Trump's new telecoms chief bins broadband subsidies for the poor
The Trump administration's propensity for bold and sudden action reached the United States Federal Communications Commission on Friday, as commissioner Mignon Clyburn and the Commission's chair Ajit Pai clashed over an end-of-week “news dump” that has profound policy implications.
The FCC dropped a dozen announcements on Friday, and Clyburn complained in a statement that doing so late in the week meant it was taking out the trash in the hope decision would escape scrutiny.
And scrutiny seems justified, as the announcements saw net neutrality took a hit, with commissioner Michael O'Reilly pulling the plug on the FCC's “zero rating” inquiry. That means wireless carriers won't have to worry about excluding over-the-top services like Spotify or Apple Music from their data caps. Much more controversially, Trump-appointed FCC chair Pai reversed a decision made late in the Obama administration to let consumers apply their telecommunications subsidies to broadband services.
