Julie Veach and John Nakahata, two respected DC lawyers, requested the FCC keep secret (redact) the amount John Malone’s Alaskan telco GCI is asking to recover after a mistake in their EBB filing.
They claim that revealing roughly how many subscribers GCI has would give competitors a major advantage. The information is readily available and would only have a trivial effect on marketing. I filed a FOIA FCC-2022-000153.
Charter SVP Elizabeth Andrion also likes keeping a secret. She met with the FCC about the broadband subsidy and was required by law to report what she said. Instead, she wrote something meaningless.
Ms. Marlene H. Dortch
Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
45 L Street, NE
Washington, DC 20554
Re: WC Docket No. 21-450, Affordable Connectivity Program
WC Docket No. 20-445, Emergency Broadband Benefit Program
Dear Ms. Dortch:
On December 22, 2021, the undersigned of Charter Communications, Inc. (“Charter”) met with Austin Bonner, Legal Advisor to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, to discuss the above captioned proceedings. During the meeting, Charter discussed the Commission’s proposal to require all households seeking to participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) to opt-in or affirmatively request enrollment in ACP.
Please direct any questions regarding the foregoing to the undersigned.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Elizabeth Andrion
Elizabeth Andrion
Senior Vice President
This does not satisfy public disclosure requirements. She is required to file under ex parte rules, with complete details of what she told the Legal Advisor. In particular, did she address the request by Public Knowledge and others that all providers have an offering priced at the $30 level of the subsidy? That’s the only way Rosenworcel will be able to deliver the promised affordable broadband for all.
I also am asking every carrier how many homes were newly connected to broadband by the program. FCC staff, if not JR, know the answer is so few that drastic change is necessary. The companies and politicians are trying to hide that failure.
I’ve asked Andrion to update her filing to comply with this FCC rule. It is too often ignored.
A person who makes an oral ex parte presentation subject to this section shall submit to the Commission’s Secretary a memorandum that lists all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meetingat which the ex parte presentation was made, and summarizes all data presented and arguments made during the oral ex parte presentation. Memoranda must contain a summary of the substance of the ex parte presentation and not merely a listing of the subjects discussed. More than a one or two sentence description of the views and arguments presented is generally required. If the oral ex parte presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter’s written comments, memoranda or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum.