{"id":4893,"date":"2011-01-21T17:58:02","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T22:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/?p=4893"},"modified":"2022-12-30T15:52:34","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T20:52:34","slug":"wireless-spends-big-bucks-lobbying-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wireless-spends-big-bucks-lobbying-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Wireless Spends Big Bucks Lobbying Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2018\/5\/31\/1768495\/-Home-Depot-Co-Founder-Ken-Langone-Epitomizes-the-1-Smugly-Disregards-Income-Inequality\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-106856\" title=\"Wireless Spends Big Bucks Lobbying Congress\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/big_business-4.jpg?resize=73%2C110&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Wireless Spends Big Bucks Lobbying Congress\" width=\"73\" height=\"110\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/big_business-4.jpg?resize=99%2C150&amp;ssl=1 99w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/big_business-4.jpg?resize=49%2C75&amp;ssl=1 49w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/big_business-4.jpg?w=211&amp;ssl=1 211w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 73px) 100vw, 73px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctia.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CTIA, the Wireless Association<\/a>, <strong>CTIA<\/strong> is the wireless industry\u2019s largest trade group spent <strong>$2.4 million<\/strong> in the third quarter of 2010 to <strong>lobby federal officials<\/strong>. <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bloomberg<\/a><\/em> cites a quarterly disclosure report filed with the U.S House of Representatives.\u00a0 This marks a new high in CTIA lobbying spending. CTIA spent <strong>$2 million<\/strong> spent in the second quarter and <strong>$1.3 million<\/strong> that it spent on lobbying in the third quarter of last year, reports <em>Bloomberg<\/em>. <em>Bloomberg<\/em> says the trade association lobbied Washington on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>M<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctia.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-106859 size-thumbnail\" title=\"CTIA, the Wireless Association\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/ctia_logo.jpg?resize=75%2C36&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"CTIA, the Wireless Association\" width=\"75\" height=\"36\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/ctia_logo.jpg?resize=75%2C36&amp;ssl=1 75w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/ctia_logo.jpg?w=99&amp;ssl=1 99w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 75px) 100vw, 75px\" \/><\/a>ore radio spectrum for wireless Internet services.<\/li>\n<li>The FCC&#8217;s recently adopted &#8220;<strong>network neutrality<\/strong>&#8221; rules, which prohibit broadband providers from interfering with Internet traffic traveling over their systems.<\/li>\n<li>The FCC&#8217;s legal framework for regulating broadband.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Bill shock&#8221; rules, which would require wireless companies to alert subscribers before they run out of minutes, hit data usage or text messaging caps, or start racking up international roaming charges.<\/li>\n<li>The CTIA which represents wireless carriers, like <strong>AT&amp;T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile<\/strong>, says it now generates annual revenues of $155.8 billion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><em>rb-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Not only is the wireless industry lobbying group, CTIA spending millions every year to <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">buy<\/span> influence legislation, but the wireless companies are also the leaders in lobbying spending. I wrote about AT&amp;T and <a title=\"Verizon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.verizon.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Verizon<\/a> (<a title=\"NASDAQ : VZ\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tradingview.com\/symbols\/NYSE-VZ\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">VZ<\/a>)<\/em><em> both spending over $3 million on lobbying in 2010 <a title=\"rbach.net\" href=\"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2wgaW-1dS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>. I wrote about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.att.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AT&amp;T&#8217;s<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tradingview.com\/symbols\/NYSE-T\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">T<\/a>)<\/em><em> long tradition of spreading its money around to <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">buy<\/span> influence legislation <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2wgaW-ZG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>. The rational business use of this money says that these firms are getting more benefit by lobbying lawmakers than investing it in their networks, paying a dividend, or putting the money in the bank, but are the best decisions for the rest of us?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Who do you think the politicians are really looking out for?<\/strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><a title=\"Ralph Bach\" href=\"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/new-resume\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ralph Bach<\/a>\u00a0has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his\u00a0<a title=\"Bach Seat\" href=\"https:\/\/rbach.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bach Seat<\/a> about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on <a class=\"broken_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rb48334\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">LinkedIn<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ralph.bach.14\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rbach48334\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a>. Email the Bach Seat\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:\/\/bach.seat@gmail.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CTIA the Wireless Association trade group spent $2.4 million in the third quarter of 2010 lobbying federal officials on topics like network neutrality<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[3045,109,306,1864,275,45,641,89,734],"class_list":["post-4893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-3045","tag-att","tag-ctia","tag-government","tag-lobbying","tag-politics","tag-t","tag-verizon","tag-vz"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4893"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124036,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4893\/revisions\/124036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}