Latest news with #JessicaRosenworcel
Phone Arena
23-05-2025
- Business
- Phone Arena
Verizon wants the FCC to allow it to renege on a pro-consumer promise it made to the agency
In September 2020, Verizon offered to buy what was then the largest MVNO in the States, Tracfone, for more than $6 billion. To get the deal approved by the FCC, Verizon agreed that once it took control of Tracfone, it would change Tracfone's phone unlocking policy to match Verizon 's. The latter had a 60-day unlocking policy that then-FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wanted Verizon to apply to Tracfone's phones. After all, Tracfone's policy at the time was to unlock handsets only after these devices had been activated for 12 months. Rosenworcel, who then served as Chairwoman of the FCC at the behest of President Joe Biden, wanted all carriers to unlock their customers' phones 60 days after activation. "You bought your phone, you should be able to take it to any provider you want," Rosenworcel said adding that such a change would be "in the best interest of consumers and competition." Last year when President Biden was in office, the FCC unsuccessfully proposed a rule that would force all wireless providers to unlock phones after 60 days. That would have forced AT&T and T-Mobile to be on the same page as Verizon . This change in policy seems unlikely now that Republican Brendan Carr is FCC Chair and the focus is on eliminating regulations in the industry favoring the wireless companies over their customers. Knowing this, Verizon feels like it can use this change to its advantage. This week, Verizon made a formal request to the FCC asking to have the unlocking rule waived "until such time as the Commission decides on an appropriate industry-wide approach for the unlocking of wireless devices." FCC Chairwoman under Biden, Jessica Rosenworcel wanted all wireless providers to unlock phones no longer than 60 days after activation. | Image credit-FCC Trying to prove its point, Verizon said that unlocking phones leads to theft and is bad for customers. Some might say that Verizon is gaslighting its own customers by trying to get them to believe that they would be better off waiting a longer period of time to have their phones unlocked when the truth is that the longer their phone is locked to Verizon , the longer they are unable to switch wireless providers. - Verizon Verizon also complained that after it bought TracFone, there was "a sharp increase in the number of TracFone devices that deactivated before making enough payments for Verizon to recover the subsidy on the device." To make it clear what side it is on, Verizon said that the unlocking rule is "the perfect example of the type of rule that the Commission should eliminate as part of the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) Deregulatory Initiative." Hey, Verizon isn't called "Big Red" for nothing. Verizon says forcing it to unlock phones 60 days after activation is not enough to combat fraud. Instead, it argues that allowing phones to be unlocked after 60 days enables trafficking in phones that are unlocked and are sent illegally to foreign markets. "This is why the industry standard for providers not subject to the Unlocking Rule is a minimum of 6 months or longer," Verizon said.
Gizmodo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Gizmodo
Only 22 U.S. States Met Bare-Minimum Broadband Internet Speeds in 2024
Sometimes, people assume that solving the digital divide begins and ends at giving everyone internet access. But what good is a connection if it's too slow for you to actually do anything? That's why taking broadband speeds into account is critical. Unfortunately, a new report found that the digital divide increased in 32 states as the U.S. struggles to provide high-speed broadband nationwide. In a new report analyzing data from July to December 2024, Ookla, an internet analysis site, found that only 22 states are meeting the Federal Communications Commission's minimum standard for fixed broadband speeds. Although that's a solid increase from only nine states in the first half of 2024, improvement was mostly seen in urban areas. As a result, the overall gap between communities widened in 32 states. According to Ookla, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, and Missouri have the largest divides between rural and urban communities. Last year, the FCC increased its minimum standard for broadband speed for the first time in a decade. Previously, it was stuck at 25 megabits per second and upload speeds of 3 megabits per second. It got a dramatic push to 100 Mbps/20 Mpbs. In a statement, chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said that the 'overdue' change aligned with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and 'helps us better identify the extent to which low-income neighborhoods and rural communities are underserved.' While Ookla's data is a bit disheartening, the cause behind the growing divide isn't a total mystery. Sue Market, the report's author, told CNET, 'We suspect that some of this [broadband] divide was attributed to the [Affordable Connectivity Program] ending. We might see some more examples of that by the end of 2025.' The short-lived ACP gave low-income households a monthly credit of up to $30 per month, or $75 per month for households in tribal lands, to apply towards their internet bill. It also provided one-time discounts for a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet. According to the FCC, 23 million households were enrolled in the program. However, it ended last June after Congress failed to provide additional funding. Ookla's report also comes only weeks after Trump threatened to end the Digital Equity Act while slamming it as 'racist' and 'unconstitutional'. But while there are plenty of setbacks to closing the digital divide, there have been some improvements. According to FCC data, the number of locations that can provide services meeting its minimum broadband speeds increased by 2.6 million between June 2023 and 2024. In addition, the FCC found that the number of locations with cable broadband services increased by 1.1 million. Per Ookla, part of that expansion is likely due to government funding through programs like the Digital Equity Capacity Grant program and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Last month, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program to expand high-speed internet access was delayed by the Trump administration. BEAD was originally designed to prioritize fiber networks. But with the program's delay, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced that it was undertaking a detailed review to 'remove unnecessary rules and mandates, to improve efficiency, and take a more technology-neutral approach, cut unnecessary red tape, and streamline deployment.' Why? Well, in March, reports indicated that Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, was telling program leaders to prioritize less-reliable satellite internet. Per CNET, the only satellite internet provider that would currently qualify is Starlink, which is owned by Trump buddy Elon Musk. And coincidentally, it turns out that Lutnick had also mentioned Musk by name. Even with the BEAD program's delays, Ookla said that it 'expect[s] to see more developments in broadband coverage through 2025.'
