Thursday, August 03, 2017

Past FCC Chairman Calls Current FCC Actions “Shameful”

Image result for tom wheeler photos

Our first story is an interview with Tom Wheeler, the previous chairman of the FCC. This interview with Fast Company magazine focuses on the current FCC Chairman’s plans to do away with net neutrality and should be read by everyone who uses the Internet. Here is my favorite quote from the article:

“It looks like the FCC is standing up for four companies when you really get right down to it. There are four companies who really are the major beneficiaries–Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Charter. They provide the vast majority of high speed internet in the country. Four companies. There are a thousand companies who are the early stage innovators, the kind of folks who bring opportunity and create new jobs, who have written a letter to the FCC saying their businesses will be threatened by the elimination of Title II in order to increase the power of the Big Four. That is just an absolutely startling comparison–four companies are going to get bigger and more powerful at the expense of a thousand startups and tens of millions of consumers. That is so out of whack as to be shameful.”

I know we have hammered the ending of Net Neutrality very hard here in the last several weeks. But I thought this interview with Tom Wheeler deserved high priority in this edition. Remember, Wheeler was a former lobbyist for the telecommunications industry before becoming FCC Chairman under Barack Obama.Originally he was against Net Neutrality, but changed his tune after careful consideration and listening to the arguments of the people and many Internet-reliant companies. The current chairman, listens to no one except the big telecommunications companies, and, of course, his boss, President Trump.

I sure hope we the people can win this battle. In other news, we have a lot of good tips and tricks for your computing devices, so read on! -JRC


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