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Businesses Communications The Almighty Buck Wireless Networking Politics Technology

Wireless and Drone Execs Praised President Trump as He Pledged To Cut Down Regulations (recode.net) 94

U.S. President Donald Trump offered support for emerging technologies including unmanned aerial vehicles and next-generation wireless networks in a meeting on Thursday with the chiefs of AT&T and General Electric and other business leaders. From a report: For the likes of AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, the public audience with Trump offered an opportunity to continue nudging the U.S. government -- including in a scheduled, private session with the leader of the Federal Communications Commission earlier Thursday -- to cut back on restrictions that make it difficult for AT&T and other telecom giants to grow their footprint and deploy the new technologies, such as 5G wireless. Speaking with Recode later Thursday, Marcelo Claure, the chief executive of Sprint, said that he and others in his industry had emphasized to Trump that the government must help them deploy new tools like small cells -- essentially, mini cell towers that improve wireless connectivity. Trump, for his part, promised Thursday to cut down on "too many years of excessive government regulation" to enable innovators and investments to offer new cutting-edge tools in health care, science, medicine and communication. "We have had regulation that's been so bad, so out of line that it's really hurt our country," he said.
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Wireless and Drone Execs Praised President Trump as He Pledged To Cut Down Regulations

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  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Thursday June 22, 2017 @06:26PM (#54671603)

    Will the execs do hard time when a drone takes down a plane

    • /. has a history of long comment threads complaining about drone regulation.
    • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      It's already illegal to smash a drone into a plane. I don't think deregulation will make it legal.

    • by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Thursday June 22, 2017 @06:54PM (#54671723)

      Will the execs do hard time when a drone takes down a plane

      Will the executives at companies which manufacturer weather balloons do hard time if someone mis-uses one of those, and it gets sucked into an engine causing a crash? You sure hope so, right? And of course you're definitely in favor of the executives at Ford, GM, BMW and others going to jail when a terrorist uses a car to mow down some people on a sidewalk, a drunk driver kills somebody. Because no manufacturer should escape prison if people criminally or negligently mis-use their products. And people who write software should definitely do time if a criminal uses their software to do something illegal, for sure.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        At the same time, let's not pretend cars and similar vehicles aren't heavily regulated, from federal regulations on fuel efficiency and safety features to state inspections. DOT has a huge influence, and the government most definitely has gone after execs and companies, such as recalls and other legal issues, ask GM and VW. Regulation even goes further into licensing, registration/tags, many major roads, insurance coverage, etc.

        Weather balloons, similarly, are supposed to be regulated wrt air traffic, lik

        • But does your car have a GPS-powered, built-in feature that prevents you from driving it on sidewalks? Or from twitching your hand to the left on an undivided road and ramming at 55+mph into a passenger van full of kids? Nope. You are responsible for not using your car to kill people. The people who run the manufacturer aren't, and shouldn't be, responsible for reckless or malicious use of their products.
      • by guises ( 2423402 ) on Friday June 23, 2017 @12:55AM (#54673459)
        This is a misrepresentation of what the story and parent are saying. The question is: when people profit by lobbying to reduce safety regulations, should they be held liable when someone dies in an accident which those regulations existed to prevent?

        The fact that these people manufacture the product is only relevant insofar as they profit from the removal of these regulations.
        • This is a misrepresentation of what the story and parent are saying.

          You are (deliberately) grossly dumbing-down the issue. Let's say I'm a car manufacturer and I lobby to reduce regulations on where we can source the fibers for the carpets I use in my products, or think that the government specifying the resolution on the back-up cameras I use isn't the right way for me to choose the technology I want to sell. So here I am lobbying for less regulation ... does that mean I should be in jail when someone driving one of my cars uses it as a weapon to hurt people? Or when some

          • by guises ( 2423402 )
            The issue at hand is: you misrepresented what the story and parent were saying. I don't think that's dumbing it down, that's the entire issue.

            You're taking an action, arguing for reducing limitations on using unsafe carpet fibers, and associating it with an unrelated other action, deliberately killing someone with a car. And then saying, "Look! These two things are unrelated!"

            But this is not the point that the parent was making. The parent was making the point that if current regulations, regulations
            • The parent was making the point that if current regulations, regulations which exist to ensure that drones are visible to pilots,

              There are no regulations that exist to ensure that drones are visible to pilots.

              • by guises ( 2423402 )
                ... Did you read the article? You should read the article.
                • ... Did you read the article? You should read the article.

                  I don't need to read the article, I know the regulations. No such regulations exist.

                  • by guises ( 2423402 )
                    You're claiming that the article is just outright lying? Without even bothering to read it? That seems awfully negligent. But, whatever. This story is more than a day old now, so no one is ever going to read this.
                    • You're claiming that the article is just outright lying?

                      If you read what I write and not try to make it up on your own, you'll save everyone a lot of time. I responded to the specific statement:

                      regulations which exist to ensure that drones are visible to pilots,

                      There are no such "regulations which exist". Nothing ensures anything about the visibility of a drone to "pilots." The only regulation is that the person flying the drone or the observer must have VLOS on what they are flying. Nothing in the regulations says anything about making that drone more visible

                    • by guises ( 2423402 )
                      I don't know what you're going on about now. I talked about what the parent and the article were saying, specifically that there are some regulations which exist to ensure that drones are visible to pilots. You come along and say that those regulations don't exist. Ergo: the article which claimed that they exist, which you didn't bother to read, is lying.

