–than the FCC reengineering the regulatory framework of its own accord.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently hit a major stumbling block in its effort to impose net neutrality via the “reclassification” of broadband services.  Following months of civil rights groups, artists, and a major union voicing their opposition to net neutrality as a policy and a federal appeals court ruling that the FCC’s regulatory power was more limited than the agency had believed, 248 members of the U.S. House of Representatives went on the record to oppose the FCC’s plans.

But that hasn’t stopped the FCC from continuing to pursue reclassification.  Last week, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn unveiled herself as a supporter of designating broadband a telephone service under Title II of the Communications Act.

In a speech to the Media Institute, Clyburn rejected the notion that reclassification constituted a power grab saying that “The chairman is proposing that we reestablish the authority that the commission and most observers thought we had.”

But opponents say that the FCC’s proposed action is exactly that—a naked power grab, aimed not at reestablishing something “stripped” of the FCC, but rather extending the agency’s reach to impose heavy regulation on Internet services, in possible usurpation of Congress’ authority.

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The Federal Communications Commission’s bid to subject broadband services to stricter regulation encountered a new hurdle last Friday, as an informal count of legislators revealed more than half of the members of the House oppose reshaping the regulatory framework through reclassification.

In separate letters to FCC chief Julius Genachowski, 74 Democrats and 171 Republicans aired reservations with the commission’s present course, warning that the move to reclassify broadband a Title II service would retard innovation and stall investment. A few stragglers, including the Dean of the House Rep. John Dingell, brought the tally to 248.

GOPNetNeutralityletter

The Republican letter–by-lined by Rep. Joe Barton, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Cliff Sterns, senior most Republican on the House and Energy Commerce telecommunications subcommittee–said that reclassifying ISPs as a Title II common carrier is not within the purview of the FCC and should be left at the sole discretion of Congress.

“We write to encourage you not to proceed down your announced path to reclassify broadband service as a phone service under Title II of the Communications Act,” their letter reads. “Such a significant interpretation change to the Communications Act should be made by Congress.”

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Four senior congressional Democrats inadvertently confirmed Monday that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)—which, under Chairman Julius Genachowski’s leadership has been trying for months to impose contentious net neutrality rules—lacks the authority needed to regulate the Internet.

For weeks, the FCC has been threatening to “reclassify” broadband in order to subject it to regulation that would institute net neutrality, despite concerns regarding jurisdiction and agency powers.  However, now, Senators Jay Rockefeller and John Kerry, and Congressmen Henry Waxman and Rick Boucher say they will soon launch “a process to develop proposals” for revising the 1934 Communications Act, whose archaic framework the FCC wishes to impose on broadband services.

Rockefeller, Kerry, Waxman and Boucher chair the relevant communications, commerce and technology committees in the House and Senate.

According to a statement, “As the first step, [Rockefeller, Kerry, Waxman, Boucher] will invite stakeholders to participate in a series of bipartisan, issue-focused meetings beginning in June.” The release offered few other details on the move, which could prove controversial.  Even Democrats who facially support the FCC’s end-goal of net neutrality adoption were caught off-guard by the commission’s unprecedented move to reclassify.

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