Jessica Rosenworcel assumes FCC chair following Ajit Pai's exit

[onetheycallEric]

Big quote: “I am honored to be designated as the Acting Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission by President Biden. I thank the President for the opportunity to lead an agency with such a vital mission and talented staff. It is a privilege to serve the American people and work on their behalf to expand the reach of communications opportunity in the digital age," Rosenworcel said in a statement.

President Biden and the FCC have confirmed that Jessica Rosenworcel will act as interim Chairwoman of the FCC, until such time that a permanent chair is appointed. It’s also possible that Rosenworcel could be appointed to the position permanently.

However, it’s also likely that Biden could appoint Geoffrey Starks, who serves as a Democratic FCC commissioner. Both Rosenworcel and Starks have been the clear forerunners for the FCC chair under the Biden-Harris administration.

Rosenworcel has served as an FCC commissioner since 2012, carrying the role both through the Obama and Trump eras. She’s been a vocal proponent of net neutrality, being a key force that led to the codification of net neutrality into law under the 2015 Open Internet Order before its untimely repeal in 2017 under Ajit Pai's FCC.

Today @POTUS designated me Acting Chairwoman of the @FCC. I am honored and excited to lead this great agency. Now more than ever we need to expand the reach of communications opportunity for all of us. We have a lot of work to do and I can't wait to get started.

— Jessica Rosenworcel (@JRosenworcel) January 21, 2021

Rosenworcel has also supported the classification of ISPs as Title II common carriers, removing barriers preventing municipal broadband deployment, and has championed much of the FCC’s spectrum policy in regards to the future of Wi-Fi. Rosenworcel has also been critical of rubber stamping massive mergers, such as the controversial Sprint/T-Mobile merger.

Most recently, Rosenworcel has been vocal about broadband providers suspending data caps and overage fees during the Covid-19 pandemic, and has encouraged a broader discussion about data caps in general.

Rosenworcel is the second-ever woman to assume the role of acting chair, as Mignon Clyburn held the position before Tom Wheeler was designated as the official chairman back in 2013. However, should Rosenworcel be appointed to the chair permanently, she would be the first official FCC chairwoman.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/88367-jessica-rosenworcel-assumes-fcc-chair-following-ajit-pai.html

 

[SirDigby]

Good riddance to Ajit Pai, I hope Ms Rosenworcel is better.

 

[dangh]

Good riddance to Ajit Pai, I hope Ms Rosenworcel is better.

I'm not sure if it is possible to be worse...

 

[Uncle Al]

Hopefully we'll get Net Neutrality back in the not too distant future. I hope they also push for social media companies to be held to the same standards as broadcast (over the air) media where they can be held liable for the content they allow on their platforms ...

 

[candle_86]

Oh I'm sure she'll do much worse. The FCCs job is to regulate and ensure our communications infrastructure is sound and secure and should balance corprate needs and growth vs the consumers needs. But look at how she's voted since being a commissioner and you can see she'll happily stop growth and investment to give consumers their wants

 

[Burty117]

I hope they also push for social media companies to be held to the same standards as broadcast (over the air) media where they can be held liable for the content they allow on their platforms ...

How? Broadcast media is very different to social media. They're not even close to the same thing. One hires lots of people and controls everything, scripts, actors, everything.

Social Media is just anyone, shouting anything, to anyone. How would you go about making said Social Media companies liable?

 

[m4a4]

Hopefully we'll get Net Neutrality back in the not too distant future.

You know, I still haven't seen anything to warrant the buzz termed "net neutrality" "protections" that had people literally scared of an internet apocalypse (thanks to fearmongering).
Would've expected to at least see something with half that coverage if it could be used against the repeal/him, but nothing beyond a few examples from people that don't know what "net neutrality" actually was.

Heck, the worst I'd say I've seen is manufactured hate for this guy because people said to. Everything has pretty much been the status quo for consumers since.

 

[jpuroila]

Oh I'm sure she'll do much worse. The FCCs job is to regulate and ensure our communications infrastructure is sound and secure and should balance corprate needs and growth vs the consumers needs. But look at how she's voted since being a commissioner and you can see she'll happily stop growth and investment to give consumers their wants

Given that the current policy pretty clearly doesn't take consumer needs into account at all, that's pretty much exactly what's needed to achieve balance.

 

[candle_86]

Given that the current policy pretty clearly doesn't take consumer needs into account at all, that's pretty much exactly what's needed to achieve balance.

No not really, municipal broadband is a terrible idea, no government controlled company has ever innovated, has ever provided improvements. You will get municipal broadband at 30mbs and it will never improve as they just won't have the budget.

