Ajit Pai Opposes Effort To Update The Definition Of Broadband

from the 640K-ought-to-be-enough-for-anybody dept

The Telecom Act of 1996 mandates that the FCC routinely assess whether broadband is "being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion," and do something about it if that's not the case. As part of that mission, the FCC also periodically takes a look at the way it defines broadband to ensure the current definition meets modern consumer expectations and technical advancements. That's why, much to the telecom industry's chagrin, the FCC in 2015 changed the definition of broadband from a fairly-pathetic 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream to the current standard of 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.

Telecom monopolies (and the lawmakers paid to love them) whined incessantly about the changes at the time. Why? Because the higher definition only highlights how there's virtually no competition at faster speeds in the U.S. It also highlights how because countless U.S. telcos have shifted their focus to more immediately-profitable ventures (like flinging video ads at Millennials), they've neglected network upgrades on a comical scale. As a result, most modern telcos fail to even technically sell "broadband" across vast swaths of America, giving cable giants like Comcast a bigger broadband monopoly than ever before.

As such, you can kind of understand why, if you're a lumbering broadband monopoly, why you'd prefer the definition of broadband remain at ankle height.

With the FCC preparing its latest assessment of the broadband broadband industry as required by law, the question over whether the broadband standard should again be lifted has again raised its ugly head. Especially given that in the age of symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) connections and cloud storage, that 3 Mbps upstream standard is looking a little lame. But in a Notice of Inquiry (pdf) published last week, Pai’s FCC proposed keeping the current 25/3 definition intact, something that apparently annoyed his fellow Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

In a statement (pdf), Rosenworcel suggests that symmetrical 100 Mbps would be a far more ambitious goal to aim for:

"...This inquiry fundamentally errs by proposing to keep our national broadband standard at 25 Megabits per second. I believe this goal is insufficiently audacious. It is time to be bold and move the national broadband standard from 25 Megabits to 100 Megabits per second. When you factor in price, at this speed the United States is not even close to leading the world. That is not where we should be and if in the future we want to change this we need both a more powerful goal and a plan to reach it. Our failure to commit to that course here is disappointing.

Disappointing but not surprising. Again, an even higher bar would only more clearly illustrate that a huge swath of the broadband industry has effectively given up on upgrading their broadband networks at any real scale, a reason why countless consumers can only get sub 3 Mbps DSL from their incumbent telco.

Pai's unwillingness to aim higher is also unsurprising given he was recently forced to retreat from a plan that would have technically lowered the broadband definition bar back down to 10 Mbps. Pai had attempted a policy change that would have declared any 10 Mbps wireless connection good enough to be considered broadband, a move that would have ignored the fact that wireless connections are subject to all manner of limits (caps, overage fees, weird restrictions on HD video, rural congestion) making them a less than suitable full replacement for fixed line broadband.

With Pai's net-neutrality-killin' majority controlling any meaningful vote on this subject, it's likely that if the definition of broadband changes at all, it will likely be lowered. After all, you certainly wouldn't want any data highlighting how broken the U.S. broadband market currently is, lest somebody get the crazy idea to actually do something about it.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, competition, definition, jessica rosenworcel, speeds

Big Broadband Begs FCC Not To Expose Their Lies By Defining Broadband Accurately

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Last week, FCC boss Tom Wheeler pointed out two important things: (1) The FCC's definition of "broadband" internet service (4Mbps down / 1 Mbps up) was silly because it was way too slow for things that people do online, like streaming HD video and (2) if you go up to higher (more accurate) levels of broadband, competition in providers all but disappears. This was important on two accounts. The big broadband players have always pushed for keeping the "official" broadband standards as low as possible, in order to pretend that we have better and more competitive broadband than everyone knows we actually have. In the past, the FCC has been a willing accomplice in this charade. By showing the following chart, and suggesting that it was time to really jack up the official broadband standards, Wheeler was clearly signaling that perhaps those bad old days when the FCC was a partner in the big US broadband lie are over, and that it might actually start trying to represent reality and push for rules that actually make the US a competitive broadband player. Of course, the FCC had already asked for comments concerning the possibility of raising the official broadband definition to 10 Mbps down about a month ago, arguing that based on actual usage information, this would" fall within the mid-range needed by a three-user household with moderate broadband use, but would not accommodate demand for a three-user household with high use. Specifically, the FCC noted that this would allow a family of three "at periods to stream a movie, participate in online education, surf the web, and have a mobile device syncing to its email account." Fair enough.

Except... no. Not according to the big broadband providers, which did the FCC comment-equivalent of a freak out at this possible proposal. Let's start with AT&T:

Although the industry remains well ahead of the curve, the centerpiece of the Commission’s Notice is a proposal to change the definition of advanced capabilities – in particular, a proposal to increase the minimum “advanced” capabilities benchmark from 4 Mbps download speeds to 10 Mbps. Given the pace at which the industry is investing in advanced capabilities, there is no present need to redefine “advanced” capabilities, and, as discussed below, the proposed redefinition is not adequately supported. The Commission should undertake a more rigorous, fact-based and statutory analysis before determining what, if any, definitional revisions are warranted at this time. Even recognizing that the definition of broadband will evolve over time, the Notice presents no record basis for a conclusion at this time that a service of less than 10 Mbps is no longer “advanced.”

