Government Report Declares Broadband An Essential, Uncompetitive Utility, Wistfully Ponders If Perhaps We Should Do Something About It
from the bureaucratic-prattle dept
For years players in the telecom sector have bickered over whether or not to call broadband an essential utility (water, electricity), or keep on acting as if it's simply a luxury. A semantic battle for sure, though ISPs have traditionally fought the former classification because it generally means regulators actually doing their jobs, like checking to make sure that ISP broadband usage meters are accurate (helpful tip: they often aren't and regulators couldn't care less). Also if you declare broadband a necessary utility, that means somebody has to do something about the fact that the lion's share of the country remains on sluggish, last-generation speeds thanks to limited to no real competition.In an otherwise rather droll report this week, the United States government stopped beating around the bush and formally declared broadband an essential utility. The full report by the government's new "broadband opportunity council" (pdf) is the latest hang-wringing, bureaucratic effort to study the broadband sector to death, despite the fact that even the nation's sixth graders likely know the core problem with the broadband industry is duopoly power and regulatory capture. The report, after consulting "248 diverse stakeholders" ranging from telecom companies to consumer advocacy groups, shockingly concludes that the government hasn't been acting in accordance with this new reality:
"Broadband has steadily shifted from an optional amenity to a core utility for households, businesses and community institutions. Today, broadband is taking its place alongside water, sewer and electricity as essential infrastructure for communities. However, not all Federal programs fully reflect the changing social, economic and technological conditions that redefined the need for and benefits of broadband. In some cases, programs that can support broadband deployment and adoption lack specific guidelines to promote its use. Other programs have not integrated funding for broadband commensurate with its importance and role in program execution and mission.Gosh, are we daring to suggest that blindly throwing subsidies at AT&T and Verizon, ignoring how that money gets spent, and then turning a blind eye to the lack of last-mile competition hasn't really been working? While previous, pricey government brainstorming sessions comically turned a blind eye to the lack of competition (our bland, politically-timid 2010 National Broadband Plan jumps immediately to mind), this latest report by the freshly-forged council at least acknowledges the reality on the ground:
"Today, nearly 40 percent of American households either do not have the option of purchasing a wired 10 Mbps connection or they must buy it from a single provider. Three out of four Americans do not have a choice of providers for broadband at 25 Mbps, the speed increasingly recognized as a baseline for broadband access. Lowering barriers to deployment and fostering market competition can drive down price, increase speeds, and improve service and adoption rates across all markets.The report proceeds to give a number of no brainer recommendations, like paying attention to where taxpayer subsidies go (ingenious!), removing ISP-written state laws preventing communities from improving local broadband when nobody else will (insightful!), and actually basing policy on real-world evidence instead of simply playing partisan patty cake (pioneering!). Of course these are all things that should have been obvious for the last fifteen years; government was just too terrified of upsetting deep-pocketed campaign contributors (and NSA partners) like AT&T and Comcast to actually make meaningful progress.
Hopefully in another five years we can look forward to a new report that realizes that if you want better broadband, perhaps you shouldn't let the nation's duopoly providers write all of our telecom laws, all-but own state legislatures and Congress, and effectively act as institutionally-bone-grafted government intelligence analysts?
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Filed Under: broadband, competition, government
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The wheels on the bus
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Broadband coverage...Ha
The best offered to me is 1 DSL provider with 3MB (Centurylink), 2 DSL providers between 512k to 2 MB (local company's who most likely lease lines from Century I imagin), and 0 cable internet providers. Our county cable operator is Comcast and they refuse to wire my area which is about 8 miles outside of town, where they offer 50-100mb.
US Broadband is a joke.
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Re: Broadband coverage...Ha
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how our government handles essential utilities
>>For years players in the telecom sector have bickered
>>over whether or not to call broadband an essential
>>utility (water, electricity),
...
>>thanks to limited to no real competition.
I would not say that there is actual competition in the ISP market where I live. There is a duopoly, and I can choose cable from A or DSL from B.
HOWEVER...I have absolutely no choice for electricity or water. If our government decides to handle broadband as an essential utility, I certainly hope that they will not take us from a duopoly to a monopoly, as we face with electricity and water.
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Re: how our government handles essential utilities
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how the hell can it not be essential? just because most of Congress cant use the machines, doesn't mean they're not essential! just that they need to be taught. but, sorry, they're need needed enough!!
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Re:
Politicians much prefer working face to face, as it does not leave any records behind, giving
plausible deniability about what was discussed or decided.
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Almost no individual ever needs more than 10mbps. Some residences with more than a few people living there might need more than 25mbps on occasion, but the high speed being foisted on customers (along with high prices) are largely unnecessary. They just represent the same old networks updated with current technology (which is actually pretty cheap now).
So, forget the speed--it's not an issue. Price is the only issue, and service these days is priced solely for ISPs to gouge their customers... because they can.
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This Part Is Not Exactly True:
Not really. MOST of the country remains sluggish because they are an economically unattractive target for incumbent or new ISPs. That is the underlying reasons why there is no competition for their business.
Now, where the population is dense, speeds are also sluggish because of a lack of competition, which in that case is because of protectionist, anti-competitive business processes and regulations.
The story of US broadband is really two very different stories: one rural and the other urban.
Similarly, while Starbucks is on every corner in towns, there are no adequate choices for coffee in Chloride City, California
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chloride+City,+CA+92328
...but I think we should chalk the cause up to lack of population density and addressable market, not the resulting lack of competition.
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Re: This Part Is Not Exactly True:
A little different than coffee. (Assuming Starbucks is an adequate choice for coffee in any corner of the universe.)
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Make the CO carrier neutral.
For there to be a "free" market, there must first BE a market. While telecom requires more infrastructure than a farmers market, the real estate is still effectively a community asset. The public is compelled by self interest to maintain it.
From the states perspective this is a matter of real estate and long term depreciable assets, not unlike bridges and tunnels. Sure there are unique technical features, but there are unique technical features to bridges and tunnels too.
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Meanwhile, just north of the 49th parallel ...
Enjoy.
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Essential, huh?
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