So captured Congressmen and the cable lobby rebranded the much rumored Title X after activist groups started referring to it as "Title Xfinity."
Sen John Thune, a primary sponsor of this bill, has taken over $50,000 in political contributions between AT&T, Comcast, NCTA, Time Warner Cable, U.S. Telecom, and PACs associated with these groups.
We're not talking about a well-reasoned GOP alternative to "Obama's plan to regulate the Internet." This is a bill written by cable lobbyists to hamstring the FCC while throwing a bone to the American public.
Title II gives the FCC the authority it needs to prevent modern day monopolies from screwing up principles of net neutrality we've all enjoyed since day 1 of the Internet. These GOP plans should be viewed with a massive dose of skepticism, especially in light of the political contributions they've accepted in recent elections.
That's kind of misleading (not your fault, I'm sure...the tech press has done a terrible reporting job).
He was President of the National Cable Television Association, the major cable industry trade group. They did do lobbying, but he left that job in 1984. At the time he held this position, it was just about television. The members of NCTA did not offer internet service or telecommunications services, for the simple reason that there was no public internet yet. The cable companies were all relatively small--the consolidation that led to the small number of giant companies we have now had not happened yet.
The other telecom group he was involved with that does lobbying is CTIA, which is the major trade group for cellular and wireless. He was their President from 1992 to 2004. As I said, they do some lobbying. They also do a lot of testing and evaluation of devices, develop standards and certifications, administer the short code system, put on a couple major trade shows, do safety campaigns and educational programs to teach responsible wireless use (e.g., don't text while driving), and assorted other things along those lines.
The regulations for wireless phone service he negotiated with the FCC in the mid '90s are similar to the Title II proposal that seems to be on the way--which is an approach that the current CTIA objects to for internet. (And note that this approach worked well for phone. All the carriers massively expanded their infrastructure, cellular voice is quite competitive, ubiquitous, and cheap).
Between those positions, and after the latter, he's been involved with a bunch of companies as founder, President (or CEO or similar), or board member. These have been in a variety of areas, including aerospace component repair, investment banking, wireless providers, cloud services, and content providers. (He's also was on the PBS board, and was a trustee of the Kennedy Center, and wrote a couple history books on the civil war--he seems to have very wide interests).
Taken as a whole, he's been involved heavily in organizations or companies that have reason to be on pretty much every side of any telecom issue, so if he does have some prejudice toward any past employer there is no reason to believe it would be toward ISPs. His actions certainly don't show signs of pro-ISP prejudice, considering that most of his proposals have pissed them off.
Several big name tech companies are against net neutrality rules: Intel, Qualcomm, Cisco, IBM, Juniper Networks, Corning, Panasonic, dLink, Broadcom, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, among many other notable tech companies.
It's ignorant to assume only those who support this bill benefit from political contributions. It almost seems as if the people who are most knowledgeable about networks (ie companies that actually build the darn thing) are against net neutrality rules.
Peter Thiel and Mark Cuban are against government regulation of the internet. Even Eric Schmidt says he aligns himself and Google with Verizon on net neutrality. OH NO. They're paid shills!
Mark Cuban is delusional when it comes to the telecom industry. He thinks that it is currently operating as a free market. Basically, he is opposing regulation because he doesn't understand that the industry is already regulated by the governnent in a way that prevents any chance of a free market. If he wasn't too stuck on the glory days of his first tech startup to educate himself on this subject, he might change his mind.
Sen John Thune, a primary sponsor of this bill, has taken over $50,000 in political contributions between AT&T, Comcast, NCTA, Time Warner Cable, U.S. Telecom, and PACs associated with these groups.
We're not talking about a well-reasoned GOP alternative to "Obama's plan to regulate the Internet." This is a bill written by cable lobbyists to hamstring the FCC while throwing a bone to the American public.
Title II gives the FCC the authority it needs to prevent modern day monopolies from screwing up principles of net neutrality we've all enjoyed since day 1 of the Internet. These GOP plans should be viewed with a massive dose of skepticism, especially in light of the political contributions they've accepted in recent elections.