AT&T-Time Warner deal may have easier path to approval

Speaking today (February 28) at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Ajit Pai, president Donald Trump’s controversial choice to lead the commission, made no real claims easing concerns net neutrality is now under review but hinted that on the horizon is a less stringent regulatory regime for telecoms providers is in the works.

MWC Ajit Pai – chairman of America’s broadband watchdog, the FCC – has outlined his vision of data networks in the United States.

To view the full article, register now. “And uncertainty is the enemy of growth”. The agency will return to the light-touch regulatory approach of the past three decades, he said.

Congress is in a position, theoretically, to bring U.S. laws up to date for the digital era and anything Pai could do to help that effort progress would be hugely beneficial. These products, such as T-Mobile’s “Binge” and AT&T’s “Sponsored Data and Data Perks”, allow users to stream music and video without that use counting toward a data-plan limit. The result, he said, was a cooling effect on broadband investment – which he said was down for the first time in the wake of the FCC’s 2015 actions – and concerns among industry players about whether the Commission would permit them to come out innovative new service plans.

No one would argue with that point.

Internet providers fear net neutrality rules make it harder for them to manage traffic and discourage investing in additional capacity, while websites worry that without the rules they might lose access to customers.

Without net neutrality, a company like Netflix (NFLX, Tech30) might have to pay more money to Internet providers to ensure its content is delivered at the right speed.

What’s more, big companies also create smaller branches to compete with the small players, and this will discourage and drive away new companies that can not offer the same packages a conglomerate-backed company does.

The ruling being blocked was passed last fall to protect consumers’ sensitive, putting the onus on broadband service provides to collect opt-in permission to collect data that had previously been covered by opt-out standards. But the same can’t be said of newer businesses.

Now that he’s in the chairman’s seat, he’s already started undermining net neutrality efforts put in place by his predecessor, Tom Wheeler, most notably by choosing not to pursue one major issue – “zero rating”. He, too, was at the Barcelona conference, and told Bloomberg on Tuesday that “it is highly risky to let four companies, which is basically what we have in the United States, four internet service providers, to determine who will be able to get on their networks”.

“It seems to me the lobbyists are winning out over core principles here”, he added.