Posted on 11/24/2016 2:46:48 AM PST by markomalley
A top advisor to Donald Trump on tech policy matters proposed all but abolishing the nation's telecom regulator last month, foreshadowing possible moves by the president-elect to sharply reduce the Federal Communications Commission's role as a consumer protection watchdog.
In an Oct. 21 blog post, Mark Jamison, who on Monday was named one of two members of Trump's tech policy transition team, laid out his ideal vision for the government's role in telecommunications, concluding there is little need for the agency to exist.
"Most of the original motivations for having an FCC have gone away," Jamison wrote. "Telecommunications network providers and [Internet service providers] are rarely, if ever, monopolies."
The FCC declined to comment for this story, but its current leadership has disagreed strongly with that analysis. Its Democratic chairman, Tom Wheeler, has spoken of an Internet service "duopoly" in much of the country that limits competition. And he has compared telecommunications to the rail and telegraph networks of the 19th century, calling for new rules of the road as the Internet becomes the dominant communications platform of the 21st century.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
When I got my first license there was still a fair amount of home brew equipment. I still have some of that.
Now, the equipment (except some large final amplifiers are factory built equipment and the operators seldom do any of their repairs (which are far less frequent).
I hold a commercial radio license. Back then all stations were required to have at least one employee who was licensed for that. Now it is simply the responsibility of the station owner to insure that the station meets commercial standards. Again the commercial equipment is all type accepted factory equipment.
In the beginning of the FCC it was at the point where “spark” transmission was going away because of interference issues. I actually saw a spark transmitter that a very old amateur operator owned. Rotary type.
Now “sciences” like atmospheric science and AGW nonsense have morphed into political scams. Trump is very smart to put that crap out of it's misery.
The allocation of RF spectrum is an international issue. I don't expect that to go away. The policing issues that are political, not technical, can certainly be handled outside the current FCC’s functions.
Totally rethinking the entire Federal Department structure is the ideal way to eliminate the internal subversion of the nation. Close the Departments and reorganize them (much smaller), that is the way to get around firing a lot of individual people. Let them find new jobs like everyone else.
“This is a terrible idea. “
No, let it happen. It will not be a disaster.
Let’s start the gloating. Maybe what we need is to start a sidebar list called the Winning List of all the things that are undone or redone back to normal so we can remember them all. Running list by date and accomplishment.
NSA Flynn - Understands the threat of Islam
Secretary DeVos - Cut Common Core and return education back to local control with private competition.
CIA Director Pompeo - Good things just start to happen and nobody from the government says anything about it.
Atty Gen Sessions - The rule of law becomes cool again.
UN Amb Haley - We’ll just have to wait and see. on this one.
We’ve got way too many weaponized federal agencies. They’re run by unelected bureaucrats with political agendas.
If you want to see what happens when they get full control, look no further than California.
Any of these BS agecies that can be knocked out is a blessing.
They are so dumb, Deomcrats cant even win an election. And they want to control the nation's telecommunications?
Pay no mind Donald....it's only scroungy loser Democrats trying to keep their do-nothing cushy jobs.
I would agree with you that the FCC has done more to damage consumer rights & freedoms and the internet as a hole under Obama and all of that needs to be completely undone.
+1 both of your posts.
Again, the headline is fake news. It is talking about the fcc role in consumer protection not frequency allocation. Remeber, everything is a lie or misdirection.
More interesting is the thousands of jobs that will be needed for the people working for all these agencies that are let go.
They never had a real job in their lives and would get fired if their work was based on positive performance and making a profit.
(I first got my ticket back in 1974, so I appreciate your recollection)
As an amateur operator, I am concerned with frequency allocation and likely unintentional interference. CF and LED lights, poorly designed switching power supplies, Internet over power lines, harmonics from BC stations, cracked power line insulators, faulty power line transformers, etc., etc., etc. cause interference in portions of the spectrum where an emitter is not licensed and really raise havoc.
(For those who aren’t amateur operators, consider this: have you ever gone through a part of your town where you simply CAN’T pick up your favorite AM radio because of all the noise? Chances are, interference from one of the above sources are messing with a part of the spectrum that is “owned” by the station you want to listen to...it’s a lot worse for amateur operators because the signals we try to receive are generally a lot lower than your favorite AM station)
There needs to be some sort of enforcement of that very technical issue. Not saying that it needs to be the FCC (could be NTIA for example or a technical services division within DOJ), but it is definitely needed.
(Again, for those who aren’t amateur operators, chances are you would want to have some sort of legal recourse to keep squatters off of your land or to investigate somebody who repeatedly dumps bags and bags of their garbage on your front yard. This is no different)
And the big cheeses like I Heart Radio who have destroyed local radio - we have a five station cluster here in the Twilight Zone and ONE on-air person. They even admit that the local stations are an ATM for Bain Capital. I Heart has $21 Billion Dollars in debt...
How about abolishing the IRS? Didn’t he say he wanted to put H&R Block out of business?
It is rarely handled otherwise.
BUT, many “type accepted” household appliances emit spurious radiation (ie FR noise). You're correct. There needs to be a place those technical issues can be resolved.
I'm remodeling our house at the farm. The nearest neighbor there is 1/2 mile away. smile. But I will still have to pacify my wife if I interfere with her TV. (no comment on the TV receiver's front end, hee hee hee)
Your comment doesn't offer anything toward rationale or credibility for an argument.
My next door neighbor has something in their house that emits RFI starting on 40m and goes down through 75/80m. It's LOUD too. I had to put up a nulling antenna just to get rid of it and hear on those bands again. Been telling them for eight years about it. They're willfully ignorant. FCC will do NOTHING about it, never has despite constant complaints and audio recordings and video recordings of the interference and how much worse it is the closer I get to their home.
I realize it's a funding & enforcement issue --- but for eight years?!
I guess either we have an FCC that looks into these kinds of issues and acutally FINES people for willful/malicious/intentional interference or we don't.
Having said that, I am NOT in favor of disbanding the FCC, but it needs a serious set of reforms that re-purpose/re-focus its mission and gets it away from this internet regulation nonsense (For starters.)
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there are valid reasons to do these things, chiefly out of a sense of order and planning and logical expansion and improvement.
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1st, and ALWAYS #1: “By what authority?...”. 2nd, yes, and the free market handles such things quite well enough.
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However, it should not be the FCC’s business to regulate content, equal time or a host of other things it now does. It most certainly needs a comprehensive overhaul IMO to get the politics out and common sense and planning back in.
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See #1 above. Equal time\etc., that is up to the provider (whom wished to $$$). As per content, that is handled best by the consumer (got a good enough ‘ratings’ method to use the on\off\channel buttons as required).
The ONE area where I believe there needs govt to utilize its authority (roll-back that which it allowed): the monopoly of news\TV\cable\media\etc. by a few corporations.
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Trump is sending strong messages that he intends to de-politicize Federal Agencies, and with that comes smaller agencies.
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Unfortunately, ‘smaller agencies’ never tend to STAY small. I fail to recall *any* govt that has STAYED ‘confined’ to its rightful size, scope and power.
Shrinkage will be a synonym for Trumpage!
I’m waiting for Trump to walk back, or clarify this statement at least two more times before settling on a final definition of his statement. That seems to be his pattern, first float a couple of trial balloons and see which ones don’t get shot down from both sides.
Uh, no. The FCC needs to be reigned in regarding its Obama-era overstepping with “net neutrality” and its attempt to open up cable boxes, but we need the FCC for its core duty of monitoring and regulating use of the public airwaves.
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