FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr Should Not be the Next FCC Chairman, Even if Trump Wins.
(We will return to the tale this picture tells in a moment.)
According to The Hill
“More than a dozen House Democrats sent a letter to the inspector general of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday, questioning Commissioner Brendan Carr’s role in helping craft Project 2025, a conservative policy document.
“The letter, led by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), claims Carr violated ethics rules and may have misused his office.”
Congress, of course, never, ever should have allowed Brendan Carr to be an FCC Commissioner, much less FCC General Counsel as, at every turn, his actions harmed the public and helped his former clients — Verizon, the CTIA, the wireless association, AT&T, the USTelecom, the phone association, and all of the ties to a group called ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council — where he pushed through his own wireless 5G order — based on model legislation that the wireless companies created with ALEC.
In fact, in his original testimony to Congress to become commissioner, he omitted critical facts about his past work with Verizon, et al. — starting in 2008.
Let’s revisit a basic series of stories we wrote over the last decade, part of a timeline of how Carr first worked at Wiley Rein as one of Verizon’s attorneys, then the CTIA, then became a staff person for FCC Commissioner, former Verizon attorney and then Chairman Ajit Pai, where he helped to remove the requirement to supply fundamental financial reports from Verizon, AT&T et al to the FCC, to doing a series of rulings that reestablished bad regulations that harms your privacy, helped to remove customer protections that were on wireless and on the wireline networks, and pushed through attacks on the rights of cities dealing with wireless deployments, not to mention re-killing Net Neutrality.
Let’s start:
At the core, Brendan Carr omitted critical facts about his past clients in his testimony to Congress, He Worked for AT&T, Verizon, Et Al. From HuffPost, June 30th, 2017
“In his written testimony to Congress, Brendan Carr, who has been nominated to be the third Republican FCC Commissioner, omitted the most important fact: He worked for AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, as well as the CTIA, the wireless association, and the USTA, the telephone association. Moreover, much of this work has direct ties to his current work with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (a former “Verizon attorney). Together they have amassed a string of corporate-monopoly friendly, harmful consumer regulations that have passed or are percolating. In the end, Carr and Pai clearly show that they are still working for the industry, not the public interest.
“On top of this, there are even holes in Carr’s work timeline, as told by his own LinkedIn bio. His resume shows he clerked for a judge in the 2008–2009 timeframe, while his bio shows him also working from 2005–2012 for Wiley Rein and the telcos and their associations.
“All of this should be a deal breaker. The Senate should not confirm Brendan Carr’s nomination as FCC Commissioner.”
As this played out, Verizon et al were able to stop critical financial reporting requirements by statute as well as enabled a massive financial cross-subsidy scheme for the wireless subsidiary to take billions of dollars from the state utilities to build out 3G and 4G first. At the same time, customers would be charged thousands of dollars for the fiber to the home that never showed up, and all hidden from view.
In 2017, as Chairman, Ajit Pai’s first action was to use a ‘weed hacker[ to get rid of the remaining accounting requirements — and Brendan Carr was his staffer. In fact, the argument was that these ‘accounting rules’ were a burden, but we find that Verizon et al had no serious burden.
In an interview, Pai actually mentioned that the state ‘never examined these books, and in 2024, the failure to examine the cross-subsidies helped create the Digital Divide.
“Recently, we asked Bureau staff to determine how often of late the FCC used this Part 32 data for price cap carriers. The staff responded that it was not aware of any federal reliance on this data in the last five years.”
To summarize: Brendan Carr was one of Verizon’s attorneys and helped to remove critical accounting and financial requirements for their clients, then with Chairman Pai, a former Verizon attorney that gave Verizon their wish — they pushed through specific orders to remove the remaining requirements.
This also removed the audit trail for investigators to examine, including the financial books that would reveal all of the cross-subsidies of wireless and taking the utility construction budgets to do fiber to the home — in rural areas, and also had continuous rate increases.
When Carr joined Pai’s staff, the Chairman stated that Carr had worked on a First Amendment case and he would be an asset. Unfortunately, this victory was for the wireless industry association, the CTIA, and the First Amendment was used against the city of San Francisco. And Carr was one of the lawyers for CTIA.
“Wiley Rein Secures First Amendment Victory for the Wireless Industry, October 28, 2011
“Wiley Rein, which has represented CTIA-The Wireless Association® (CTIA) in this matter since 2010, had argued on the industry’s behalf.
“John Walls, Vice President, Public Affairs at CTIA, said of the ruling, “Today the federal district court in the Northern District of California held that the requirements of San Francisco’s cell phone warning regime, as currently drafted, violate the First Amendment. The court properly determined that the City cannot constitutionally require retailers to hang posters in their stores or paste stickers on cell phone display materials in order to convey the City’s selective messages about cell phone safety and cell phone use. The court also found that the ‘fact sheet’ created by the City was both misleading and alarmist and that the City could not require retailers to distribute this ‘fact sheet’ without significant changes.”
“Wiley Rein’s Andrew McBride, Josh Turner, Megan Brown and Brendan Carr are among the counsel for CTIA in this matter.”