 

[mbrowne5061]

Hopefully we'll get Net Neutrality back in the not too distant future. I hope they also push for social media companies to be held to the same standards as broadcast (over the air) media where they can be held liable for the content they allow on their platforms ...

Since the legislation that gave the FCC the authority to create Net Neutrality is still in place (last I checked?), and Pai just rolled back the FCC rules that were taking advantage of said legislation, I am pretty sure whomever becomes the new Chair Person can just go ahead and reinstate those rules. I'm sure telecoms will sue, but they will at least have to fight for them instead of just paying Pai to get rid of them.

Oh I'm sure she'll do much worse. The FCCs job is to regulate and ensure our communications infrastructure is sound and secure and should balance corprate needs and growth vs the consumers needs. But look at how she's voted since being a commissioner and you can see she'll happily stop growth and investment to give consumers their wants

What growth, and which investments are you referring to, exactly? Telecoms have had nearly four years to start some projects, so which ones are you referring to?

 

[wiyosaya]

No not really, municipal broadband is a terrible idea, no government controlled company has ever innovated, has ever provided improvements. You will get municipal broadband at 30mbs and it will never improve as they just won't have the budget.

So are you in favor of your local municipality building its own fiber network, using, of course, your tax dollars, then leaving its capacity 70% or more dark, when it could easily, from a capacity standpoint, build and run its own ISP service, and provide you with internet access at a fraction of the cost of what you'll be charged for the ever elusive albatross of FiOS or google's fiber service just because you think they won't innovate?

Innovation is something that could easily be written into the charter for a municipal service, and should be written into that charter, IMO, since a municipal service's charter should be to serve the public. As I see it, the commercial players have consistently avoided innovation for many, many years, and will continue to do so in pursuit of the endless "bottom line". Right now, there is really nothing better than Fiber. 5G is yet another elusive albatross that has just as many of its own drawbacks (for instance, mm-wave 5G does not penetrate buildings of any sort) as does building a fiber network in any region.

But what the heck. Feel free to keep supporting policies that hurt you as a consumer as well as other consumers, too.

 

[wiyosaya]

I won't miss Pai. He was nothing more than an industry shill in an FCC chairman's clothing.

 

[wiyosaya]

Hopefully we'll get Net Neutrality back in the not too distant future. I hope they also push for social media companies to be held to the same standards as broadcast (over the air) media where they can be held liable for the content they allow on their platforms ...

Maybe a division of the FBI or the NSA should be created to root out, arrest, charge, prosecute, and jail the online extremists that incite violence instead of social media having to police its own. (You might recall a case from several years back where ISIS posted pictures of its latest headquarters on social media - which resulted in a drone strike destroying the building.) At least that would be consistent with precedent established by SCOTUS rulings that "inciting violence" is not part of 1st amendment rights. Maybe not as I am sure those who would be charged under such circumstances would develop yet another "Deep State" conspiracy theory.

 

[Farkinell]

No not really, municipal broadband is a terrible idea, no government controlled company has ever innovated, has ever provided improvements. You will get municipal broadband at 30mbs and it will never improve as they just won't have the budget.

Even if they have the budget private companies rarely innovate unless there’s competition.

 

[candle_86]

Since the legislation that gave the FCC the authority to create Net Neutrality is still in place (last I checked?), and Pai just rolled back the FCC rules that were taking advantage of said legislation, I am pretty sure whomever becomes the new Chair Person can just go ahead and reinstate those rules. I'm sure telecoms will sue, but they will at least have to fight for them instead of just paying Pai to get rid of them.


What growth, and which investments are you referring to, exactly? Telecoms have had nearly four years to start some projects, so which ones are you referring to?

My neighborhood just got AT&t fiber 6 months ago. That wouldn't have happened under Tom Wheeler's FCC,

I'm on municipal water and my water pressure is incredibly low because they don't have the budget that infrastructure as new homes have gotten billed they need more water towers or pumping stations but there's no budget. On the other hand if a private company took over the water system these problems would have been fixed.

 

[stewi0001]

The real question is, how big is her coffee mug?

 

[Austinturner]

Hopefully we'll get Net Neutrality back in the not too distant future. I hope they also push for social media companies to be held to the same standards as broadcast (over the air) media where they can be held liable for the content they allow on their platforms ...

Would you like every company from twitter to techspot to yelp reviews to review every comment and post and decide if they approve it for publication? Because that’s what they would have to do if they would be held liable for content (and I guarantee most places like this comment section would be shut down). Foreign websites beyond US jurisdiction would be the only place you could talk because no one can afford to review what you and I have to say under your proposal.

