AT&T Whines That FCC Report Highlights Broadband Coverage Gaps Company Helped Create
from the u-mad-bro? dept
The FCC's recent broadband progress report (pdf) highlighted the telecom industry's continued failure with not only getting any broadband to rural areas, but with getting next-generation speeds to existing broadband customers. The FCC has noted that 34 million Americans still lack access to fixed broadband at the FCC’s benchmark speed of 25 Mbps for downloads, 3 Mbps for uploads. The agency also notes that two-thirds of homes lack access to more than one provider capable of delivering these speeds. If you recall, the FCC bumped its definition of broadband to 25 Mbps from a measly 4 Mbps about a year ago.Outraged that the FCC would mysteriously have standards and release data highlighting the industry's failure to meet them, AT&T's top lobbyist Jim Cicconi penned a characteristically snotty blog post insisting the FCC's use of hard data was a mad power grab:
"It’s bad enough the FCC keeps moving the goal posts on their definition of broadband, apparently so they can continue to justify intervening in obviously competitive markets. But now they are even ignoring their own definition in order to pad their list of accomplishments. "We’ve seen this movie before. In order to apply its net neutrality rules to as many services as possible, the FCC considers very low speeds to be broadband then cites a much higher speed level in order to claim broadband is not being reasonably and timely deployed under Section 706. “It’s beginning to look like the FCC will define broadband whichever way maximizes its power under whichever section of the law they want to apply. This cannot be what Congress intended.”Sure, that's because what "Congress intended" is to soak up AT&T's campaign contributions and do absolutely nothing about the nation's broadband connectivity gaps (I'd agree the national broadband plan was a failure, primarily because it was a politically-safe show pony big ISPs like AT&T generally approved of at the time). US Telecom, the telco lobbying group with AT&T as its biggest donor, also issued a missive in which it pretended to be shocked at the idea that U.S. broadband continues to have problems:
"It would seem that the FCC’s report should carry the headline ‘our policies have failed’ since it concludes that six years after adoption of the national broadband plan, the commission’s actions haven’t produced even so much as a ‘reasonable’ level of broadband deployment. But, of course, with more than $75 billion a year being invested by broadband providers, network capacity burgeoning, and speeds increasing exponentially – as the commission's latest fact-based broadband measurement report shows – no one actually believes that deployment in the United States is unreasonable."Well, one, wasn't net neutrality supposed to have destroyed all broadband network investment? Two, I'm not sure you get to lobby tirelessly to ensure government dysfunction, then say "we told you so" when the government is dysfunctional (even though that is sort of a national pastime). The core issue is this: AT&T's mad because in dozens upon dozens of markets, the company's aging infrastructure isn't capable of meeting the 25 Mbps threshold, meaning that AT&T isn't technically even capable of delivering broadband. It's often not even capable of meeting the lower 10 Mbps definition the FCC now uses to determine subsidy recipients. It's not clear what we're to call AT&T's sub-6 Mbps, heavily capped (150 GB) DSL service, but it can no longer be called broadband.
Despite billions in subsidies given to AT&T over the years, many of these markets were never upgraded. Most of these are customers AT&T no longer wants, so it's going state by state gutting regulations and consumer protections, in the hopes it can disconnect them and shove them toward more expensive, even-more-heavily capped wireless service. AT&T calls its plan to hang up on these customers the "IP transition," and while AT&T insists it will result in revolutionary new connectivity options for all Americans, all it's really going to do is give the cable industry a monopoly over fixed-line broadband for much of the next decade.
While it's understandable that for-profit companies aren't keen on throwing money at low ROI areas of rural America, here's the important thing: AT&T has spent fifteen years lobbying for protectionist state laws in more than twenty states preventing towns and cities from voting to improve their own telecom infrastructure. In some instances, AT&T's laws even prohibit towns and cities from striking public/private partnerships with outside companies. So yeah, AT&T's quite literally buying and writing state laws ensuring that broadband coverage gaps continue, then whining when data highlights the end result.
