This morning I received a response from Sen. Dan Sullivan to my email (blog post & ADN Letter to the Editor). It was the fastest answer I’ve ever received (very appreciated) from an elected official. Sadly – it was nonsense.
Click to read Sen. Sullivan’s response (pdf) .
My response to the response is escalating along with my blood pressure.
Sen. Sullivan,
Thank you for your quick response. It is very rare to get a timely acknowledgement of my emails. Sadly, your email is simply propaganda for telecom industry.I’ve been a web developer since 1997, provide website hosting, and set up cloud based (virtual) offices since the very earliest days of the internet. Most of the content in your email is factual baloney. You are NOT talking to the right people.
The Restoring Internet Freedom Order is going to put a large number of Alaskan businesses out-of-business. It’s going to slow down any progress our state’s economy could have had. This order will put the US far behind all other industrial nations. There isn’t an industry in Alaska that won’t be hurt by this order EXCEPT the telecoms.The 2015 Open internet order simply codified how the internet was working to maintain the US’s leadership in the industry and protect the economy while congress figured out how to pass a net neutrality bill. The 2015 order provided certainty to investors in both the infrastructure (telecoms and ISPS) and investors in all the businesses that need the so-called information superhighway. Ajit Pai just managed to make the US look like a banana republic where one small sector can pillage the economy effectively shutting down all competition, growth and opportunity. In 2015, the FCC received 3.7 million comments, a substantial majority of which supported reclassifying internet to a telecommunications service and ISPs. In 2017, Pai’s FCC ONLY listened to one side.
Take some time and talk to your constituents about the real life practical consequences of this order. Talk to your Alaskan donors who will be affected. This isn’t just about retail and cat videos. You HAVE to understand how big this decision is and what will happen to the whole economy. Assuming that the FTC protecting consumers has anything to do with what the internet actually is – is gut wrenchingly short-sighted.
