U.S. Prepares To Spend $42 Billion On A Broadband Problem It Can't Accurately Measure

from the hey,-good-luck-with-that dept

As we've noted, the recent infrastructure bill will deliver a record $65 billion to be spent on improving lagging U.S. broadband access. Roughly $42 billion will be used specifically to expand broadband coverage, mostly via state grants doled out by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). By any measure this is a good thing, and the investment should result in significant improvements in patchy, expensive U.S. broadband access.

The problem, as the Washington Post discusses this week, is the U.S. still can't seem to measure the scope of the problem it's trying to fix. U.S. broadband maps have been notoriously terrible for decades, and the FCC has deemed a census block "served" with broadband if an ISP claims that just one home in that census block can receive coverage. The result: an inaccurate and rosy picture of both broadband availability and competition, something that has long served entrenched telecom monopolies invested in maintaining that profitable status quo.

After decades of this, it only began to change in just the last few years, thanks to state lawmakers eager to grab their slice of the subsidy pie. That resulted in the Broadband Data Act, which directed the FCC to not only fix its flawed methodology, but funded the agency so it can do more to hold ISPs accountable for false coverage claims, and utilize a more extensive array of crowdsourced data in determining which areas do or don't have service.

The problem: most of those fixes are still several years away, and there are tens of billions of dollars that need to be spent now as part of a once in a lifetime opportunity to improve U.S. broadband. Not just the $42 billion from the infrastructure bill, but tens of billions more in subsidies that arrived as part of COVID relief and other efforts. As the Washington Post notes, it's hard to fix a problem you haven't measured, which has resulted in many states taking matters into their own hands:

"In the absence of new FCC data, many states have taken matters into their own hands. Tennessee, North Carolinaand others have started building their own maps as they tire of waiting for the federal government to produce its own, and as they develop strategies to deploy funds that became available for broadband deployment during the pandemic under the American Rescue Plan, a stimulus package passed in 2021."

But these state mapping efforts are hugely inconsistent. Maine, for example, has done a good job developing crowdsourced mapping data through the state's Connect Maine initiative. But for every state like Maine there are four states that have absolutely no idea what broadband reality looks like, in large part because their state legislatures and regulators are in the back pocket of regional monopolies like AT&T and Comcast.

Both companies have a long track record of fighting broadband mapping improvements (something the Post oddly doesn't mention). In part because a more accurate look at U.S. broadband competition and coverage gaps would only drive policy efforts to actually do something about it. But also because these companies have spent the better part of a generation hoovering up billions in broadband subsidies for networks they then notoriously only half deliver. More accurate broadband mapping would make it far easier to identify areas and states where billions of dollars have been wasted, and you certainly wouldn't want that.

There's one quote in the piece that stands out, and it's by Blair Levin, the architect of the Obama era broadband plan. I criticized that plan because like most U.S. government policies it failed to seriously tackle the real reasons U.S. broadband sucks: regional monopolization (lack of competition) and state and federal regulatory capture (corruption). As a result, it didn't truly shift the Overton window. Levin seems to think this massive investment means the U.S. will have zero broadband gaps in 3-5 years:

"Blair Levin, the director of the National Broadband Plan under the Obama administration, said he’s optimistic that in three to five years there will be almost no locations in the United States lacking an adequate broadband option. But he says it’s unlikely that an investment of this magnitude in high-speed Internet will ever be made again.

“This has been called a ‘once in a generation opportunity,’” Levin said. “I disagree with that. This is a once opportunity.”

Depending how generously you define "broadband" and "adequate" (does that mean expensive, capped, and throttled satellite and wireless? sluggish, expensive DSL from a company that refuses or upgrade or repair it?) it's certainly possible. But with nobody in DC (or the press for that matter) genuinely interested in tackling the real underlying cause of U.S. broadband dysfunction, there are just too many regions where powerful giants like AT&T are going to be able to inject themselves into the process, once again hoovering up money they don't deserve for networks they don't fully deliver. Probably without much penalty, if 30 years of U.S. history serves as a guide.