 

[SirDigby]

Innovation is something that could easily be written into the charter for a municipal service, and should be written into that charter, IMO, since a municipal service's charter should be to serve the public. As I see it, the commercial players have consistently avoided innovation for many, many years, and will continue to do so in pursuit of the endless "bottom line". Right now, there is really nothing better than Fiber. 5G is yet another elusive albatross that has just as many of its own drawbacks (for instance, mm-wave 5G does not penetrate buildings of any sort) as does building a fiber network in any region.

But what the heck. Feel free to keep supporting policies that hurt you as a consumer as well as other consumers, too.

BT in the UK has done wonderful things to extend the life and capacity of copper infrastructure. By managing to get fibre to the cabinet and leaving the last mile copper residents still get up to 300Mb/s, I know y'all Americans have 1Gb/s in some areas but I never really thought that was necessary when not much really takes advantage of the speed.

 

[Burty117]

BT in the UK has done wonderful things to extend the life and capacity of copper infrastructure.

What? It's crap, yes they extended the life of the copper cables but they now seem to really struggle to move forward with Fiber and even new builds seem to be getting the ancient copper rubbish.

By managing to get fibre to the cabinet and leaving the last mile copper residents still get up to 300Mb/s.

That's just not true, the amount of people who get 300Mbps from copper is extremely low and it was only rolled out to specific test areas and the rollout of the 300Mbps got cancelled. Almost everyone is stuck getting, at most, 80Mbps and the majority see 60Mbps or less.

I know y'all Americans have 1Gb/s in some areas but I never really thought that was necessary when not much really takes advantage of the speed.

I moved from High Wycombe to Reading early last year and went from BT's Fiber to the Cabinet (I got max, 38Mbps on a business line) to Virgin Media's Gigabit package.

There is absolutely a good use for Gigabit, games download in 5-10 minutes, many people can be doing that at the same time and nothing slows down, not a hiccup, I would consider Gigabit speeds pretty forward thinking as well, it'll be a decent amount of time before it becomes slow and an actual hinderance (38Mbps is an actual hindrance, Games take hours to load, Amazon prime Video couldn't get into 4k HDR mode and Netflix struggled to get into 4K as well).

 

[SirDigby]

What? It's crap, yes they extended the life of the copper cables but they now seem to really struggle to move forward with Fiber and even new builds seem to be getting the ancient copper rubbish.

That's just not true, the amount of people who get 300Mbps from copper is extremely low and it was only rolled out to specific test areas and the rollout of the 300Mbps got cancelled. Almost everyone is stuck getting, at most, 80Mbps and the majority see 60Mbps or less.

I moved from High Wycombe to Reading early last year and went from BT's Fiber to the Cabinet (I got max, 38Mbps on a business line) to Virgin Media's Gigabit package.

There is absolutely a good use for Gigabit, games download in 5-10 minutes, many people can be doing that at the same time and nothing slows down, not a hiccup, I would consider Gigabit speeds pretty forward thinking as well, it'll be a decent amount of time before it becomes slow and an actual hinderance (38Mbps is an actual hindrance, Games take hours to load, Amazon prime Video couldn't get into 4k HDR mode and Netflix struggled to get into 4K as well).

I had Gfast in my flat when I moved out from my parents Virgin when max was 200Mb/s, Gfast was cheaper and I got 280Mb/s on a bad day. The rollout wasn't well done and the company is ****ing up fibre too, but the tech for Gfast was pretty good.

I'm on FTTP now with BT, 330Mbps, feel like game downloads are fast enough, not like you have to wait hours, and streaming 4K also has no impact on any other Internet users in the house.

I keep trying to convince my in laws who hate change that their 12 year old sky needs upgrading, they get 2Mb/s and have to kick eachother off to watch any streaming!

Aside from things like game downloads, most other services are bottlenecked elsewhere.

 

[wiyosaya]

I know y'all Americans have 1Gb/s in some areas but I never really thought that was necessary when not much really takes advantage of the speed.

As I see it, that is actually pretty rare to find 1Gb/s. The main reason is that ISPs have been able to abuse telecom laws that are over 100-years old to give themselves a "legal" monopoly where ever they are. There are a few places where competition is starting to gain inroads, and I think that having the competition is the only way that any of these entrenched ISPs will ever improve.

