FCC Loses -- And Tennesseans Do, Too.

It's official. 

The suit brought against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by state

Attorney General Herb Slattery– to reverse an FCC order that would have allowed Chattanooga’s Electric Power Board to expand its gigabyte broadband internet service into rural counties outside its defined legal service boundaries – has been rejected by the three judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The notice reporting the judgment said, ““Neighboring rural counties without access to broadband had asked the board to expand its reach but state law prevented it from doing so. In 2015, the FCC issued an order preempting state law saying the expansion would further the purposes of federal telecommunications law. The appellate ruling overturns that order, saying it infringes on a “state’s right to determine the boundaries of its political subdivisions.” Tennessee Attorney General Herb Slattery praised the decision saying it preserves the state’s right to set boundaries and market areas. The Nashville Post has more on the decision.””

Should the FCC have entered into this arena in the first place?

Yes, because through its eyes, it saw that the state law limiting all of Tennessee's counties access to broadband and high speed internet made the entire state vulnerable to global competition in an increasingly connected world. 

In fact, the FCC was responding in a fashion to two realities. 

First, that the United States, for lack of a national policy regarding broadband, had fallen to 45th place among major industrialized nations; and, second, that Tennessee was ranked a lamentable 27th among the states of the Union.

Yes, indeed, but perhaps the better response is that the FCC should not have had to enter such a judgement; if the state's legislators had but done their jobs in the first place; had they lived up to the oath they took, and met their obligations to serve Tennesseans. Instead, they chose to accept their positions under false premises and, once in, serve instead the interests of the deep monied interests whose donations helped them deceive their voters, who foolishly clung to the ideal that they had placed in office men and women who worked to serve them.

If not the people, who do legislators serve?

They serve two constituents before they consider the voters. Their donors, whose interests always come first, regardless; and, themselves. 

The site, www.followthemoney.org makes this unquestionably clear.

The legacy internet service providers, AT&T,Comcast, Charter and others had lobbyists scurrying throughout legislative offices, telling legislators in effect that, if they vote for their interests, the lobbyist would happily attend one of their fund raisers, with checks in hand.

And, it's not only legislators. It's the governor as well.

While the case was still before the court, Senator Janice Bowling introduced a bill to allow EPB

Chattanooga and other publicly-owned electric utilities to expand beyond their customer bases to provide much needed access to broadband to their surrounding neighbors, making the FCC action unnecessary. She had some support but nowhere near enough. Corporate donors saw to that.

As her bill was wending its way through the serpentine legislative process, Governor Bill

Haslam went on record in the media against it, saying such a bill is 'unfair' to AT&T. Within a week the governors PAC received a $10,000 donation. Ditto, the Lt. Governor's PAC. And, Speaker of the House Beth Harwell's re-election campaign received $7,500. Makes a body wonder if that was because she's a woman.

All tolled, General Assembly members received some $500,000+ in campaign donations. For less than the cost to run 12 miles of fiber optic cable, the legacy carriers bought the Tennessee General Assembly.

Let me be clear here. The FCC was giving Tennesseans the opportunities to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the industrialized world, while their own elected officials were, and are, putting their futures in jeopardy – willingly, and for personal gain.

What Could Be Worse?

A week or so after the bill's demise, Randy Boyd, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, announced the release of a study which forecasts that Tennessee is at risk of losing 1.4 million jobs, fully half of the state's employment, due to automation.

Commissioner Boyd noted that two Tennessee programs – the Drive to 55 (to have 55% of all

Tennesseans with college degrees) and the Tennessee Promise, the free community college for

qualifying students – could put the state in an envious competitive position.

The questions arise, however, “What about the people who lost their jobs, many of them with families to support? How do we educate the million that cannot qualify for those programs?

One answer is that people can, indeed, educate themselves. This is no joke. All sorts of excellent

programs are online, many of them for free, to educate people of all ages. This affords real

opportunities for people committed to self improvement.

And, people can also freelance their skills online, one of the fastest growing ways to find gainful, if not permanent, employment.

This is possible for all EXCEPT the thirty-odd percent of people who don't have access to fast, affordable internet at home – largely thanks to the legacy carriers efforts to deny them access, and the actions of Tennessee's legislators to serve those carriers.

If you are one of the 30%, how active are you in politics. How active will you become?

An afterthought:

Another way to express the appellate court's decision, “The appellate ruling overturns that order, saying it infringes on a “state’s right to determine the boundaries of its political subdivisions.”, 

might be:

“ it infringes on a “state’s right to screw its own citizens and threaten their futures.” With this rejection of the FCC, Tennessee's legislators are once again free to serve their masters at their fellow Tennessean's expense.