[News] Trump hires two net neutrality opponents to oversee FCC transition

[StyM]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...cc-transition/

President-elect Donald Trump has appointed two outspoken opponents of net neutrality rules to oversee the Federal Communications Commission's transition from Democratic to Republican control.

The appointees announced yesterday are Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison. Eisenach is director of the Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), while Jamison is a visiting fellow at the same institution. Eisenach previously worked on behalf of Verizon and other telecoms as a consultant, and Jamison used to manage regulatory policy at Sprint.

Eisenach and Jamison aren't necessarily candidates for FCC chairman, but they will help set the commission's direction and could help Trump choose FCC leadership. Their views on net neutrality match those of Trump, who opposed the net neutrality rules passed under current Chairman Tom Wheeler. Those rules prohibit ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet traffic or giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment.

Jamison recently described net neutrality rules as "economics-free regulations for the Internet," saying that such rules should only be adopted "if there is actual evidence of monopoly."

"Net neutrality in the US is backfiring," Jamison wrote. "There are two basic reasons for the failure. One is that net neutrality policy has lost its focus and is now a growing miscellany of ex ante regulations that frequently work against the entrepreneurs and consumers the rules are intended to help. The second reason is that the net neutrality mindset is locked into a fading paradigm in which networks are distinct from computing and content. Facebook, Netflix, and Google are investing in customized networks and, in doing so, demonstrating that next-generation breakthroughs will leap beyond the old mindset."

Jamison also opposed Wheeler's proposal to free consumers from renting set-top boxes by requiring cable companies to make video applications for third-party devices.

Eisenach testified against net neutrality rules in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in September 2014, before the FCC passed its regulations. "Net neutrality regulation cannot be justified on grounds of enhancing consumer welfare or protecting the public interest," Eisenach said. "Rather, it is best understood as an effort by one set of private interests to enrich itself by using the power of the state to obtain free services from another?a classic example of what economists term 'rent seeking.'"

[zanzabar]

what happened to draining the swamp.

[vario]

what happened to draining the swamp.

Well, a guy who lies pathologically , has load of cases in court against him, and at the same time sues other people for just telling the truth (or even worse joking) .Lied to his teeth in campaign. What a shocker.
Ill be honest after he won, i had somewhat a new hope that maybe he at least wont be a special interests puppet.But well, he is. After 4 years of his rule, people will beg hillary to come back, and then she will do similar as him, just with a different PR twist on it :P .And Special interest people will always get their way.I wonder what goes thru typical joe sixpack mind when he seen his speech about "crooked hilary" ,how she and bill are nice people etc... I mean thats almost comical.

[drmrlordx]

Net Neutrality was the only sane thing the Obama administration did, and it's shocking they even did that much considering how much money its main opponents (Verizon, Comcast, etc) pumped into both political parties. Wheeler is/was an anomaly in Washington.

Honestly I do not see why people are trying to twist the Internet into a corporate network when it would make more sense and probably save more money in the long run for them to build out their own network. It's not like the anti-net neutrality crowd has much standing outside of the US anyway. Net neutrality is the default operating parameter of the Internet, at least when firewalls and other forms of mass-censorship are not in place.

"Conservatives" need to understand that net neutrality is to corporate Internet what the US Constitution is to the Articles of Confederation. We got rid of the Articles for good reason.

[vario]

...Honestly I do not see why people are trying to twist the Internet into a corporate network when it would make more sense and probably save more money in the long run for them to build out their own network...

Because they dont want choice for the people, there should be no alternative.Also, more and more countries do some kind of censorship and firewalls, yes most of them can be overcomed, but typical people dont do that, after a while they dont even know they should do that.

[drmrlordx]

I don't think the average American is that clueless though. Had the same measures been pushed for the old POTS network (imagine having to pay long distance plus extra fees to call a phone on a different carrier), people would have raised hell.

If/when net neutrality is manifestly eliminated in people's lives and the throttling starts, feathers will fly.

[Kingcarcas]

I wonder what's going on at that P&R forum we had with the Drumpf situation.....