Defending the industry against the wishes of a city is going to come up again and again as the FCC is planning on ‘preempting’ state and city zoning and laws.
And we find that Brendan Carr worked for most of the major phone and wireless companies on this topic including AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink, (also known as the “Incumbent Local Exchange Companies”, “ILECs”) and their association, USTA. (The ILECs are the companies that control the wires (and poles) for telecommunications through the state utilities, including Verizon NY and AT&T California.)
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr went to Indianapolis, Indiana on September 4th, 2018 to announce the FCC’s new proposed 5G wireless regulations that are directly tied to “model legislation” most likely created by “ALEC”, the American Legislative Exchange Council. On the floor of the Indiana Senate statehouse, he was joined by the Hoosier politicians, (most, if not all, appear to be getting money from AT&T el al.).
Sadly, 25 years ago, there were other plans to bring advanced telecommunications based on fiber optic services to Indiana. In fact, 150,000 lines of fiber optic-based services were supposed to have been rolled out in just Indianapolis — by the year 2000.
Sadder still, ALEC has had a continuous, detrimental impact on telecommunications and broadband in America for over a decade, as told by a case study of another AT&T state, Wisconsin, which we did in 2008.
“5G” Wireless Is the New Fiber Optic, Bait-and-Switch Scandal, written in 2018.
Yet, in 2018, we now have FCC Commissioner Carr delivering a string of over-used buzz words in his press release and speech, promising 5G will bring next-gen services and create jobs, aid in education and health care — even in rural areas, as long as regulations are removed.
“5G will create jobs, improve education, and promote public safety. But to upgrade our networks, we must upgrade our regulations.”
And,
“Now, we are on the cusp of upgrading to 5G. This next-generation network can create jobs, enable a 21st century education for our kids, and improve access to high-quality, affordable healthcare…”
And, the FCC claims:
“Two million more homes will be reached by small cells as the result of this decision — and 97% of those will be in rural and suburban communities.”
If history is our guide, this is all just another act by AT&T and Verizon et al. to remove regulations and tout wireless vaporware, the new shiny-tech bauble to be used for this bait-and-switch.
Meanwhile, Fierce Wireless quotes Commissioner Brendan Carr,
“A key obstacle [to 5G] is our country’s outdated infrastructure regulations, which were written for previous generations of wireless technology,”… He has proposed a plan to streamline the federal historic and environmental review procedures that apply to wireless infrastructure deployments in hopes of reducing regulatory financial burdens on wireless providers deploying 5G.”
This has been going on for years but has intensified with the FCC’s attacks on the public interest.
NOTE: You might first want to read: “Verizon Wireless’s 5G Deployment is a 1 Gig Fairy Tale”. Written in January 2016, it details how 4G has also been a stream of hype.
We wrote this to the California Governor who was thinking of signing a wireless bill written, most likely as a clone of an ALEC bill.
Are You Going to Back the ALEC-AT&T-CTIA Takeover of the FCC?
Questionable Analysis Was Used to Strengthen the Carr 5G Order.
And it gets worse and deeper. To reinforce the “Carr 5G Order’ an ‘economic analysis’ was submitted to the FCC, as if on cue, claiming that there would be $2 billion in savings and an additional $2.4 billion in stimulated infrastructure investment.
“September 5, 2018 — A new economic analysis submitted to the FCC today shows that Commissioner Brendan Carr’s 5G order will save $2 billion in unnecessary costs and stimulate an additional $2.4 billion in infrastructure investment. The additional small cells that will be built due to the order will cover 1.8 million more homes and businesses, with 97% of that next-gen coverage concentrated in rural and suburban communities, according to the study.”
We note that in a series of letters to Governor Newsom in CA, one letter discussed how an investigation of the financial accounting used by AT&T CA could be worth $1–2 billion dollars annually to California, which could be used to cover the entire state with fiber optics. This FCC-submitted independent report is not independent but is designed as part of the AT&T CA disinformation campaign.
But on the ‘how low can you go’ scale — imagine our surprise when we saw a press release that said:
“Local Government Support Builds for Carr’s 5G Order
“More than Several Dozen Mayors, Local Officials, and State Lawmakers Back Order
“WASHINGTON — On September 26, the FCC will take its next step in ensuring that the United States wins the global race to 5G, the next generation of wireless service, to the benefit of communities across the country. It will do so by voting on the grassroots reforms championed by local and state officials. Their commonsense ideas are key to supporting the deployment of small cells, which are the building blocks of 5G.
“More than several dozen mayors, local officials, and state lawmakers have called on the FCC to streamline the rules governing small cell buildout,’
Commissioner Carr stated.
‘They want the FCC to build on the commonsense reforms adopted in state legislatures and town councils across the country so that every community — from big city to small town — gets a fair shot at next-generation connectivity. As they put it, FCC action will help spur investment and infrastructure buildout in their communities, while helping the U.S. win the race to 5G. I am glad to see the support from this diverse group of state and local officials.”