For example, just today, I got FTTH installed after being on a waiting list for probably at least three years. I opted for 500Mb/50Mb for $50/mo after having been on Spectrum (formerly TimeWarner) at 100Mb/10Mb, although, I had to play hardball with Spectrum to get that speed. About 1.5 years ago, I switched to a virtual network provider that offered 4G wireless over T-Mobile's network. Prior to that, my Time Warner speeds were 20Mb/2Mb - for the same price. Even though the 100/10 speed is available in my area, my neighbor was also on Spectrum, and he was getting something like 10/1 speeds. Spectrum just has not given existing customers who tolerate those speeds any better speeds. This, to me, indicates that providers, like Spectrum, have no incentive at all to increase speeds to their existing customers.

When construction on the fiber network for my area started, I switched back to Spectrum due to the 100/10 speeds being available for 1-year at $50/mo. I am calling Spectrum on Monday and saying, "So long and no thanks for all the fish." My new provider offers a 2,000/200 service for $200/mo - but I see no need for that for my use. However, it is great to have the competition in the area. My new provider is a small company (yet got a big financial boost from a local billionaire) and my bet is that Spectrum is laughing at them since their current footprint in the area is much smaller than Spectrum's is. As I see it, Spectrum is complacent because they have a "captive" audience and no incentive to upgrade.

I have had several bad experiences with Spectrum's customer service over the years. When I have called up to complain about the customer service, they usually have had the audacity to then ask me if I wanted to upgrade my service. The conversation was along the lines of me saying to them - your service is crap, then they say back, "We are glad you like it. How about you paying us more for even more crap service." Anyway, I am finally through with Spectrum for good. As I see it, more and more customers switching to this new ISP will be the only way that Spectrum will get the incentive to improve. It has been fallacy to think that Spectrum, and other entrenched ISPs have any incentive at all to improve their service since they have had no competition over the years.

 

[mbrowne5061]

My neighborhood just got AT&t fiber 6 months ago. That wouldn't have happened under Tom Wheeler's FCC...

Pretty sure that would have still happened, unless your municipality created their own fiber network prior to AT&T's. AT&T still would have moved in because the numbers between Wheeler's hypothetical FCC and Pai's actual wouldn't change much. And just watch, AT&T isn't going to discontinue their Fiber service in your neighborhood just because Pai is no longer in charge.

I'm on municipal water and my water pressure is incredibly low because they don't have the budget that infrastructure as new homes have gotten billed they need more water towers or pumping stations but there's no budget. On the other hand if a private company took over the water system these problems would have been fixed.

Sounds like you need to pay more attention to your civic responsibilities then. Time pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and make sure you have the right politicians and bureaucrats in the right position to ensure sufficient funding levels, and appropriate usage of those funds.

Innovation is not the sole purview of private industry. Plenty of room to innovate when it comes to local politics and policies.

 

[candle_86]

Pretty sure that would have still happened, unless your municipality created their own fiber network prior to AT&T's. AT&T still would have moved in because the numbers between Wheeler's hypothetical FCC and Pai's actual wouldn't change much. And just watch, AT&T isn't going to discontinue their Fiber service in your neighborhood just because Pai is no longer in charge.



Sounds like you need to pay more attention to your civic responsibilities then. Time pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and make sure you have the right politicians and bureaucrats in the right position to ensure sufficient funding levels, and appropriate usage of those funds.

Innovation is not the sole purview of private industry. Plenty of room to innovate when it comes to local politics and policies.

Government by it's nature is bloated and slow, it's designed that way, while a private company.must innovate to remain competitive. As for the fibre rollout no actually it was only done in response to spectrum upgrading equipment to provide 500mbs cable in my area, which they did to compete with att getting 100mbs going 3 years ago. This wouldn't have happened under municipal broadband, if munciplal broadband was the offer we'd likely still top out at 36mbs because they have no reason to compete

 

[mbrowne5061]

Government by it's nature is bloated and slow, it's designed that way, while a private company.must innovate to remain competitive. As for the fibre rollout no actually it was only done in response to spectrum upgrading equipment to provide 500mbs cable in my area, which they did to compete with att getting 100mbs going 3 years ago. This wouldn't have happened under municipal broadband, if munciplal broadband was the offer we'd likely still top out at 36mbs because they have no reason to compete

If you think municipalities don't need to compete for 'customers' (residents) and businesses are efficient by their very nature, I got a bridge to sell you.

 

[candle_86]

If you think municipalities don't need to compete for 'customers' (residents) and businesses are efficient by their very nature, I got a bridge to sell you.

private Enterprise must innovate or they die, on the other hand municipal services can quite literally make themselves a monopoly. I have never once heard of the government innovating on anything not local not State not federal they are not innovators they go with sound technology usually about 10 years or older that is proven reliable but everything is always outdated. There's no such thing as a nimble and innovative government.