                      You do understand that these two statements are not equivalent, right?

                      Nothing ensures anything about the visibility of a drone to "pilots."

                      Nothing in the regulations says anything about making that drone more visible to them, or visible at all to other pilots.

                      Maybe you don't. I don't care.

                    • I talked about what the parent and the article were saying, specifically that there are some regulations which exist to ensure that drones are visible to pilots.

                      There are no such regulations.

                      You come along and say that those regulations don't exist.

                      They don't. Can you provide a reference to one?

                      Ergo: the article which claimed that they exist, which you didn't bother to read, is lying.

                      No, you are lying. I don't care what the article said.

                      You do understand that these two statements are not equivalent, right?

                      It doesn't matter if those two statements, which I made, are equivalent. What matters is if there are regulations that "exist to ensure that drones are visible to pilots". There are not.

                      I don't care.

                      You don't care that you are wrong. I got it.

    • The regulations POTUS has been aiming at are regulations that hamper manufacturing, raise the cost of doing business in the US and thereby indirectly inhibiting the creation of new jobs. Compliance w/ regulations costs money, and companies are forced to set aside that cash, thereby hiring fewer people than what they could have hired.

      It has nothing to do w/ laxing things like traffic rules, ATC regs and other laws that are meant for society to function more smoothly

  • by Anonymous Coward

    that was put in the hospital for several days due to a drone. It is sad to see Trump not want more restrictions on them. They are dangerous.

  • Slimebags (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday June 22, 2017 @07:03PM (#54671769) Journal

    Whenever I talk to a Republican who gets all frothy about regulations, I ask for specific examples. The fairly rare times I actually get specific answers, it quite often turns out the regulation is on the books because some slimebag company abused their freedom.

    They are typically related to pollution, safety, misleading consumers, and/or anti-competitive behavior to keep smaller competitors out of the market. There are indeed some bad regulations (or in need of tuning), but most are there for a legitimate reason. They were NOT invented out of the blue by some power-hungry hippie socialist.

    And some of the regulations were actually lobbied into place by big co's who want to keep smaller players out of the market. This is especially common on the state and local level. Look at Tesla's trouble in selling cars because some states require licensed physical dealerships. The Big 3 car co's got those in place to keep out custom and foreign car co's.

    • by w3woody ( 44457 )

      Republican here, though my answer to you will be more thought out than your typical response.

      First, it's important to separate between regulations and regulatory burdens. The former is something you have to comply with. The later is your cost to assure compliance.

      A simple example of this is taxes. The former is the fact that you have to pay taxes. The later is you sweating over your tax returns every year, making sure you fill in all the right forms or talk to the right tax professional, and hoping you got

    • Ok, let me give you my story, then. I run my own small business, and I did some work with a public agency out in New Jersey for a few days, for which I was to be paid X dollars.

      So I invoice the people I did the work for. They write back and say that regulations say the following (which I quote, so you can't claim I'm misrepresenting it):

      "Businesses planning to contract with any public agency in New Jersey, including state agencies, local governments, colleges/universities and local school boards as well as

  • According to this overview of unmanned aircraft law [ncsl.org], drone use is largely being regulated by the states. Aside from the FAA's widely anticipated and vetted operational rules [faa.gov], there really isn't much more that can be done at the Federal level. The FAA can add restrictions to operators. It cannot prevent states from putting on additional reasonable restrictions, which many have.

    So I'm not exactly sure what Trump imagines he is going to do to "help" these companies.

    But I'm sure he will. After all, it's not l

  • by Anonymous Coward

    For corporate filth, the ideal world is a world where THEY are the governement, i.e. fascism.

  • Literally something like 10 linear feet of regulations. It makes doing business as a telecom almost impossible.

    But... guess who wrote all that regulation? AT&T.

    Because absurd regulation is a way that deep-pocketed incumbents make sure they never get any competition.

    If they legitimately want the regulation gone, it means they don't feel threatened by any startups, right now. Though actually, I think they're just lying. They pay lip service to wanting it gone, but if things start to move in that direc

  • If AT&T objects to it, then you know it's good for consumers.
  • The president wants to deregulate Wall Street, deregulate coal, and deregulate every corporate activity in America. So now he wants to deregulate drones and we're supposed to be surprised?

  • for their customers.

    the want regulations cut down so they can raise prices and establish de facto monopolies.

    it's all about rent-seeking.

    as for that dickhead Trump, when are the people who voted for him going to admit that maybe the billionaires he put in charge really don't have your best interests in mind ?

  • by Jim Sadler ( 3430529 ) on Friday June 23, 2017 @10:03AM (#54675581)
    Trump can not stop lying. If he says he will deregulate anything there is zero reason to believe him.
  • Well color me shocked, the billionaire boys club is cheering that no one will be limiting their waste disposal, compliance with truth in advertising or product safety
    In other news, water is wet.

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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