Sprint Sues FCC For 'Capricious' Deregulation of Business Data Services (bizjournals.com) 19
An anonymous reader writes: Sprint and another wireless company have filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission for the agency's recent decision on business data services. Overland Park-based Sprint and Arkansas-based Windstream Services filed the petition for review earlier this week, seeking relief "on the grounds that the Report and Order is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion," according to a filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The lawsuit is based on an April 20 vote by the FCC to deregulate its business data services, among them wireless backhaul services, which are crucial for transmitting large amounts of data quickly. Sprint had supported the price caps proposed under former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, as the carrier pays companies like AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink to use their bandwidth to bridge gaps in the Sprint network during backhaul services. Although Sprint did not report the breakdown of these costs in its annual filing, the carrier noted that they are "a significant cost for our wireless and wireline segments."
This is highly amusing (Score:2)
They don't mind telecom companies screwing customers -- as long as a telecom company (eg, themselves) are not the customer being screwed.
Poetic justice? Ironic?
. . . and no, you don't dial 666 to reach AT&T, you dial 611.
Re:This is highly amusing (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't mind telecom companies screwing customers
Your outrage is misplaced and uninformed. Sprint has spoken out in favor of Network Neutrality [theverge.com], and said NN benefits both customers and smaller ISPs. The bigger carriers like AT&T and Verizon are opposed, but they are opposed to these price caps as well. There is no hypocrisy here.
Re:This is highly amusing (Score:4, Informative)
Because ATT owns its own national fiber backbone. Verizon bought MCI which was the former Worldcom/MCI/MFS/UUNET/Brooks/TelecomUSA etc..... Sprints back bone is tiny in comparison. So it has very little geographic coverage.
Rules for thee, not for me (Score:1)
I like how these companies oppose regulation of their prices and practices with consumers, but don't you dare deregulated how other businesses treat them. Idiots.
Re: (Score:2)
Is this available on Kindle?
Good move (Score:5, Insightful)
Sprint and T-M are basically dead meat under Pai's new rules. The Bells own the wire to most of the cell sites and will no longer be required to provide it to them at any price, or at best with no price cap, just the right to complain to the FCC that $10,000/month to rent a mile of Ethernet is too high.
Telcos make most of their money from BDS, also known by its historic name Special Access. They inherited the monopoly from when they were fully regulated, and letting them have it unregulated is a huge gift. Pai's excuse is that there could be competition if somebody else bothered to pull fiber there. But that's ridiculously expensive if it's not a busy spot with a lot of business customers to share it.
Re: (Score:1)
also, if it takes double the capital to create competition, a regulated market could be both less expensive and more profitable.
Re: (Score:2)
Net Neutrality (Score:2)
ROFL (Score:2)
So they can fight for THEIR net neutrality, but when it comes to OUR net neutrality, fuck us, right?