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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday June 18 2020, @02:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the can-you-hear-me-now? dept.

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."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @08:33PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @08:33PM (#1009714)

    Apathetic != hopeless. Over the last 40 years in particular, the ability of the people to affect change on their government has gotten less and less due to court rulings granting additional rights to corporations and media consolidation. We got sort of lucky that a few progressives got through the last couple elections, but nowhere near enough to affect even slight change.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Thursday June 18 2020, @09:26PM (6 children)

    by Mykl (1112) on Thursday June 18 2020, @09:26PM (#1009739)

    If people actually voted out representatives who legislated against their interests (and the politicians knew that) then there'd be very effective change. The US has one of the lowest turnover rates of politicians in the developed world (97% of the House and 93% of the Senate were re-elected in 2016). It's clear that the issues of the day make very little difference to how people vote (and in turn, how the representatives vote in legislation).

    It doesn't have to be that way. In most other democracies (or republics for those pedants out there), voting for bad stuff will get you kicked out down the track.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:21PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:21PM (#1009770)

      And replace them with whom? That's the point you're not getting. Simply replacing politicians with ones that support the same corrupt practices does nothing to solve any of the problems.

      They get elected, pass some legislation that the donors like, and then when they are voted out of office wind up with plum jobs. Simply voting one out of office and replacing them with another just speeds up the process, it doesn't change the outcome. Just look at how quickly many of those politicians start voting against the interests of their constituents.

      In other Democracies, the people don't have to contend with legalized bribery, gerrymandering and court decisions that basically allow the politicians to choose their own voters and disenfranchise those most likely to vote them out of office.

      • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:48PM (1 child)

        by Mykl (1112) on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:48PM (#1009782)

        I agree that there are many, many, MANY problems facing the US political system (as well as just about everything else). However, politicians looking for a job for life would quickly realise that they need to actually deliver legislation that the populace will like if they are to be re-elected.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:26PM (#1009797)

          That misses the point. That's not how they're making money. They care far more about pissing off their donors than they do not being re-elected. They make most of their money by becoming a lobbyist, consultant or talking head after leaving office. Yes, there's a few that are corrupt enough to make huge sums while in office, but it pales in comparison to the money that's available to those that properly back the donors when they leave office. It's why you see them acting corruptly pretty much from the moment they get elected.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @12:18AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @12:18AM (#1009819)

        And replace them with whom? That's the point you're not getting. Simply replacing politicians with ones that support the same corrupt practices does nothing to solve any of the problems.

        How about you? If you really believe that your representatives are corrupt (and assuming you aren't as well), who better to take on these scumbags than you?

        What's that? You don't want to get involved? Well too bad. You *are* involved. Because the laws enacted by our representatives impact you just as much as it does everyone else.

        Whinging about how corrupt the people *you* elected are, and claiming there's nothing you can do is self delusion of a high order.

        I expect that my comment will make you angry or feel like you're being attacked. Don't respond right away, friend. Think about it. Sleep on it. And then come back and explain to me why I'm wrong. Or agree with me.

        Either way, let's try to figure out how to make things better -- you know, light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.

        • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @02:45AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @02:45AM (#1009872)

          It must be nice to be rich. We can't all afford the time it takes to run for office.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @11:45AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @11:45AM (#1009974)

            And this is why representative democracy and capitalism are innately incompatible.