That's not to be too pessimistic about the transformative potential of this investment, mind you. Even if we miss on half of the effort it's still a record investment in U.S. middle mile and last mile broadband networks, and it's going to be a huge net positive for a long line of U.S. communities. But as somebody who has covered this sector for the better part of an adult life, I'll keep beating this drum until I see a genuine sea change: the real problem with U.S. broadband isn't money or technology. The real problem is the powerful regional monopolies that work tirelessly to hamper real competition, and the countless state and federal regulators and lawmakers who coddle and protect them. Refuse to fix that, and you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband mapping, competition, fcc, infrastructure

Fraternal Order Of Police Opposes Biden FCC Nom Because She....Supports Encryption

from the people-against-math dept

We'd already noted how telecom and media giants eager to keep their spoils from the Trump era have been waging a not so subtle smear campaign on Biden FCC Commissioner nomination Gigi Sohn, using loyal GOP lawmakers as marionettes. Sohn is broadly popular across both sides of the aisle, but she's also a fairly fierce advocate of functional regulatory oversight, transparency, and market competition. So companies like AT&T and News Corporation have been seeding a lot of gibberish in DC and in select press outlets about how she's a "radical" who wants to "censor conservatives" and hurt puppies.

Last week the Fraternal Order of Police joined the fray with a facts-optional missive opposing Sohn's nomination, claiming it creates "serious public safety considerations." Their problem? Sohn supports (gasp!) encryption:

"the FOP and many others in the law enforcement community at large are deeply troubled by the active and enthusiastic leadership role of Ms. Sohn as a board member for Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in their forceful advocacy of end-to-end encryption and “user-only-access”—often referred to in the law enforcement world as “going dark.” These new encryption methods for communications are causing Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies to rapidly lose the capability to obtain information necessary to protect the public from crime and violence."

As Techdirt has long noted, this position is baseless nonsense pushed by fans of hyper surveillance (and the illusion of safety that creates). Encryption is simply math. It's just another useful tool in a tool chest, used by anybody looking for heightened security and privacy in transactions. The fact this sometimes includes terrible people is not the fault of the encryption itself, yet the folks who engage in mindless opposition to the technology perpetually struggle to understand this. Worse, they fail to understand (or just don't care) that weakening encryption increases the risk of abuse, decreasing privacy and security for everyone.

Amusingly, FOP's positioning on this stuff isn't what you'd call consistent. Whereas the group claims that Sohn simply being on the board of an organization that supports end-to-end encryption (the EFF) is some kind of cardinal sin, the organization itself has fought tooth and nail against the decryption of police radios for transparency's sake. In other words, useful tools are only sacred when we use them. When others advocate for consistent and meaningful security and encryption integrity, they're unqualified for public office. Funny how that works.

That said, the encryption stuff is possibly just misdirection from the start.

Telecom lobbyists have a long, detailed history of cozying up to various interest groups and encouraging them to support certain positions, even if they have nothing really to do with the group's subject matter (or undermine their constituents' best interests). This sort of "astroturf" work often involves co-opting existing groups (from cattlemen's associations to civil rights groups), and encouraging them to support a company's position in exchange for a new event center or other perks. These sort of quid pro quo relationships are rarely put in writing, so it's easy for groups to deny there's any direct financial link. But the tactic itself is documentable, and is designed to create the illusion of broad support for bad policy (like say, scuttling the nomination of a largely popular regulatory appointment interested in reining in telecom and media giants).

That's not to say FOP couldn't have come up with its terrible argument without prodding (the organization has a long history of terrible arguments). But the fairly hollow letter does come at a time where AT&T and News Corporation are desperately trying to outsource opposition with an eye on delaying or derailing Sohn's nomination. The real goal is to keep the unpopular favors gleaned during the Trump era (the death of net neutrality, the erosion of the FCC's consumer protection authority, the dismantling of decades-old media consolidation rules with bipartisan support) and keep the agency mired in 2-2 partisan gridlock for as long as humanly possible. They can't just come out and admit that's the game, so they utilize a long line of ethically-malleable proxy organizations wielding flimsy pretexts and baseless arguments.

Again, Sohn can be confirmed by Democratic vote alone, but the longer the appointment is delayed, the less time the Biden FCC has to implement reform companies like AT&T and News Corporation won't like. And if this phony and farmed opposition gets loud enough to sway some centrist Democrats like Sinema and Manchin, all the better for media and telecom giants terrified of meaningful oversight and actual reform.

