The FCC has begun rolling back decisions made in the last days of the Tom Wheeler Commission. Chief among those concerns, telecom. On Friday the agency rescinded a report that had been issued under the previous administration criticizing AT&T and Verizon for reportedly favoring their own mobile video services over competitors.
The two carriers allow customers to watch their video services on mobile phones without counting against monthly data caps, a practice known as zero rating. Competing services have to pay the carriers to make the same offer to their customers, reports Fortune.
On Friday, the agency also said in addition to canceling the report, it’s closing Wireless Telecommunications Bureau investigations against AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless which could have eventually resulted in further sanctions or limitations. “The Bureau now sets aside and rescinds the Policy Review Report and any and all guidance, determinations, and conclusions contained therein, including the document’s draft framework. The Policy Review Report will have no legal or other effect or meaning going forward,” the agency said.
Chairman Ajit Pai said: “Free-data plans have proven to be popular among consumers, particularly low-income Americans, and have enhanced competition in the wireless marketplace. Going forward, the Federal Communications Commission will not focus on denying Americans free data. Instead, we will concentrate on expanding broadband deployment and encouraging innovative service offerings.”
Fellow GOP Commissioner Michael O’Rielly called the move a first step, that now lets these companies, and others, “safely invest in and introduce highly popular products and services without fear of Commission intervention based on newly invented legal theories.”
Pai made similar decisions regarding two broadcast-related items, including a Media Bureau order regarding guidelines for the processing of broadcasters’ joint sales and shared services agreements and another regarding political ad disclosure complaints.
In all, he characterized these, plus the carrier investigations and the data carrier report as “controversial” decisions that were issued over the objections of two out of then four commissioners, meaning himself and O’Rielly, though he did not use names. “These last-minute actions, which did not enjoy the support of the majority of Commissioners at the time they were taken, should not bind us going forward. Accordingly, they are being revoked,” said Pai.
Mignon Clyburn, however, the lone Democrat on the Commission whose party was in the majority when the items being revoked on Friday were initially issued, did not take kindly to the action, saying Friday was apparently “take out the trash day.”
“In the past, then-Commissioner Pai was critical of the agency majority for not providing sufficient reasoning behind its decisions,” said Clyburn. “It is a basic principle of administrative procedure that actions must be accompanied by reasons for that action, else that action is unlawful. Yet that is exactly what multiple Bureaus have done today.”
The commissioner says her office asked for more than the allotted two days to review the latest decisions but did not receive extra time. “It is disappointing to see this Chairman engage in the same actions for which he criticized the prior Chairman.”
February 6, 2017
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