AT&T might want to consider itself lucky. The FCC's studies primarily use data provided by ISPs that the agency takes at face value (read: it's rarely verified by third parties). This coverage data is usually artificially padded to make coverage look more impressive than it actually is, which is why ISPs so frequently claim they service the house you just bought when they don't. The FCC also collects pricing data from ISPs but refuses to share it as part of these reports. Were the FCC to seriously audit ISP claims and release data showing the lack of price competition, the numbers would look even worse, giving AT&T significantly more to whine about.
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Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, jim cicconi
Companies: at&t
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'Competition' means more than one viable choice
Yeah, about those 'obviously competitive markets'...
The FCC has noted that 34 million Americans still lack access to fixed broadband at the FCC’s benchmark speed of 25 Mbps for downloads, 3 Mbps for uploads. The agency also notes that two-thirds of homes lack access to more than one provider capable of delivering these speeds. If you recall, the FCC bumped its definition of broadband to 25 Mbps from a measly 4 Mbps about a year ago.
When two-thirds of the population in a country lack any real choice if they want something sorta kinda resembling broadband, the idea that there's a super competitive market in place is laughable, unless by 'competitive' they simply mean the competitions between the major cable/broadband providers to see who can screw over the public more.
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Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
As for the competitive marketplace, the FCC changed the definition of high speed, to a level that specifically eliminated much of what was out there. As a result, at that new higher level, there is less competition because nobody was shooting that high. So if you have a marketplace with one DSL provider at 10-15meg a second and 1 cable company at 25 meg, you have "no competition".
Is that a truly honest play?
I think AT&T actually has a pretty valid gripe here. The FCC needs to define the terms ONCE, and apply them in all cases. It needs to stop moving the goalposts when it wants to suck up more funding and keep itself relevant.
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Re: Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
and then never update them as technology improves?
It used to be that the definition of a supercomputer was 1 gigaflops of processing power. Today I've got a few hundred of those on my laptop, but nobody's calling it a supercomputer.
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Re: Re: Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
FCC doesn't move foward. They move back and forth and select speeds that allow them to write reports and make policy based on whatever suits them today.
If they want to change the definition, change it - and use that globally on all of their work. Don't make broadbad 5/1 today, 25/3 tomorrow, and 1/1 the next day just because it makes your point.
It's not about make it once and never change it to a higher level, just don't change it every time you make a report to try to make political points.
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Can you show us some [preferably all] of these changes? ;]
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Re: Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
In addition, that means that the Federally-granted funds have been grossly misspent, given that the fund was supposed to only be open until 2012 - four years ago. So, aT&T have failed to uphold their end fo the deal. Moreover, those DSL lines? They're actively being killed through maintenance loss and an apathy twoards those people, in order to extort more money for 'fiber' offerings, which is against the law (surrounding access to 911 in emergencies).
So no, sorry, AT&T might have had a valid gripe...if Verizon hadn't also tried to screw the pooch.
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Re: Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
Raising the definition of broadband from a pathetic 4 Mbps is dishonesty? I think it makes perfect sense, and it's not the FCC's fault that AT&T refuses to upgrade technology operating on roughly half of the company's network after receiving billions in subsidies to build and maintain it.
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Re: Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
No competition is a result of 25 meg being ambition for copper upgrading since you need to recable on last mile in most circumstances (new copper is plenty able to quadruple the speed). The telcos have found a way to cheat the system by using wireless nodes and promote that as broadband to save money, but technically the claimed speed there is often even more ridiculous overstated because of concurrency.
While FCC has slowly started to take up the role of enforcing better practices for the telcos, they are not going off the deep end here.
Of course they are pushing the market politically, but as you can see, the political counterpush is very noticeable! As with NSA needing some civil counter-push, so does all other lobsided lobbying!