AT&T insists that people really aren't using that much bandwidth, and that the FCC overestimates how much bandwidth things like streaming HD video really take. In a neat bit of tautological reasoning, AT&T actually argues that because people aren't using that much bandwidth now (perhaps because AT&T doesn't let them...), it's clear that this isn't a reasonable definition of broadband:

Consumer behavior strongly reinforces the conclusion that a 10 Mbps service exceeds what many Americans need today to enable basic, high-quality transmissions. AT&T data show that, in areas where its customers have access to a service that offers download speeds greater than 10 Mbps, many consumers choose to buy services with lower download speeds. Indeed, even in areas where only a 6 Mbps service is available, a substantial portion of consumers choose to purchase a lower-speed service.

Perhaps that's because your pricing sucks, and even when people do pay more, you do crappy things like throttle Netflix.

Over to Verizon, which argues that raising the broadband speed definitions would be a problem because it might confuse people, and you know how much Verizon wants everyone to have a clear understanding of everything, right?

Furthermore, the Commission should avoid adopting new requirements for defining “broadband” that would unnecessarily complicate the Commission’s analysis and hinder the proper assessment of broadband deployment

Simply boosting a number to more accurately represent what is considered a high speed internet connection would "complicate" things how exactly? Oh, because now we couldn't compare the old bogus numbers to the new bogus numbers.

for the sake of consistency and to ensure meaningful comparisons over time, the Commission should maintain a relatively stable benchmark for defining broadband, even if the Commission also sees a benefit of tracking the availability and adoption of higher-speed services

Verizon also pulls AT&T's trick of claiming "well, people have slower connections, so that's proof that lower standards are fine."

At the same time, the data confirm that services providing 4 Mbps/1 Mbps are still popular and meaningful to consumers.

Meaningful? I wonder how the data concludes that.

Next up, we've got NCTA, representing the cable companies, and it's (of course) of the opinion that it would be absurd to raise the rates, because, really, there isn't any good HD content online anyway:

The Commission suggests that higher speeds may be needed to handle “super HD” video traffic, but even if true, given the limited presence of super HD video at this time, and the many other Internet services and functionality that can be easily accommodated with a 4/1 connection, there is no basis for finding that a connection must be able to handle one particular type of video in order to meet the definition of broadband.

Yes, but perhaps the reason there isn't much super HD video is because your damn connections are too slow. Content follows bandwidth. If the FCC jacks up the standards, the broadband guys will ramp up their speeds, and watch the content flow...

There are some other fun submissions, including CTIA, representing the wireless operators (which include Verizon and AT&T, of course) arguing that looking to the future is lame, man. We should base our broadband stats on historical usage:

The Commission should analyze mobile broadband speeds in light of existing marketplace offerings

Don't aspire to the future, let's settle for today's mediocrity. At least some folks are arguing for the change, including the Communications Workers of America, who probably realize that requiring higher speeds would likely lead to more work for its members. It's interesting to note that satellite internet providers are more than happy to support the FCC's higher standards, noting that those rates are easy to meet. Compare and contrast this statement to the whining from above:

The FCC’s proposal to adopt a 10/1 Mbps speed benchmark represents a reasonable minimum threshold to ensure consumers in a “moderate use household” can satisfy their broadband internet access needs. Speeds of this level allow a “moderate use household” to stream videos, make VoIP phone calls, browse webpages, and check emails, which are the core broadband applications used by typical consumers. Consumer broadband satellite services provided by Hughes go as high as 15/2 Mbps and by ViaSat go as high as 12/3 Mbps, and they offer all of the above applications as part of their respective satellite services.

That said, those satellite providers do then complain about including a "latency" component to the benchmarks, because satellite internet latency has always sucked.

Public Knowledge went in the other direction, arguing that even 10 Mbps is too low and that the new standard should actually be 25 Mbps. Imagine the level of freakout from the legacy broadband players if that went through...

Either way, upping the definition of what qualifies as broadband by the FCC would be a big step in more accurately reflecting the state of the broadband market in the US today, both from the standpoint of what kinds of speeds are really available and recognizing the lack of competition across the nation. The fact that it's scaring the traditional broadband players so much says an awful lot about how they've been able to hide behind the weak benchmarks in the past.

Filed Under: broadband, definition, fcc, tom wheeler
Companies: at&t, ncta, verizon

Soon, 200kbps Might No Longer Be Considered Broadband

from the 14.4k-seems-like-broadband-when-you're-used-to-2.4 dept

While we wait for the details of President-Elect Obama's "broadband stimulus" package to emerge, one aspect of such a plan hasn't gotten a lot of attention: just exactly what the government will consider to be a broadband connection. For a long time, the FCC considered anything that delivered over 200kbps downstream to be broadband, though last year, it raised the minimum cutoff to 768kbps. It's not a coincidence that's the minimum speed offered by many cable modem or DSL providers, making it seem as if the government standards were shoehorned to fit the market, rather than designed to encourage any growth or higher levels of service. So a key part of any broadband plan will be where the administration sets the bar for what's considered broadband, and what will be eligible for the government benefits. For what it's worth, Qwest has said broadband should be considered to be a minimum of 7Mbps, corresponding to service it's currently rolling out. It doesn't seem likely that the government would make the leap from 768kbps to 7Mbps in one fell swoop, but only by setting the minimum at a reasonable level -- and holding incumbent telcos to their commitments -- will broadband policy stand a chance of being effective.

Filed Under: broadband, definition
Companies: qwest