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ArsTechnica Sheds Light on Cable Lobby Restricting Research
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ArsTechnica - June 19th, 2017
Cable lobby tries to stop state investigations into slow broadband speeds
Written by Jon Brodkin
Broadband industry lobby groups want to stop individual states from investigating the speed claims made by Internet service providers, and they are citing the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules in their effort to hinder the state-level actions.
The industry attempt to undercut state investigations comes a few months after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against Charter and its Time Warner Cable (TWC) subsidiary that claims the ISP defrauded and misled New Yorkers by promising Internet speeds the company knew it could not deliver.
NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and USTelecom, lobby groups for the cable and telecom industries, last month petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for a declaratory ruling that would help ISPs defend themselves against state-level investigations. The FCC should declare that advertisements of speeds "up to" a certain level of megabits per second are consistent with federal law as long as ISPs meet their disclosure obligations under the net neutrality rules, the groups said. There should be a national standard enforced by the FCC instead of a state-by-state "patchwork of inconsistent requirements," they argue. ...
Consumer advocacy groups urged the FCC to reject the petition, arguing that the commission doesn't have authority to preempt states in this matter and that the state investigations are important for protecting consumers. If the FCC "allow[s] providers to make unrealistic claims with an asterisk," then "services with vastly different peak performance characteristics may be advertised as equal with true differences in performance revealed only on a web page somewhere that explains the actual inferiority of their service," the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) said in a filing on Friday.
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