Filed Under: encryption, fcc, gigi sohn, police, police unions
Companies: eff, fraternal order of police

FCC Gets Its First Permanent Female FCC Boss Ever

from the that-took-a-while dept

The US Senate this week approved a new five-year term for Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, making her the first permanent FCC chair in agency history. Technically the first female chair was Mignon Clyburn, who temporarily served as interim chair before Tom Wheeler was appointed boss back in 2013. Rosenworcel's term was set to expire at the end of the year, raising some concerns that her re-nomination would stall, leaving the GOP with a 2-1 FCC majority at Biden's FCC.

While that scenario was avoided, Rosenworcel's appointment still leaves the agency gridlocked at 2-2 commissioners, and incapable of having a voting majority on any policy issue of substance. If you recall this was quite by design; the GOP rushed to appoint Trump ally Nathan Simington to the commission late last year in a quick appointment process that took less than 30 days. This was at the behest of the telecom and media sectors, which very much don't want the Biden FCC rolling back any of the Trump-era deregulatory favors, whether that's net neutrality or media consolidation rules.

To that end, telecom giants like AT&T, hand in hand with Rupert Murdoch, are now focused on blocking Biden's other FCC pick, Gigi Sohn, from being appointed to the FCC so Rosenworcel can't actually use her Democratic majority. That has involved pushing the false claim through trusted news outlets that Sohn wants to "censor conservatives," despite absolutely zero evidence that's actually true.

This being the post-truth era (especially in the GOP), that doesn't seem to matter. Saule Omarova, a Cornell Law School professor and Biden's pick for comptroller of the currency, backed out of her nomination this week because the banking industry was worried she might actually hold them lightly accountability for something. The banking industry in turn got the GOP to run a campaign accusing Omarova of being a "communist" because she was born in the Soviet Union:

"Some lobbyists, including the incoming chairman of a group representing community bankers and the chief executive of another group that focuses on big banks, also shared a Wall Street Journal editorial suggesting that Ms. Omarova’s Soviet childhood meant that she could not be trusted."

The U.S. press being generally feckless, countless outlets (especially access-obsessed beltway outlets like Politico) spilled ample ink over countless paragraphs stenographing false GOP claims, often without bothering to inform readership they weren't actually true.

Telecom giants like AT&T, hand in hand with Rupert Murdoch, are now attempting the same thing with Sohn because they're terrified of any regulator that might actually hold them accountable for anticompetitive behavior. Both telecom and media giants were spooked by the appointment of Lina Khan to the FTC, and Biden's 9 month delay in announcing his FCC picks gave them ample time to generate farmed opposition to Sohn. Sohn can still be appointed without GOP support, but not if telecom can pressure swing voters like Manchin and Sinema into balking at the pick.

That's a much steeper hill to climb, given Sinema, despite her tendency to throw wrenches in the cogs of Biden's Congressional agenda, has yet to oppose a major nomination. AT&T and Rupert Murdoch know this, but likely want to just delay Sohn's appointment, narrowing the window a Democratic FCC majority can implement any real reform. From the dismantling of FCC consumer protection oversight to the elimination of longstanding (and traditionally bipartisan) media consolidation rules, there were an endless parade of favors doled out to both companies during the Trump era they'd very much like to hold on to for as long as possible, if not permanently.

Filed Under: fcc, gigi sohn, jessica rosenworcel

GOP Claim That Biden FCC Nom Gigi Sohn Wants To 'Censor Conservatives' Is AT&T & Rupert Murdoch Backed Gibberish

from the fluff-and-nonsense dept

We'd already noted how telecom and media giants are hard at work trying to scuttle the nomination of consumer advocate Gigi Sohn to the FCC. Sohn is not only a genuine reformer, she's broadly popular on both sides of the aisle in telecom and media circles. So companies like AT&T and News Corporation, which enjoyed no limit of ass kissing during the Trump era, are working overtime to come up with some feeble talking points loyal politicians can use to oppose her nomination. It's not going well.