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Re: Re: Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
yes, but that means setting the standard, and using it universally on all reports and all statements, not moving it up and down because you want to make things look better on one report, and worse on another.
I am not saying "never change it", just set a definition and apply it equally (set it once). If you are going to change the definition, then change it once for ALL reports and information, and apply it equally until the next time you raise the bar.
THe FCC's bar on broadband goes up and down like a hooker on an army base.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
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Re: Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
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Re: 'Competition' means more than one viable choice
Those things are NOT alike and do NOT compete with each other (well maybe Spring and TMobile compete between themselves along with AT&T for wireless...but). They are only choices in that there are no other choices.
Multiple cable broadband and/or fiber offerings along with multiple DSL offerings would be competition. Oh, and to every home, apartment, business, and outhouse in a zip code in order for that zip code to be counted. The wireless is not competition to wired even if some of the same functions take place. For one thing, we own the airwaves and lease them to those companies, we do NOT own the wires, even if we lease space via eminent domain to the utilities that run on some land we own. For another, the speeds, costs, and reliability are not the same, coverage is not the same, pricing is not the same, and wireless has its own competition problems.
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Are you kidding? That's literally been the core strategy for corporatists everywhere since the 1970s!
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The only competition here is in the horse manure market.
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Re: obviously google...
See, that one little town over there has 3, THREE, COUNT THEM THREE, options (Google, AT&T, and Craptastic) and there is competition (as AT&T and Craptastic had to lower their prices to compete with Google)...
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"obviously competitive markets"
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Slow speed capped service
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Moving 'goalposts'
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Ceturylink offers me 12-100Mbps packages. They call every single package high speed internet at X Mbps.
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Sure speeds are increasing 'exponentially'... for a handful of profitable areas, and primarily because the previous speeds were so pathetic that speeds seen as 'standard' in other similarly developed countries is seen as a huge boost in the local areas.
If you're not in one of those profitable areas however the only way your speed is going to increase is if a company like Google looks like it might move in, forcing the incumbents to actually compete on service, or if the locals manage to bypass the bought and paid for anti-competition laws and do it themselves.
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Well, I can remember when I had a 300bps modem connection to the Internet in 1990. 300x300 is 87Kbps, which kind of skips over the 2400 baud modem I had, the 14.4kbps modem I had and the 57.6kbps modem I had. But it's close to what I had on my partial T1 line circa 1998. So that's one exponent in 8 years. Let's assume it increases exponentially every ten years. That would mean that by 2010, we should have all had 26Mbps connections (up and down).
My current connection is 15Mbps. Using their hyperbole, the standard should be 7.5Gbps connections nationwide by 2020. Is that REALLY going to happen?
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this would be nothing short of what it SHOULD DO!!
then add in the level of corruption that exists in members of Congress who are more concerned with ensuring their own personal 'experiences' are good to go than sorting out what they should for the people they represent, ie, the voters!!
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Just like the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, keeps moving the goal posts on vehicle regulations. I mean, TECHNICALLY a Ford Model T *IS* an automobile, but would you, could you use it for everyday commute to work?
"apparently so they can continue to justify intervening in obviously competitive markets"
bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah .....
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
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South Korea 20.5 96% 68% 45%
Sweden 17.4 92% 55% 38%
Norway 16.4 88% 54% 37%
Switzerland 16.2 93% 61% 36%
Hong Kong 15.8 92% 59% 36%
Netherlands 15.6 95% 60% 34%
Japan 15.0 90% 54% 32%
Finland 14.8 91% 51% 28%
Czech Republic 14.5 86% 46% 27%
Denmark 14.0 94% 51% 29%
Romania 13.1 94% 57% 27%
United Kingdom 13.0 87% 46% 28%
Belgium 12.8 91% 52% 26%
United States 12.6 80% 46% 24%
Singapore 12.5 87% 51% 27%
Ireland 12.4 76% 41% 23%
Canada 11.9 87% 43% 21%
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