The Verge
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Verge
Congress votes to pull funding for free Wi-Fi hotspots at schools and libraries
The Senate has voted to end a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that used federal funding to cover Wi-Fi hotspots that could be used outside of school and libraries. The program, first implemented by former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, applied funds from the $2.6 billion federal E-Rate program to a program that enabled schools and libraries to provide free Wi-Fi hotspots to children and others with poor or no internet access at home. As Policyband notes prior to a successful Senate procedural vote yesterday to take up the measure, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the rule 'violates the Communications Act, which clearly limits the use of the funds in question to classrooms and libraries.' In a statement last year, Rosenworcel disagreed that the law doesn't support hotspot lending. Citing remote learning issues that were put in sharp relief by the covid pandemic, Rosenworcel wrote that while E-Rate had 'overwhelming success connecting schools and libraries,' it needed to be modernized so that schools and libraries could 'loan out Wi-Fi hotspots to support high-speed internet access in rural America, urban America, and everything in between.' She noted that the change could be accomplished 'within the existing E-Rate budget.' The FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr, who opposed the hotspot lending program, has aggressively pulled back from consumer protection programs and turned into the Trump administration's de facto censorship arm. GOP members of Congress have worked to rollback subsidies that help to increase US internet access, such as the FCC's Affordable Connectivity Program, in the name of spending reduction. Citing a recent study in March, TechDirt wrote that the '$7–$8 billion annual taxpayer cost of the program generated between $28.9 and $29.5 billion in savings thanks to expanded access to affordable internet and remote telehealth services.' In a statement released after the vote, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, said the vote will exacerbate economic disparities. 'Those with sufficient internet access are increasingly separated from those without, and this decision risks widening that gap even further,' Gomez said.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CBS's 60 Minutes Urged to Release Transcripts for Future Political Interviews
(Bloomberg) -- CBS News should be required to proactively release all transcripts from future political interviews on its broadcast program 60 Minutes, according to a media watchdog group. They Built a Secret Apartment in a Mall. Now the Mall Is Dying. Chicago Transit Faces 'Doomsday Scenario,' Regional Agency Says LA Faces $1 Billion Budget Hole, Warns of Thousands of Layoffs New York Subway Ditches MetroCard After 32 Years for Tap-And-Go Libraries Warn They Could Be 'Cut off at the Knees' by DOGE The Center for American Rights, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm with ties to conservative groups, said the Federal Communications Commission should require CBS to 'promptly release complete transcripts of all interviews with sitting public officials and candidates,' as it has done selectively in the past. Doing so would provide the opportunity to ensure 'transparency and accountability to the public interest,' the group said in comments to be filed to the FCC on Monday. The move would also align with the practices of CBS' Face the Nation, the group said. The center filed a complaint with the FCC in October over the network's treatment of an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, concerning two apparently different answers she gave to the same question. Then-FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel dismissed the complaint during one of her last days at the agency under the Biden administration. The new chairman, Brendan Carr, revived the accusations. Carr has said he'd probe CBS's editing of the interview in the context of CBS parent company Paramount Global's proposed merger with Skydance Media, which must receive FCC approval. The FCC probe is also taking place against the backdrop of a $20 billion-lawsuit President Donald Trump has filed against CBS over the Harris interview. CBS and Trump's lawyers are engaged in settlement talks. In the forthcoming filing, as part of the public comment period, the Center for American Rights argues that the First Amendment can't act as a broad shield for networks that willfully take news content out of context, meaning it would be appropriate for the FCC to intervene in the CBS case. As part of the Skydance-Paramount merger conditions, the center has also suggested CBS add executive 'viewpoint diversity,' hire a nonpartisan ombudsman to handle news bias complaints, and recruit employees from 'a broader range of diverse backgrounds, including people from rural communities, people of faith, and conservatives.' A New 'China Shock' Is Destroying Jobs Around the World How TD Became America's Most Convenient Bank for Money Launderers Tesla's Gamble on MAGA Customers Won't Work One Man's Crypto Windfall Is Funding a $1 Billion Space Station Dream The Richest Americans Kept the Economy Booming. What Happens When They Stop Spending? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The FCC's Show Trial Against CBS Is a Political Power Play