About the best they could come up with was the entirely false claim that Sohn wants to "censor Conservatives." Anybody who actually knows Sohn knows the claim isn't true, and she's historically gone well out of her way to embrace policies that encourage diversity in media and speech, even when she doesn't agree with the speaker. Despite being a nonsense claim, it has been broadly peppered across the right wing echo chamber, including the usual columns at Breitbart, editorials by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, Tucker Carlson, and elsewhere.

The claim popped up again at last week's nomination hearing before a Senate Judiciary Committee courtesy of Senators Ted Cruz and Dan Sullivan:

"Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn faced off against Republican senators at a nomination hearing yesterday, disputing the senators' shaky claims that she would use a post at the FCC to censor conservatives. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) repeated arguments previously made by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and The Wall Street Journal editorial board, which mostly boil down to complaints about Sohn's tweets criticizing Fox News and her criticism of Sinclair Broadcast Group."

As we've long noted, the claims that Conservatives are being "censored" in general (either on the internet or on traditional television) aren't remotely true. In fact Conservatives have not only built a massive right wing infotainment universe with a violent disdain for factual reality (OAN, NewsMax, Fox News, Breitbart, Facebook, YouTube, Blaze), they've mastered the art of trolling for outrage engagement, which generally involves saying inflammatory gibberish, then enjoying the added exposure from left-wing outrage retweets and ad-engagement obsessed clickbait coverage. Pretty much the exact opposite of "censorship."

What's usually deemed "censorship" is usually just fairly flimsy and short-lived accountability for spewing false or bigoted nonsense. And while the Trump GOP pretends to be mad at "big tech" for "censorship," what they're actually mad about is the fact that social media belatedly and inconsistently started reining in GOP race-baiting propaganda, a cornerstone of party power in the face of an unfavorable shift in demographics and a sagging electorate. The GOP has zero interest in genuine antitrust reform (see: forty straight years of U.S. history), but the pretense that they do provides handy cover for an agenda that's exclusively self-serving.

The new Trump GOP is currently a party of performative gibberish, entirely untethered from reality, propped up largely thanks to propaganda shoveled into the brains of low-information voters, tricked into rooting against their best self interests via a massive, well-funded coalition of traditional cable and online companies (again, quite the opposite of "censorship"). And outside of perhaps reining in media consolidation and encouraging more competition, there's not a whole lot the FCC can do about it from a policy perspective, given inevitable 1A challenges and a rightward-lurching Supreme Court. Even if Sohn wanted to "censor Conservatives" (which again, she doesn't) she'd find it an impossible task within the confines of the FCC and legal reality.

The great irony in the GOP/News Corp/AT&T alliance's effort to smear Sohn as somebody looking to "censor Conservatives?" Right wing news outlets like Newsmax and AT&T-funded OAN actually support her nomination because she's historically worked to encourage diversity in media viewpoints and healthy competition in media markets. Sohn highlighted as much at the hearing:

"I would say, look at my record. Look at the conservative cable channels that I worked with for years to get them carriage on cable systems when those systems would not carry them. I have long worked with organizations and companies with whom I vigorously disagree on their point of view—fervent Republicans, fervent supporters of the previous president—and I worked with them to get their views online. I believe that I have been characterized very unfairly as being anti-conservative speech. I think my record says otherwise."

It's kind of hard to smear somebody as a fan of "conservative censorship" when outlets like OAN and Newsmax, which routinely traffic in truly repugnant garbage, say she's always been even-handed when dealing with them. Check out this statement supporting Sohn by OAN President Charles Herring:

"She believes in the First Amendment and the advantages of a strong and open media for the benefit of our democracy. She is one of the most knowledgeable persons I know on FCC issues and has the common sense and desire to work with people on both sides of the aisle."

As usual with the broader Trump GOP, this isn't about policy, it's about money and power. AT&T and News Corporation don't want Sohn appointed because she'd not only break a 2-2 partisan gridlock in voting at the FCC, she actively supports holding telecom and media giants accountable for bad behavior. That's in pretty stark contrast to the last four years of the Trump FCC, which basically involved coddling entrenched telecom and media giants at every conceivable opportunity, even if that required a whole lot of lying and legally dubious behavior.

