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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, @11:57PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:57PM (#1009814)

    I am sure that many of them don't vote because they've been gerrymandered to the point where their vote wouldn't matter so they don't bother, which is rational.

    That's why North Carolina votes roughly 54% Republican, but Republicans win 10 out of 13 districts. Any Democrat voters living in the 10 Republican districts are wasting their time voting, and they know it.

    Right. And how do we fix that? Wait for it...by *voting*. Shocking, isn't it?

    If you can't get enough elected state officials to pass legislation requiring non-partisan district drawing, then pass it as a ballot measure.

    I'm being snarky, but I'm not trying to be nasty here. You bring up important issues that require our attention. And there are methods to address those issues. But every single method requires political participation, not least of which is *voting*.

    Excusing those who don't vote by saying "they believe their votes don't count. And they don't" is wrong on its face.

    If the folks among that 43% who feel that way were to join with the 57% who do vote, we could transform our political system to be fairer and more responsive to the needs of the electorate.

  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 19 2020, @12:23AM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Friday June 19 2020, @12:23AM (#1009821)

    Right. And how do we fix that? Wait for it...by *voting*. Shocking, isn't it?

    Why would voting make a difference when both of your two parties prefer the current system?

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 19 2020, @01:55AM (4 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 19 2020, @01:55AM (#1009852) Journal

    Right. And how do we fix that? Wait for it...by *voting*. Shocking, isn't it?

    Hence " It is never going to happen." Because it is not allowed to.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @02:21AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @02:21AM (#1009863)

      Hence " It is never going to happen." Because it is not allowed to.

      You're right. Those elderly latinas who work my polling site will beat me half to death before they let me vote.

      That's why I always bring my knife.

      tl;dr: WTF are you going on about?

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 19 2020, @02:42AM (2 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 19 2020, @02:42AM (#1009869) Journal

        tl;dr: WTF are you going on about?

        I'm not going on about anything, this is my second and last message on the thread.

        As for the "WTF": it's naive to expect to win a game by following rules that are bent so that you can't win (e.g gerrymandering)

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @07:15AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @07:15AM (#1009923)

          As for the "WTF": it's naive to expect to win a game by following rules that are bent so that you can't win (e.g gerrymandering)

          Oh, I'm not naive. I am, however, optimistic and believe that Americans can fix what's broken. There's a difference.

          There are a number of issues which negatively impact our political and electoral systems. Resolving them won't necessarily be easy. However, one of the nice things about the US is that each state manages its own elections.

          That means we can try different stuff in different places and, hopefully, adopt what works.

          You brought up gerrymandering. Would it surprise you to know that ten states *already* have non-partisan, independent redistricting commissions [ballotpedia.org]?

          Or that 18 states and many municipalities have publicly funded elections [wikipedia.org]?

          What's more, many places have adopted Ranked Choice Voting in primary and general elections [ballotpedia.org]

          As of 2019, one state (Maine) had implemented RCV at the state level. Nine states contained jurisdictions that had implemented RCV at some level. Another four states contained jurisdictions that had adopted but not yet implemented RCV in local elections.

          These changes are taking hold in many places. And since each state conducts its own elections, they can try lots of of different things.

          The caveat is that this stuff can't happen unless Americans *vote* for it. Where they've had the chance to do so, they often have too.

          Which is why the point of my initial post [soylentnews.org] was that 43% of eligible voters simply *did not vote* in 2016. If those people vote too, we can create an electoral system that incentivizes, or at least doesn't penalize, those who want to make their town/state/district/nation a better place, over those who cravenly kowtow to the special interests.

          I never once said that positive change would be easy. Nor did I say there won't be significant resistance to such change.

          Many of the issues we have with elections *must* be addressed at the state and local levels. That requires people everywhere to get involved.

          Which is why I don't even care who people for *for*. If they are involved enough to vote, they have better visibility into the mechanisms of US democracy. And even if that means they vote for someone I don't like, I'd rather have them do that than just assume there's no point and not vote.

          Because as Americans, we *mostly* want the same things, no matter what a small bunch of shrill, whiny little bitches on twitter blather on about -- especially because most of them only do so to profit from feeding the outrage machine rather than any principled beliefs.

          The problem is that half of the electorate doesn't bother -- and that's one of the first issues we need to address.

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 19 2020, @09:38AM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 19 2020, @09:38AM (#1009940) Journal

            I am, however, optimistic and believe that Americans can fix what's broken.

            Go for it, both PartTimeZombie (hailing from NZ) and myself (hailing from Australia) are rooting for you, mate. Seriously.
            But, speaking for myself, I'm waiting for such a long time I grew old, my apologies if I'm not gonna hold my breath. The more the time passes, the more alien USofA looks from outside. To the point Aussies agree with Planet America [wikipedia.org] as an aptly name for a "US news and political analysis" weekly program

            You brought up gerrymandering.

            Pedantically speaking, it wasn't me, but doesn't matter, I agree with it.

            Would it surprise you to know that ten states *already* have non-partisan, independent redistricting commissions

            Well, congrats, all I can say is "hurry up, guys". That's 20% with 80% more to go.

            And even if that means they vote for someone I don't like, I'd rather have them do that than just assume there's no point and not vote..

            Put the election in a Saturday and make voting compulsory. Australia is doing it since 1920 [sbs.com.au] for this very reason: to address the decline in voter turnout.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford