[HN Gopher] Ajit Pai apparently mismanaged $9B fund-new FCC boss...
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Ajit Pai apparently mismanaged $9B fund-new FCC boss starts
"cleanup"
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 236 points
Date : 2021-07-28 14:20 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| samstave wrote:
| Ajit Pai is an ultra-douchebag.
|
| He deserves prison for how he mishandled the FCC.
|
| I met him twice back in the day and he was so slimy and douchey
| each time, it was sickening to talk to him.
| [deleted]
| inetknght wrote:
| I have been watching the housing market in Texas (rural areas
| around Houston, Dallas, and Austin) for a while. I've been
| actively looking at homes for the past few months. I'm closing on
| a home in a week assuming it all goes well. As a software
| developer one of my criteria for buying a home has been "fast"
| internet.
|
| FCC's website [0] is the absolute opposite of reliable.
| Information there is, at best, not up to date. There are some
| cases where I'm convinced that the internet service providers are
| maliciously claiming service in an area that they do not actually
| provide.
|
| Then there's the internet service providers themselves. They'll
| offer fast service on their website just because they offer it in
| the zip code. Then you call to order, spend an hour on the phone,
| and discover that they don't provide service to _that_ address.
| Sometimes it 's because the telephone pole is too far by a few
| feet or a few miles. Or sometimes it's because they don't provide
| service to that zip code _at all_.
|
| And then if you ask how much it will cost to _build_ service to
| that address... you 're lucky if they'll give you a quote. Most
| of the time they'll refuse to build.
|
| Some of them will tell you to go to their "partner" [19] who will
| figure out who your ISP is... and that partner will then send you
| right back to that same ISP who will deny service.
|
| I have documentation. Would the Texas AG file a criminal
| complaint? No, I don't trust he would. The Texas AG is
| demonstrably as corrupt as the rest of the current Texas
| government.
|
| There are some regional ISPs that are "better" because they don't
| seem to employ the scummy tactics about zip codes... but they
| also don't provide a wide service area and often won't build out.
|
| The FCC's website is so unreliable that I'd end up just having to
| call every ISP and asking whether they service the address. And
| even more importantly is I'd have to ask specifically about
| serviceability of _that address_ and beware of the representative
| just parroting the zip code offer. I 'd end up spending multiple
| hours to check a single address for internet service. Then I'd
| end up trying to filter a dozen addresses a week. It's fucking
| infuriating.
|
| [0]: https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/
|
| [1]: Altice (Suddenlink): https://www.suddenlink.com
|
| [2]: Altice (Optimum) https://www.optimum.com/alticeone
|
| [3]: CableOne (Sparklight, NewWave): https://www.sparklight.com
|
| [4]: Windstream: https://www.windstream.net/high-speed-internet
|
| [5]: Comcast: https://www.xfinity.com/learn/offers
|
| [6]: AT&T: https://www.att.com/buy/bundles
|
| [7]: Entouch https://www.entouch.net/
|
| [8]: Frontier https://frontier.com/
|
| [9]: GCTR (Vyve) https://vyvebroadband.com/
|
| [10]: Spectrum (Charter) https://www.spectrum.com/
|
| [11]: Consolidated https://www.consolidated.com/
|
| [12]: CenturyLink https://www.centurylink.com/
|
| [13]: EarthLink https://internet.earthlink.com/
|
| [14]: Livingston Communications https://livcom.us/
|
| [15]: Lake Livingston Telephone Company
| https://lakelinkgstontel.com/
|
| [16]: Colorado Valley Telephone Co-operative
| https://www.cvctx.com/
|
| [17]: People's Telephone Co-operative https://peoplescom.net/
|
| [18]: Eastex https://www.eastex.com/
|
| [19]: SmartMove.US is fucking trash https://www.smartmove.us/
| cweagans wrote:
| Getting a quote to build out service to an address through any
| residential sales channel at an ISP is an exercise in futility.
| They generally won't quote it to residential customers because
| the quote usually ends up being for some astronomically high
| amount (dozens/hundreds of thousands) that few residential
| customers could reasonably afford.
|
| If you really want to have something built out for you, I
| recommend the following approach:
|
| 1. Find neighbors that are both frustrated with their internet
| options and have some money to spend
|
| 2. Call the _business_ sales line for whatever ISP you want to
| go with.
|
| 3. Request a quote for yourself and mention that there are some
| neighboring businesses that would be willing to go in on the
| build cost.
|
| Usually, you can at least get a quote that way and you can
| decide from there whether or not it's worth it. Once they've
| built out service to your location, other residential customers
| can re-use that same infrastructure, so they don't all actually
| need to have businesses of their own.
|
| Sparklight is a provider in my area as well and they will build
| out business service to a residential location if there is
| business being conducted there (it's a pretty low bar to meet,
| and when in doubt, you could simply set up an LLC for yourself.
| I think it's ~$300 in Texas, which would essentially be a
| rounding error on the cost of the service buildout).
|
| Another option that you could look into is setting up your own
| ISP. I found that in my previous home, I would have been able
| to set up a tiny neighborhood ISP for ~$30k (for 15 homes).
| It's a large chunk of money, but divided up across multiple
| homes + ongoing service fees, it would have been pretty
| manageable. This was the cost for fiber-to-the-home and it was
| so low only because I didn't have to cross any public right-of-
| way, I was able to find a path for the fiber that didn't cross
| any other utilities or anything, there was fiber nearby (Zayo
| Communications publishes a map online where you can find this
| info), and I was willing to do much of the installation work
| myself. I ended up selling the house and moving instead, but it
| would have been a pretty fun project. You could also consider
| starting a WISP. https://startyourownisp.com/ has come across
| HN several times and is a really interesting resource.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _the quote usually ends up being for some astronomically
| high amount (dozens /hundreds of thousands) that few
| residential customers could reasonably afford._
|
| Yes. I was prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars.
|
| > _Another option that you could look into is setting up your
| own ISP._
|
| I'm interested in doing so but not as part of a purchase of a
| home. Maybe a few years down the line I might.
| atlgator wrote:
| Is it odd they are going after SpaceX? The funding they received
| was earmarked to support unserved census blocks. If any company
| is in a position to help unserved rural areas it is SpaceX, no?
| giacaglia wrote:
| Not odd. Expected
| drooby wrote:
| It only effects something like 6% of blocks that SpaceX would
| get the funds for... so basically instead of SpaceX getting
| $880m they'll get $825m.
| simiones wrote:
| > If any company is in a position to help unserved rural areas
| it is SpaceX, no?
|
| Not really - it is very unlikely that SpaceX will be able to
| cost-effectively serve high-speed internet for any interesting
| amount of people in a relatively small geographic area, such as
| the United States, as at any one time only a very small number
| of satellites can serve a particular area. This becomes
| especially problematic with any realistically achievable size
| of the constellation, which is going to be much closer to the
| current size (~1700 satellites) than to the "promised" size
| (~42k satellites).
|
| Laying cable seems much more achievable and maintainable than
| launching 42k satellites every 2-5 years as Elon is "promising"
| (remember that the maximum life span of any satellite in LEO,
| as mentioned by SpaceX, is 5 years, after which it will de-
| orbit naturally).
| kaiju0 wrote:
| The new starship platform should be able to launch 400
| satellites per launch. They would only need 30 launches a
| year to support the constellation.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Sure, and each launch will only cost $2 million, and the
| same rocket will do earth-to-earth travel. In 10 years
| they'll have 3 colonies on Mars connected by hyperloops,
| and they'll rescue those kids with the mini-sub.
|
| I'm sure Starship will fly in a few years and carry more
| satellites at a better cost per ton than existing rockets,
| but there is no reason at all to believe anything close to
| the announced timelines, sizes, and costs. At any cost per
| launch per ton that is even somewhat comparable to any
| existing rocket (say half of), 42k satellites is far too
| expensive.
| SloopJon wrote:
| If up to $100 million of that was to places like highway
| medians and a "parking garage ... surrounded on all sides by
| multiple companies offering gigabit service," then no, it's not
| odd at all.
| duxup wrote:
| Is it 'gong after SpaceX' or just a case of questioning if they
| should have gotten the money or not?
|
| I'm not sure any contact or such is 'going after'.
| g_sch wrote:
| It looks like they're only trying to claw back a small portion
| of the overall award to SpaceX ($111m out of $885m), so on its
| own, this doesn't look like a move to kneecap SpaceX. At least
| not on the scale of what we see with AWS vs. Azure on the JEDI
| contract.
| ogjunkyard wrote:
| I feel like the lean on SpaceX in this article is because it's
| a popular name at the moment. In the article, it mentions that
| SpaceX received grants for urban areas for things like airport
| parking lots. Also mentioned were areas already served by one
| or more companies with 25/3 broadband. Those were the types of
| locations that funding was being pulled for.
| josefx wrote:
| Maybe they currently don't meet all the requirements?[1]
|
| [1] https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904/factsheet
| vernie wrote:
| Just get used to the fact that the vast majority of Trump
| appointees will suffer no professional or personal consequences
| and move on.
| genericone wrote:
| Yes DJT appointed him Chairman, but I recall his name from the
| earlier 2010's and wikipedia confirms he was initially
| appointed Commissioner unanimously by the Senate in 2012.
| tl wrote:
| From Wikipedia: In 2011, Pai was then nominated for a
| Republican Party position on the Federal Communications
| Commission by President Barack Obama at the recommendation of
| Minority leader Mitch McConnell. Mitch is the real enemy of
| the US here -- a tyrant of a sham election who continues to
| wreck havoc on attempts to run a healthy democracy.
| 99_00 wrote:
| The headline sounds scandalous, but the article leaves me
| thinking that the system works.
|
| They allocated funds based on data, and made small course
| corrections based on better data.
|
| Better to move it forward with good enough data and course
| correct than to wait for perfect data.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| explains why my internet is twice as expensive and the same
| speed!
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| Mismanaged into his pockets
| ccleve wrote:
| This is an absurd hit piece. I promise you that Ajit Pai did not
| personally review each census block to determine if it needed
| service or not. That happens at the staff level.
|
| Plus, the assertion in the headline that Pai "mismanaged $9
| billion fund" is bloviation -- the FCC is simply asking some
| grant recipients to return a small portion of the money (6%)
| based on revised maps. Honestly, do we need to politicize
| everything?
| pb7 wrote:
| >Honestly, do we need to politicize everything?
|
| When you're dealing with a known corrupt individual, it's worth
| pointing out.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > a known corrupt individual,
|
| A known corrupt individual, who was nominated by another
| known corrupt individual who was then president.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Ajit Pai was nominated to the FCC by Obama in 2012.
| hummusandsushi wrote:
| This is technically true but presents a very misleading
| version of events. The FCC has 5 seats that are
| traditionally occupied by partisan representatives. Ajit
| Pai was appointed by Obama to fill a republican vacancy
| and Jessica Rocenworcel to occupy a democratic
| vacancy.[0] Apparently Pai was Mitch McConnell's
| recommendation.
|
| Trump then promotes Ajit Pai to be the chairman of the
| commission.[1]
|
| So yes, Pai was nominated to the FCC by Obama to respect
| a partisan tradition at the recommendation of Republican
| members. Trump then promotes Pai, who by that point is a
| clear Net Neutrality opponent, to the chairman position.
|
| [0] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/190857-obama-
| nominates...
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/trump-promotes-
| neutral...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The FCC has 5 seats that are traditionally occupied by
| partisan representatives
|
| Its law that they have a limit of 3 per party, the
| tradition is that they are always of the two major
| parties, and that the Senate caucus of the party who
| doesn't hold the White House has the dominant role in
| directing the nomination of the members of their party.
| Since they are also Senate confirmed, and given the
| existence of the filibuster even when not in divided
| government, there some strong teeth to that tradition,
| though conceivably with sufficient support in the Senate
| a Democratic President could fill vacancies (with 3
| Democratic incumbents), with, say, Socialists or Greens
| rather than Republicans.
| WhyNott wrote:
| I mean, that does not contradict at all what OP is
| saying. /s
| refurb wrote:
| Yup. This is "new leadership 101". Buy as much political
| capital as you can - blame everything on the prior person, even
| if it hadn't happened yet. Even better if you can claim your
| first steps are "fixing" the problems the old guy left you -
| even if you're actually just instituting a new policy.
|
| You think these people end up running major US govt orgs and
| aren't ruthless cunts? You can't survive in DC without knowing
| how to throw people under the bus.
| yellow24 wrote:
| He was head of the FCC. He also politicized his position in
| making decisions that benefited him and his friends. If he
| signed the check worth 9 billion I would have hoped he did his
| research or at least take ownership in where our money went. He
| is not a victim here.
| duxup wrote:
| That sounds more like a great method of deflecting any
| criticism rather than actually talking about what happened.
|
| I feel like 'that's political' or similar sentiments have been
| used lately to just deflect criticism. It seems like it could
| be used endlessly.
| ccleve wrote:
| Um, what? I am talking about what happened. It is others who
| are motivated to criticize Pai not because of what happened
| in this specific instance, but because of general
| disagreement with him over other issues (like net
| neutrality).
| duxup wrote:
| It couldn't be that funds were directed to places that they
| shouldn't go, like the article notes?
| trentnix wrote:
| It's Ars.
| dogleash wrote:
| >This is an absurd hit piece. I promise you that Ajit Pai did
| not personally review each census block to determine if it
| needed service or not.
|
| Of course he didn't do it manually but I'm not sure what point
| you're trying to make.
|
| Nobody thinks it's his job to manually review census blocks,
| people think it's his job to ensure the data is in order before
| the auction happened.
| dreyfan wrote:
| > Honestly, do we need to politicize everything?
|
| That's an interesting take coming from someone as extremely
| political as yourself. [1][2]
|
| [1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/clevelandchris/
|
| [2] https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-
| contributions/?...
| 99_00 wrote:
| But do you have any counter argument to the points they made?
| dominotw wrote:
| whats the logic here?
|
| Everything is political for someone who is politically
| active?
| namdnay wrote:
| I mean theres a difference between being politically active
| (which we all should be), and being the head of the
| republican party in chicago
| [deleted]
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| >Honestly, do we need to politicize everything?
|
| The FCC is a political organization, so yes, it should be
| politicized. It often makes decisions due to politics, and in
| this case the Republican ideals of business being more powerful
| than the government and monied interests and capital owners
| being more powerful than democracy and working people.
|
| >I promise you that Ajit Pai did not personally
|
| That's not how leadership works. They can't fail and then say
| "Oh well I wasn't reviewing every little thing."
|
| I'm not sure why you're carrying water for a crony like Pai,
| but its not convincing in the slightest.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Honestly, do we need to politicize everything?
|
| Government management of funds is political, by definition. It
| can't be "politicized"; the weird thing is pretending that it
| was ever _apolitical_ to start with.
| beauzero wrote:
| This is unfortunate. The service maps they are using are
| extremely poor, being charitable. Anecdotally our area is
| supposed to have 25/3 and I haven't met anyone that has achieved
| that speed from our DSL provider. Most go with Hughes, etc. Yet
| our entire service area shows up as 25/3 serviced. On the other
| side of that there are several areas that are served with cable
| and a couple with fiber...none of those areas show in the over
| generalized 25/3 DSL service area.
|
| This feels like part of a larger game. Someone is going after
| SpaceX, in the government space, is the general feel. First Bezos
| says that he will discount the moon contract by $2B...and now
| this. My opinion is that lobbyists are being employed to turn
| money away from SpaceX and move it back towards more
| "traditional"/entrenched government contractors across several
| fronts.
| donatzsky wrote:
| Here in France the official maps from the telecoms authority
| shows the speed for each provider, for individual addresses.
|
| http://maconnexioninternet.arcep.fr/
| gpm wrote:
| This is my feeling too.
|
| Was this contest run poorly? Definitely. Is the claim that
| SpaceX is getting funds for census areas that really shouldn't
| have funds attached true? Almost certainly.
|
| Are they the primary beneficiary of the contest being poorly
| run? That seems very unlikely. The FCC and Ajit Pai attempted
| to exclude them from this competition entirely [1], it seems
| pretty clear from the start that this competition was designed
| to give too much money to the incumbents, not SpaceX.
|
| Do I think that the FCC would be trying to clawback money if
| SpaceX hadn't won? I wish I did, but the fact that they're
| primarily trying to clawback money from SpaceX makes me
| skeptical. It seems much more likely that this is just
| corruption in action trying to stop money going to the "wrong"
| recipient.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/elon-musks-
| promi...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Do I think that the FCC would be trying to clawback money
| if SpaceX hadn't won?
|
| Looking at this as a clawback attempt is the wrong framework.
| The awards are tied to contract terms with clawback-with-
| penalty provisions. The FCC has identified cases where it is
| unlikely that the contract terms could be met and provided an
| opportunity for those with grants to surrender them _without
| penalty_ if they feel they could not meet the award terms. No
| effort is being made to undo awards, and if winners think
| they can meet the terms, they can keep the money.
|
| Its win-win if award winners avail themselves of this
| opportunity, where they can't meet the terms, because it
| avoids an after-the-fact clawback with penalty which is good
| for the winner, and enables the funds to be redirected in
| advance rather than recovered in arrears, which is good for
| the government.
|
| The mismanagement is that the places where it is almost
| certaibly impossible for the terms to be fulfilled, the FCC
| should not have granted the awards in the first place (of
| course, it is _also_ true that applicants should have done
| their due diligence and not applied, so its not exclusively
| the FCC at fault.)
| cycomanic wrote:
| It's fascinating how many here if someone goes against a Musk
| company immediately assume that it's due to corruption or
| protection for the incumbents. Considering how Tesla benefits
| significantly from regulations (they make more money from
| carbon credits than selling cars), I think they are very good
| at taking advantage of regulation themselves.
|
| Also regarding the current article, maybe it is like in the
| article SpaceX bit largely on census blocks that do not
| deserve government subsidies? Maybe they even did it on
| purpose because they knew they could use other means to
| provide broadband if they can't get starlink up quick enough?
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > It's fascinating how many here if someone goes against a
| Musk company immediately assume that it's due to corruption
| or protection for the incumbents.
|
| Legacy aerospace players tried to sue SpaceX multiple times
| over (lucrative) exclusive government contracts.
|
| There's no local monopoly for cars, it's a relatively open
| market with multiple players. Telecom and Space, well
| that's a different story.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/20/21377025/spacex-air-
| force...
|
| https://spacenews.com/spacex-air-force-reach-agreement/
|
| https://www.ulalaunch.com/about/news/2014/04/28/united-
| launc...
| fallingknife wrote:
| Last quarter 3% of Tesla's revenue was from carbon credits.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| That result came out yesterday or the day before.
| beauzero wrote:
| I will also be interested to see if they pull back cash from
| the local CLECs partnering with electric companies in Georgia.
| Georgia, a little over 2 years ago, changed their state
| regulations to allow rural CLECs to partner with electrical
| coops (it may have been broader than that) to bring better than
| 25/3 to their customers. In the counties that concern me, Polk,
| Haralson, Carroll, and Heard, in west Georgia, a partnership
| between Carroll EMC and SyncGlobal (small rural CLEC) should
| bring fiber to every Carroll EMC customer over the next six
| years (2 phases). Funding for this may or may not have come
| from these allocations. The whole process is incredibly
| obscured by government and short staffed implementation
| providers.
|
| For reference https://carrollemc.com/broadband ...I also have a
| pre order in for Starlink to hold me over.
| beckler wrote:
| My FIL runs an electrical co-op in upstate SC. He had the
| choice of creating a new HQ for their co-op, or run fiber to
| all their customers.
|
| He ultimately chose the new HQ because the cost-per-mile was
| insane when you got in the more rural areas, and he had no
| guarantee that all serviceable addresses would subscribe,
| plus it would increase costs for all their subscribers even
| if they didn't join their network. He also afraid that
| something faster or more efficient than fiber would become
| more widely available over the next 10-15 years and then
| their network would be obsolete.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The third choice was no new building and save the money for
| the future. C-levels always seems to go for the shiny new
| executive suite though.
| yakz wrote:
| > He also afraid that something faster or more efficient
| than fiber would become more widely available over the next
| 10-15 years and then their network would be obsolete.
|
| Faster or more efficient than fiber? When they're already
| maintaining aluminum/copper cables to every customer
| anyway? What kind of change would something like that
| actually require to happen... new physics?
| NortySpock wrote:
| Not new physics; new business model and new technology:
|
| "a few cell phone towers can be run for cheaper than
| FTTH, and 5G is fast enough for some home use cases", at
| which point your fiber install costs may never make back
| their money.
| irrational wrote:
| I honestly didn't realize that DSL was still a thing. I've been
| on fiber optic for so many years that it's hard to imagine that
| people still use DSL. I pay less now for gigabit FIOS than I
| used to pay for dial up. Clearly everyone having these kinds of
| speeds is not a technical issue but a money issue.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| I live in a Dallas suburb. Across the street, my neighbors
| have access to both AT&T 50mbps and Spectrum 200mbps
| services. The next subdivision over has access to those PLUS
| AT&T fiber. Spectrum never paid to have the work done to
| provide their service to my entire neighborhood, and so the
| homes on my side of the street merely have AT&T 50 to use.
| thisisnico wrote:
| Living in Canada, I have Fiber optic now, but I definitely
| pay for it. We have total telecom monopolistic practices that
| send prices upwards over time. It's in the news all the time,
| Canadians pay more than most countries in the world for
| internet services as well as wireless data.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I used to use Hughesnet, we had 25 gigabytes of data that we
| got for the month (costed ~$75/month), and then paid $15 for
| every gigabyte over the cap we went. At it's fastest (high
| priority, recently reset data cap, night usage), it started to
| approach half of the 25/4 figure that the government was
| pushing so hard for.
|
| I use Starlink now, and I feel horrible that I paid for such
| shitty service for so long. Please, if you're anyone in a rural
| area: do not support Hughesnet or Viacom. Find local options,
| look around online or talk to people. You'll almost always get
| a better deal when you search, and that's exactly what these
| incumbent powers are lobbying against.
| lumost wrote:
| I'd venture that half of SpaceX's success in the traditional
| government contracting market has been due to using their own
| capital rather than government capital for product development.
| Government funding seems to slow everything down in this space,
| which as with all high CapEx projects immediately translates to
| cost via interest rates.
| kryogen1c wrote:
| > The service maps they are using are extremely poor, being
| charitable.
|
| charity is incorrect, poor by design. from:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26347380
|
| "Those data points likely undercount the number of unserved
| Americans because the FCC lets ISPs count an entire census
| block as served even if it can serve just one home in the
| block"
|
| hilarious. surely the burden of accurate reporting is cost
| prohibitive for our poor ISPs
| LightG wrote:
| That muckerfother ...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J02-BtZ1bxE
| easton_s wrote:
| TLDR: FCC used outdated maps to award funds. They updated the
| maps and are now awarding companies based on revised maps.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| This always leaves the regular issue we have when it comes to
| Ajit Pai; was this incompetence of corruption? Always a close
| run thing with that dude.
|
| Edit: surprising number of Ajit Pai defenders here. Didn't see
| that coming.
| strbean wrote:
| I think the more appropriate question is:
|
| Was this corruption intended to benefit specific players, or
| just general sabotage of our government institutions?
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