FCC Chairman Ajit Pai gets very cozy with a major telecom lobbyist

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is ostensibly the chief regulator of the telecoms industry. But the way he was chatting with the president of a prominent lobbying group, you could be forgiven for not knowing that. 

At Mobile World Congress in L.A. on Tuesday, Pai joined the president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), Meredith Atwell Baker, on stage for a keynote discussion about 5G deployment, the digital divide, the sale of broadband spectrum, and more. 

The discussion went from awkward to eerie as Baker — again, the head of a mobile industry lobbying firm — continuously flattered and joked with Pai, and the two ping-ponged complimentary talking points off of each other. Read more...