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T-Mobile's outage yesterday was so big that even Ajit Pai is mad:
T-Mobile's network suffered an outage across the US yesterday, and the Federal Communications Commission is investigating.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who takes an extremely hands-off approach to regulating telecom companies, used his Twitter account to say, "The T-Mobile network outage is unacceptable" and that "the FCC is launching an investigation. We're demanding answers—and so are American consumers."
No matter what the investigation finds, Pai may be unlikely to punish T-Mobile or impose any enforceable commitments. For example, an FCC investigation last year into mobile carriers' response to Hurricane Michael in Florida found that carriers failed to follow their own previous voluntary roaming commitments, unnecessarily prolonging outages. Pai himself called the carriers' response to the hurricane "completely unacceptable," just like he did with yesterday's T-Mobile outage. But Pai's FCC imposed no punishment related to the bad hurricane response and continued to rely on voluntary measures to prevent recurrences.
[...] Mobile voice services like T-Mobile's are still classified as common-carrier services under Title II of the Communications Act, but the FCC under Pai deregulated the home and mobile broadband industry and has taken a hands-off approach to ensuring resiliency in phone networks.
"This is, once again, where pretending that broadband is not an essential telecommunications service completely undermines the FCC's ability to act," longtime telecom attorney and consumer advocate Harold Feld, the senior VP of advocacy group Public Knowledge, told Ars today. "We're not talking about an assumption that T-Mobile necessarily did anything wrong. But when we have something this critical to the economy, and where it is literally life and death for people to have the service work reliably, it's not about 'trusting the market' or expecting companies to be on their best behavior. We as a country need to know what is the reality of our broadband networks, the reality of their resilience and reliability, and the reality of what happens when things go wrong. That takes a regulator with real authority to go in, ask hard questions, seize documents if necessary, and compel testimony under oath."
Several provisions of Title II common-carrier rules that Pai has fought against "give the FCC authority to make sure the network is resilient and reliable," Feld said. The FCC gutting its own authority "influences how the FCC conducts its investigations," he said. "[FCC] staff and the carriers know very well that if push comes to shove, companies can simply refuse to give the FCC information that might be too embarrassing. So the FCC is stuck now playing this game where they know they can't push too hard or they get their bluff called. Carriers have incentive to play along enough to keep the FCC or Congress from re-regulating, but at the end of the day it's the carriers—not the FCC—that gets to decide how much information to turn over."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @08:08PM (4 children)
What's the point really, Party A fucking people over is hardly any better than Party B fucking people over. In most cases, even in the primary, the candidates that promise anything else get ruthlessly taken down by any shady means necessary by the establishment to ensure that the ultimate winner will toe the same line as before.
You get some woke-tokenism out of the Democrats, but they're just as quick to appoint incompetent judges that will back the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor, just slightly less brazenly than the GOP appointees.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:05PM (3 children)
And why is that? Because only 1/2 the eligible population votes. If we had 80-90% voter participation instead of 57%, as well as implementing stuff like Ranked Choice Voting [wikipedia.org], publicly funded elections, and strong rules around lobbying and government/industry revolving doors. we could have much better candidates and, consequently, better representatives.
Just throwing up your hands and whinging "they're all the same, it doesn't matter" just supports the status quo you *claim* to dislike so much.
Want to make a difference? Work towards the changes I mentioned above. If you're not *at least* voting every. single. time. you're part of the problem.
But go on whinging online about how nothing makes a difference. That'll teach those corrupt motherfuckers!
You have a voice. If you don't use it to argue for and work towards something better, you are supporting what you say you hate. I believe the term is "cutting off your nose to spite your face."
If you want a voice, go out and fucking vote! And I don't even care who you vote for either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:32PM (2 children)
Pretentious cunt. I do vote, I also recognize that voting is essentially a waste of time and effort as there's no good choices available and the politicians basically ignore what the voters want. You might be privileged/naive enough to believe otherwise, but it's a fact of life in America that voting is basically meaningless. They'll cram whatever candidates they want down our throats no matter how bad it looks and there's not really anything to stop them as they own the courts.
Ranked Choice Voting is hardly a panacea, it depends upon there being candidates that are worth voting for. Here in Seattle we wound up with a horrible mayor because there were so many candidates that were running that all the decent ones failed to get enough votes to advance to the general election. We wound up having to decide between a right wing candidate and an overtly racist White woman.It's trivial for donors to dig up enough candidates that they can corrupt to do the same under Ranked Choice Voting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:47PM (1 child)
Thanks for being so kind. I'll see you next Tuesday too, friend.
I noted that you ignored the *most important* changes I mentioned. I wonder why that is?
Here In NYC we have publicly funded elections, and will soon have Ranked-Choice Voting too. Publicly funded elections means that every candidate has (or should have) the same resources as every other one.
We also have term limits (no thanks to that undemocratic scumbag Michael Bloomberg) too.
Is it perfect? No. Our mayor, while he isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, is strongly constrained by the City Council, some of whom aren't that fabulous either. However, it's a much better, fairer and more (small d) democratic situation than we've ever had.
I'll say it again. If you're not working to make things better, you're part of the problem. Here's a few suggestions for you [amazon.com]. Assuming you can read anything longer than a couple of paragraphs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @11:54AM
You are missing the point. Most Americans don't have time, money, or connections needed to enter politics and make a difference. Those that do, love the status quo because it is what feeds them.
American apathy is entirely understandable and just as valid a political statement as anything else.
Do you think serfs cared much whether the lord that exploited them said nice things while he was taking the fruits of their labor for his own coffers, and the fruits of their loins for his army?