{"id":77345,"date":"2019-03-31T17:19:24","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T00:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=77345"},"modified":"2019-03-31T17:21:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T00:21:12","slug":"fcc-chairman-proposes-eliminating-rule-that-drives-update-phone-rates-for-rural-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=77345","title":{"rendered":"FCC Chairman Proposes Eliminating Rule that Drives Up Phone Rates for Rural Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;2019\u2014Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the Commission will vote at its April meeting on eliminating a policy known as the \u201crate floor,\u201d which is forcing many rural customers to pay higher telephone rates.  Under Chairman Pai\u2019s leadership, the Commission froze the rate floor in 2017.  Now, the Chairman is asking his colleagues to eliminate it once and for all.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/FCC-logo-FBD5953CD9-seeklogo.com_.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-46624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/FCC-logo-FBD5953CD9-seeklogo.com_.png 300w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/FCC-logo-FBD5953CD9-seeklogo.com_-150x107.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe FCC\u2019s rate floor is a counterproductive regulation that hurts rural Americans,\u201d said Chairman Pai.  \u201cFor example, unless the Commission takes action, many rural consumers will be forced to pay almost 50% more out of their pockets starting this July.  That\u2019s why we\u2019ve heard from the AARP, the National Consumer Law Center, the National Tribal Telecommunications Association, and others that the rule makes service in rural areas less affordable.  I\u2019ve spoken for years against the rate floor and am pleased that the Commission will be voting in April on eliminating it.  I hope my colleagues will join me in taking this step to provide needed relief to older Americans on fixed incomes, low-income Americans, and many others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;2019\u2014Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the Commission will vote at its April meeting on eliminating a policy known as the \u201crate floor,\u201d which is forcing many rural customers to pay higher telephone rates. Under Chairman Pai\u2019s leadership, the Commission froze the rate floor in 2017. Now, the Chairman is asking his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","category-tech","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/FCC-logo-FBD5953CD9-seeklogo.com_.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}