In announcing his departure as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski said: "The last four years have demonstrated that the country needs an effective FCC."
On Thursday night at the Washington Hilton, communications lawyers, media industry lobbyists, tech policy wonks and a few beat reporters will gather for the FCC Chairman's Dinner — an annual night of backslapping and inside jokes where the head of the Federal Communications Commission gives a "funny" speech zinging his colleagues and critics.
Washington, D.C., is often referred to as a “bubble,” and for good reason. On any given day there will be some kind of panel at an industry-funded “think tank” that includes regulators or other government officials speaking about the ills of government — and the virtues of unrestrained monopoly. This week we got two of these bubble moments courtesy of the Federal Communications Commission.
Spoiler alert: Americans pay more for high-speed mobile Internet service than anyone else.
The culprit: the absence of real competition in the wireless market.
This is huge: AT&T
just announced it’s finally abandoning its doomed merger with T-Mobile.
For nearly a year, we've
been showing that this deal would have only meant higher prices, fewer choices
and tens of thousands of lost American jobs. Free Press knew it; the Department
of Justice agreed; so did the FCC.
Another
year, another 12 months in which the mobile carriers did their best to screw
us.
AT&T,
Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon do so many bad, annoying and anti-consumer things
that it’s almost impossible to document it all. So below is a catalog of simply
the most egregious acts the carriers perpetrated this year.