Unfortunately, this is not a diverse group; when we go through who signed onto the letter, we see that almost all of the representatives have ties to ALEC, or AT&T or CTIA or Verizon or… Here’s a few:
Rep. Kathy Byron, State Representative, Virginia:
“Your determination to come forward with a plan — modeled on the regulatory reforms enacted in 20 states, including Virginia — increasing access to 5G connectivity will positively affect the lives of people across our nation.”
Mayor Ashton Hayward receives the CTIA 5G Wireless Champion Award, Aug 29, 2018 — PRNewswire — “CTIA, the wireless industry association, today presented Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward with its 5G Wireless Champion Award.”
Rep. Jason Seine, State Representative, North Carolina: Representative Jason Saine represents the 97th North Carolina House District which encompasses Lincoln County. Representative Saine is serving his third term.
Captured: ALEC on the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee
The ultimate way of pushing through bad FCC regulations was to capture the ‘Consumer Advisory Committee’ and other committees, and this FCC went and added ALEC to ensure the proper support.
In 2024, we need to point out there are no ‘white hats’ at the FCC. Under the current Democrat FCC, the Diversity Council is the play-toy of AT&T et al, stacked with nonprofits who are getting millions in different government subsidies and the companies’ foundation grant money.
And in 2024 wrote a separate analysis of the capture of the FCC: Proving Regulatory Capture at the FCC.
In 2018, we wrote: The FCC-AT&T-Verizon-Cable Plan to Screw America — Made Easy.
“I was asked to summarize the current communications situation in light of the Net Neutrality decision (being refreshed until the next challenge), and the “ridiculously bad” AT&T-Time Warner merger going through — and what we should do about it.
By 2018, the FCC had created over 20 inter-locking proceedings, each designed to give the phone and cable companies more power, screw-by-screw — literally reducing our democracy, our freedoms and worse — giving us no serious competition; just crap service at continually increasing prices, among other harms.
By 2019, not only had the Democrats become the primary party and the FCC was now in the hands of the Democrats, but the pandemic hit, and over the last few years there have been some efforts to reverse some of the harms and bad policies of the previous administration.
But instead of confronting the companies that helped to create the Digital Divide, we have a situation where every state has been creating a 5 year state broadband plan to give to the NTIA who is distributing $42 billion.
Not one 5 year plan has even mentioned how the Digital Divide was created in their states and not one plan even mentioned the previous state fiber optic plans where state laws were changed to have telecom customers pay for network upgrades. And because of the removal of basic accounting and proper oversight and audits, America is being gouged as compared to overseas.
In 2024, overseas there are countries that have 100GB wireless services for about $9.00. Brendan Carr is for “Data Caps” claiming without it we are giving away free refills of coffee.
And in America, most of the resellers of wireless, have policies where after 5–20GB the 5G services slows to being unusable — and they can be paying $40-$90 per line, depending on the service. And because the accounting has been manipulated, largest areas of America were never upgraded to fiber — yet customers paid for it. The punchline is — Carr never called for any investigations of what matters — examining AT&T et al — his former clients, which he has been giving a free pass.
Instead of Carr’s targets being the telecommunications which the FCC has jurisdication — AT&T and cable companies, Carr’s targets — get the tech companies to pay USF? Or let’s go after TikTok. They are just plays to obfuscate that the tech companies compete with AT&T and TikTok competes with America’s social media companies.
What the FCC and America needs are those willing to stand up for the public interest, and today, one of the most respected is Lina Kahn at the FTC, The Federal Trade Commission. Her term has expired and while we don’t necessarily agree with all of the FTC positions, from attempting to get rid of junk fees, halting deceptive practices over getting rid of an online subscription, to the larger anti-trust issues, these are important and long overdue. We believe the public needs Lina Kahn now to help clean up the mess in communications.
We end with a recent, more critical analysis of Carr’s current statements and actions from one of the most active tech-broadband websites, Techdirt. Loud and representing the public, but always speaking the truth as they see it, here’s the latest about Brendan Carr.
Hey Brendan Carr, Next Time Link To Our Article That Proves You’re Full Of ShXXXt, Coward Oct 24th 2024 09:28am — Mike Masnick
“Recently, Karl Bode had a post taking FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to task for a painfully misleading Wall Street Journal article that attacked Kamala Harris. The article claimed that her policies resulted in the lack of new broadband deployments under Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Bill that put aside $42.5 billion in broadband grants for underserved communities. Except that’s not accurate at all.
“Leaving aside that Carr’s WSJ article was clearly political, violating laws that prevent federal government employees from engaging in political activities (which also didn’t stop Carr from contributing a chapter to Project 2025), Carr has spent the last few days just repeating the misleading bullshit from his article, trying to drum up misplaced anger towards Harris.
“If there’s anyone to be angry about regarding the failure to close the digital divide, it’s Brendan Carr himself. He’s trying to do two things here: to distract from the fact that he fucked things up back during the Trump years, which caused the mess we’re digging out of now, and to suck up to Trump, whom he hopes will appoint him chair.