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is conducting an unseemly and unconstitutional spectacle, ostensibly to determine whether CBS violated its policy against "news distortion" by editing a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Its real purpose is to exercise raw partisan power. The FCC already knows CBS did not violate any rules and merely engaged in everyday journalism. And there is nothing to be learned from the over 8,000 comments and counting that have poured into the commission's inbox. Many simply registered their like or dislike of the network and mainstream media in general, and many others were just unserious quips submitted to troll the regulators. But judging the merits of the "news distortion" allegation was never the point. The FCC staff already dismissed the complaint—filed by a partisan activist group—as fatally defective back in January. As outgoing FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel explained, "The FCC should not be the President's speech police….The FCC should not be journalism's censor-in-chief." But one of Brendan Carr's first acts as the new FCC chair in Donald Trump's administration was to reinstate the complaint and call for public comments. Asking members of the public to "vote" on how they feel about a news organization's editorial policies or whether they think the network violated FCC rules is both pointless and constitutionally infirm. In 1943, Justice Robert Jackson wrote that the right to free speech and a free press "may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." The FCC's reanimated proceeding lacks any legitimate regulatory rationale. But its realpolitik purpose is sadly transparent. This fishing expedition is designed to exert maximum political leverage on the CBS network at a time when Trump is engaged in preposterous litigation over the same 60 Minutes broadcast, claiming CBS' editing violates a Texas law against fraudulent commercial transactions. Adding to the pressure, Chairman Carr said he will consider the thousands of comments in this proceeding when evaluating whether to approve a merger of Skydance Media and CBS parent company Paramount Global worth billions of dollars. There is nothing here for the FCC to investigate. The complaint alleges that Harris gave a "word salad" response to a question about whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was listening to the Biden administration and that CBS edited it to make her sound more articulate. One part of her responses was aired on 60 Minutes and another part aired on Face the Nation. In short, CBS stands accused of committing journalism. Every day, from the smallest newspaper to the largest network, reporters and editors must make sense of and condense the information they collect—including quotes from politicians and other newsmakers—to tell their stories concisely and understandably. That task necessarily requires editing, including selecting what quotes to use. If the cockamamie theory underlying this FCC "investigation" had any merit, every newsroom in America would be a crime scene. That's why the FCC in the past has never defined the editing process as "news distortion." In fact, the commission made quite clear when it first articulated the news distortion policy in 1969 that "we do not mean the type of situation, frequently encountered, where a person quoted on a news program complains that he very clearly said something else." It stressed, "We do not sit to review the broadcaster's news judgment, the quality of his news and public affairs reporting, or his taste." The commission understood that this very narrow approach is required to respect both the First Amendment and the Communications Act, which denies the FCC "the power of censorship." As the FCC observed, "In this democracy, no Government agency can authenticate the news, or should try to do so." There is a name for what the FCC is doing in this proceeding: a show trial. When investigations become a performative exercise designed to further a political purpose, they forfeit any claim to legitimacy. Show trials are intended to send a message, not just to their unfortunate victims, but to other would-be transgressors. There is a dark and deadly history of such proceedings in authoritarian regimes around the world, ranging from Josef Stalin's purges of perceived political opponents to China's trials of "rioters and counterrevolutionaries" after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Though less extreme in nature, during the Red Scare, the House Committee on Un-American Activities similarly staged show hearings where they pressured witnesses to name names while presuming guilt. The stakes of a sham FCC proceeding may differ, but the tactics and perversion of the rule of law are the same. Somewhere along the way, the FCC's current leadership abandoned that basic truth in exchange for political expediency. And in doing so, it is ignoring a unanimous holding from the Supreme Court just last term that threatening legal sanctions and other means of coercion to suppress disfavored speech violates the First Amendment. The commission can begin to recover some dignity only by dropping this show trial immediately. The post The FCC's Show Trial Against CBS Is a Political Power Play appeared first on