If you're a Trump-allied GOP lawmaker you can't just come out and say you're opposing Sohn's nomination because you're lodged up AT&T and Rupert Murdoch's ass and the only thing you care about is protecting their revenues so campaign contributions keep flowing. So instead you glom on to the Trump GOP's perpetual victimization complex to not only change the subject (away from the fact you're an enabler of anti-competitive monopolists and have been for decades), but distract and agitate the base with false outrage and victimization porn. Sohn can be approved to the post without GOP support, so in the end most of this is little more than a delay tactic and empty calorie performative gibberish, much like the lion's share of the modern Trump GOP policy platform.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, anti-conservative bias, fcc, gigi sohn, grandstanding, politics, ted cruz
Companies: newsmax, oan

Report: U.S. Has 9th Most Expensive Broadband On The Planet

from the great-job-everybody dept

We've long illustrated how U.S. broadband is dominated by regional monopolies, which, in turn, are often coddled by state and federal governments (aka corruption). That broken market (and regulatory capture) results in all manner of problems, from spotty coverage and slow speeds, to repeated privacy violations, net neutrality violations, and some of the worst customer service of any industry in America (no small feat if you think about it).

Of course, it also results in the U.S. having some of the most expensive broadband anywhere. A new report by CompareThe Market finds that U.S. broadband is the 9th most expensive country for broadband in the world, with people paying an average of $66.13 USD per month. That's in line with prices paid in such countries like Honduras and Guatemala:

Keep in mind most of these data analysis efforts don't include hidden fees, usage caps, and broadband overage surcharges, meaning the amount Americans actually pay is usually significantly higher than what's represented here.

Like so many reports, the data breakdown just dumps this information at the readers' feet without explaining why U.S. broadband consistently ranks among the worst broadband nations in the world (whether we're talking about speed, price, or availability). And while for years the industry (and those paid to apologize for regional monopolization) tried to argue that it was simply because the U.S. was so big or because U.S. ISPs are saddled with too much regulation, that's never been true. The U.S. broadband market isn't free. It's heavily monopolized and overseen by corrupt policymakers (regulatory capture).

In 2021 the issue is no longer geography, or even technology. It's the fact that we've let a handful of giant telecom and cable monopolies not only cordon off regional fiefdoms, but all but dictate both state and federal telecom policy the vast majority of the time (including literally writing state laws and local ordinances). Instead of tackling this problem head on, feckless U.S. policy makers (enabled by a lazy and timid press) generally mumble about the causation free "digital divide," then repeatedly just throw more money at the problem.

When that doesn't work, everybody just shrugs and repeats the process the next time data shows the U.S. continues to be violently mediocre in broadband. There's a vast coalition of well-funded organizations, individuals, think tanks, consultants, and companies tasked with ensuring this dynamic never actually changes. As the data repeatedly attests, they've been winning that fight for the better part of a generation now.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, monopolies, us

Senator Tillis To President Biden: How Dare You Nominate To The FCC Someone Prepared To Protect The Public

from the he-doth-protest-too-much dept

Senator Tillis penned a letter to President Biden this week that is breathtaking in its obtuseness. In it, he demanded that the President withdraw the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the FCC for having championed the longstanding ability of the public to receive over-the-air signals on public airwaves. Or, in other words, for having done exactly what we should want an FCC commissioner, tasked with the stewardship of the nation's spectrum, to do.

In his outrage at how fit for purpose her career has been for this role, Tillis betrays how badly his own office has abandoned the same public interest she has long protected. In particular, by overstating the upshot of a single court's never-reviewed decision, and making other unfounded, scurrilous accusations against her, Tillis falsely suggests it was she who has somehow done wrong in supporting Locast. And by taking the side of the plaintiffs he gladly turns a blind eye to the actual wrong that has been committed against the public by the broadcasters who, in suing Locast, have succeeded in robbing the public of the benefit of its own broadcast spectrum.

It's a serious deprivation that Senator Tillis seems all too eager to condone, because what he conveniently ignores is that spectrum licenses aren't supposed to be gifts to licensees for them to monopolize for their own self-interest. Rather, the quid-pro-quo behind the licensing of this public resource is to make sure that, by letting broadcasters use the spectrum for their programming, the public will then get the benefit of that programming. If there's no benefit to be had, then there's no point in the public ever licensing the spectrum to broadcasters in the first place.

Yet that's where we are, with much of the public now cut off from their own public airwaves and the programming they are supposed to be able to receive. Because for the many people who live in areas with poor reception, or who don't have rabbit ears (when's the last time you saw a tv sold with a set?), or who can't afford (or are not interested in affording) the hefty monthly charge needed for a cable subscription in order to get access to the over-the-air stations they should otherwise be able to watch, it was only with the antenna-renting services like Locast that they could finally enjoy the programming to which they are entitled. But now, thanks to certain broadcasters misusing copyright law and their privileged position as incumbent public spectrum licensees to shut these services down, they can't.

If these broadcasters are no longer interested in providing over-the-air programming to the public, that's a choice they can make. In finding it so offensive that services like Locast would help their over-the-air programming actually reach public audiences it would appear that's a decision they have indeed made. But then they should have to relinquish the spectrum so that it can be reallocated to someone who does want to make use of the spectrum license to provide over-the-air programming to the public. In any case they should NOT be able to cut the public off from ALL broadcast programming just because they don't want to reach the public that way anymore themselves. Yet that's what they have done, because with no more Locast, and no more Aereo, it's not just their programming that the public has lost access to but the programming of every other broadcaster, including those who depend on over-the-air reception for their stations to survive, since now the public has no way of receiving their channels either.

It's a deplorable state of affairs out of step with the spirit, if not also letter, of public spectrum licensing, as well as the constitutional purpose of copyright law to promote the progress of knowledge and culture, which has now been physically obstructed by the loss of these antenna-renting services. And it's about time we had someone in Washington ready, willing, and able to stand up for the public and do something about it. It shouldn't just be Gigi Sohn of course – Congress itself needs to be a better steward of the public interest in situations like these where it has been so conspicuously subordinated – but she's a great start.

Filed Under: copyright, fcc, gigi sohn, public spectrum, thom tillis
Companies: locast

Big Telecom Continues Its Global Quest To Tax Big Tech For No Good Reason

from the troll-tolls dept

A few months back we noted how FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr had taken to Newsweek to dust off a fifteen year old AT&T talking point. Namely that "big tech" companies get a "free ride" on telecom networks, and, as a result, should throw billions of dollars at "big telecom" for no real reason. You'll recall it was this exact argument that launched the net neutrality debate, when former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre proclaimed that Google wouldn't be allowed to "ride his pipes for free." Basically, telecom giants have long wanted somebody else to fund network builds they routinely leave half finished despite billions in subsidies.

While this dumb argument originated with AT&T, it has been adopted by countless international telecoms over the years. Like this week, when a coalition of 13 large European telecom companies signed a joint letter demanding that U.S. tech giants pay them more money for no coherent reason:

"Large and increasing part of network traffic is generated and monetized by big tech platforms, but it requires continuous, intensive network investment and planning by the telecommunications sector. This model—which enables EU citizens to enjoy the fruits of the digital transformation—can only be sustainable if such big tech platforms also contribute fairly to network costs."

Again, this is the idiotic argument that just never dies. We had an entire fifteen year net neutrality debate over this that nobody appears to have learned much from.

Tech giants like Google already pay for not only bandwidth, but they own billions of dollars worth of transit routes, undersea cables, and other infrastructure (Google even runs its own residential ISP). Consumers also pay an arm and a leg for bandwidth thanks to heavily monopolized telecom markets. This idea that anybody in this chain gets a free ride is absolutely ridiculous. Telecom giants regularly enjoy fat profits thanks to limited competition and largely feckless government oversight. They're also endlessly subsidized to finish networks routinely left mysteriously undercooked.

Telecom is basically just trying to exploit its market power in a bid to nab an unnecessary troll toll. Yet despite being in bad faith with little merit, it doesn't take much for telecom giants to dust off the dumb argument and re-inject it into the discourse every few years. That's thanks in large part to unskeptical news outlets like Reuters that parrot the claims in good faith, without including any important context. For example, Reuters frames the entire debate like this:

"The call by the CEOs comes as the telecoms industry faces massive investments for 5G, fibre and cable networks to cope with data and cloud services provided by Netflix and Google's YouTube and Facebook.

Reuters doesn't deem it worth mentioning that it's consumers demanding access to those services. Consumers that already pay their regional telecom monopoly an arm and a leg for broadband. This demand isn't somehow "big tech's" fault. Nor is it somehow big tech's responsibility to pay an extra troll toll if an ISP fails to meet consumer bandwidth demand despite bloated revenues. Reuters (much like telecom allies like the FCC's Brendan Carr) also somehow omits how global telecom giants routinely underinvest in network upgrades despite billions of dollars in tax breaks, subsidies, and regulatory favors over a period of decades.

It's just uncanny how telecom just keeps trotting out the same dumb argument that it deserves to be paid extra for no coherent reason, and the majority of news outlets parrot the request as if it's actually being made in good faith.

Filed Under: brendand carr, fcc, free ride, internet services, internet taxes, net neutrality, telcos

Biden's Broadband Push Is Good, But Crappy Maps And Lobbying Can Still Screw Things Up

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

So to be very clear: the Biden infrastructure bill has a lot of good things for broadband in it. More specifically, billions in grant money that can be used by states to shore up both "middle mile" and "last mile" broadband access across huge swaths of the country. It's the biggest lump sum ever doled out by the government for broadband, and it will have a huge positive impact on the nation's broadband gaps. Especially in perpetually marginalized areas. That can't be understated.

That said, this isn't the first time we've tried to throw a big chunk of cash at the U.S. broadband problem, and there are numerous ways this could still go south.

The plan relies on many states to build entirely new systems to distribute and spend that money. Given rampant state corruption in broadband policymaking, there's an unlimited number of ways that entrenched regional monopolies (Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink (Lumen), Frontier) could inject themselves into the process to ensure more money goes to them for dubious deployment promises, and less goes to smaller competitors or faster, better services.

ISP lobbyists already stripped a lot of language they didn't like out of the original proposal, including clear support for community broadband and tougher speed standards. Now their lobbying folks are busy lobbying the NTIA, which has been tasked with crafting additional standards and funding guidelines in six short months:

"Meanwhile, internet service providers (ISPs) are expected to aggressively lobby the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) as it crafts new internet rules under the infrastructure bill’s $65 billion broadband expansion plan. The relatively tiny agency has six months to develop a proposal that will require recipients of federal broadband funding to provide a low-cost broadband option and encourage states to explore alternatives to dominant ISPs such as coops, nonprofits and municipalities."

U.S. broadband has a 30 year history of ISPs taking billions of dollars for networks they then half deploy, usually with little or no penalty. Whether that happens again here depends entirely on how tough the NTIA and FCC are going to be with regional monopolies, historically neither agencies' strong suit. And again, more than half the states in the country are literally little more than rubber stamps for the interests of giants like AT&T, so diligence will be required to ensure the money is going toward productive, pro-competitive solutions.

The other major obstacle is the country's broadband maps, which still don't accurately track broadband speed, pricing, and availability despite decades of complaints on this subject. While Congress, the FCC, and NTIA have all taken some helpful steps toward better mapping, actual implementation of those reforms are still several million dollars and several years away. That's too late for states, many of which are currently working on spending $10 billion to shore up access, with $42 billion from the infrastructure bill still on the way. In other words, we're trying to fix a problem we still haven't accurately measured the scope of:

"For now, though, many states don’t know where to put that first round of cash. They have only a murky picture of where their internet dead spots are, thanks to the federal government’s reliance on broadband mapping methods that dramatically overstate existing coverage."

Here too, telecom lobbyists, eager to obfuscate the obvious end result of monopolization, limited competition, and regulatory capture, have routinely blocked reform (and will continue to do so). So there's a lot of money being thrown at a system that historically doesn't measure the problem it's tasked with fixing very well, often can't even acknowledge why the problem exists in the first place (again: regional monopolization, corruption, regulatory capture), and doesn't like to challenge wealthy and politically powerful telecom corporations tethered to our intelligence and law enforcement apparatus.

That's not to say a change from the US telecom status quo is impossible; there's a lot of good folks working very hard to do this the right way. But it is to say that doing any of this correctly is going to require some uncharacteristic aggression, competence, and integrity we haven't seen in the last forty years of telecom policy.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, infrastructure, infrastructure bill, joe biden, lobbying