Friday, July 31, 2015

Early indications that FCC not enforcing Title II Internet universal service, anti-redlining provisions


--FCC accepts AT&T assertion of Title II compliance on its face

--Consumer complaint against Comcast closed despite demand for $535,000 to establish Internet service

 

Earlier this year, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission deemed Internet service a common carrier utility under Title II of the Communications Act and thus subject to the law’s universal service and non-discrimination obligations. New FCC rules implementing the policy became final on June 12, 2015 and withstood judicial petitions by large telephone and cable companies and their trade associations to block them from taking effect.

Going forward, it remains to be seen whether the FCC will enforce Title II universal service and anti-redlining requirements against the large, dominant telephone and cable companies that provide much of the nation’s premise landline Internet service in tightly proscribed “footprints” within their service areas. Early indications are that the FCC is opting to not enforce these requirements even though it specifically declined to forbear their enforcement in its March 12, 2015 Open Internet Order and Rulemaking, finding that doing so would not be in the public interest. Harold Feld of Public Knowledge termed universal service “the quintessential common-carrier obligation.”

Nevertheless, it appears the FCC rather than enforcing key Title II obligations is choosing to merely pass complaints of violations on to providers and then summarily closing them out once the provider communicates with the complainant. I offer my own experience as evidence.

On June 15, 2015, I attempted to place an online order for Internet service for my home office premise in Northern California and received this screen:



I also obtained the following communication from an AT&T agent in a June 15, 2015 online chat session:

Agent: Unfortunately, neither AT&T Business U-verse nor DSL services are available in your area. There may be several reasons why AT&T Business Internet Service is not available in your area. The most common reason is that there are a set number of ports to deliver service in each area, and we've reached capacity. It's also possible that your business is outside of the range to receive service.

A subsequent attempt to order a small business bundle of phone and Internet service resulted in this email from AT&T:

Dear Fred Pilot,
I'm sorry but internet services are not available to this address at this time. Do you want to continue with the phone line and long distance order?
Thank you for choosing AT&T.

Sincerely,

Shelley Zeigler
AT&T Small Business Online
 

* * *

I filed a complaint with the FCC on June 15, 2015 contending AT&T by failing to fulfill my order for Internet service was in violation of the FCC's recent Open Internet Order and specifically Title II SEC. 201(a) of the Communications Act that requires common carriers to "furnish service upon reasonable request therefor."

On July 30, 2015, I received this update from the FCC:

Hi Frederick,
Your Ticket No. 342043 was served on your carrier for its review and response.
Your carrier has provided the FCC with a response to your complaint. You should receive a copy of the response from the carrier within 7-10 days via postal mail. As such, no further action is required. Your complaint is closed.
Thank you for your complaint and help in furthering the FCC’s mission on behalf of consumers.

*  *  *

On July 18, 2015 I received an email from the manager of the AT&T Office of the President stating that AT&T reviewed my complaint and “determined that neither DSL or U-verse are available at this time,” adding that “AT&T also finds that it is not in violation of the Open Internet Order referenced in the FCC complaint.” 

Bottom line: The FCC closed the case based on AT&T’s assertion that it is not out of compliance with Title II SEC. 201(a). The FCC’s position appears to be we’ll accept AT&T’s word it’s in compliance with the law and move on. That’s hardly what could be termed enforcement by an entity established as a regulatory agency.

Since Comcast also nominally serves my ZIP Code, I also attempted to order Comcast’s 25Mbs Internet service from its consumer website. The site responded “The address you entered could not be recognized” and offered four other addresses in my ZIP Code with numbers matching my own. A few days later, Comcast left a voice mail stating my address was "not serviceable."

I filed a complaint with the FCC alleging Comcast was in violation of Title II Section 201(a) and a ticket was opened. Subsequently, Comcast sent me an email indicating Comcast could service my address if I paid $535,000 to expand its network:


To: Frederick Pilot
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 8:58 AM
Subject: RE: Comcast/ESL01973870/Pilot/AE  
Good Morning Mr. Pilot,   I hope your weekend was well. I have just received word from our serviceability team. The serviceability team has confirmed that your address is over a mile from Comcast’s nearest network. The estimated cost to have the Comcast network expanded to your home is $535,000.00. 
Kind regards
Alyssa Executive Customer Relations Comcast | West Division Office: 1-888-966-7794 Ext. 3007906 M-F: 8:00a – 4:30p PDT        


Another email from Comcast clarifying that I (and not Comcast) would have to bear the cost:


WST - Comcast Executive Customer Relations 5
Jun 29 at 10:06 AM
To:  Frederick Pilot
Mr. Pilot,   If you would like to discuss paying the estimated fee of $535,000.00 to have the lines ran to your home I can get you in touch with our construction team. Please let me know how you’d like to proceed.
Alyssa Executive Customer Relations Comcast | West Division Office: 1-888-966-7794 Ext. 3007906 M-F: 8:00a – 4:30p PDT

*  *  *

I added these emails to my FCC complaint file, pointing out the demand for such a large sum in order to provide Internet service potentially violates two additional Title II provisions:

  • Section 254(b)(3) requiring Internet Service Providers to provide access to advanced telecommunications in all regions of the nation at rates that are reasonably comparable to rates charged for similar services in urban areas.
  • Section 202(a) of the Communications Act insofar as it is an unjust, unreasonable and discriminatory charge in order to effect a common carrier communications connection per Section 202(b). 

Apparently this additional information didn’t pique the interest of the FCC, which closed out the complaint on July 17, 2015:


FCC Consumer Complaints July 17, 2015 08:29

Hi Frederick,
Your Ticket No. 351820 was served on your carrier for its review and response.
Your carrier has provided the FCC with a response to your complaint. You should receive a copy of the response from the carrier within 7-10 days via postal mail. (None was received as of 7/31) As such, no further action is required. Your complaint is closed.

Thank you for your complaint and help in furthering the FCC’s mission on behalf of consumers. 


A follow up query to the FCC asking why the complaint was closed produced no response.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Doug Dawson explains why telco wireless can't substitute for FTTP

What is 5G? | POTs and PANs: What all of this means is that a 5G network is going to require a lot more cell sites packed closer together than today’s network. That has a lot of implications. First, it means a lot more investment in towers or in mini-cell sites of some type. But it also means a lot more fiber to feed the new cell sites. And those two factors together mean that any 5G solution is likely to be an urban solution only, or a suburban solution only for those places where a lot of users are packed tightly together. No wireless company is going to invest in a lot more 5G towers and fiber to cover suburban housing sprawl and certainly nobody will invest in the technology in rural areas.

We already have a cellular wireless divide today with urban areas getting pretty decent 4G and rural areas with 3G and even some 2G. Expect that gulf to become greater as high-bandwidth technologies come into play. This is the big catch-22 of wireless. Rural jurisdictions have always been told to wait a while and not clamor for fiber because there will eventually be a great wireless solution for them. But nobody is going to invest in rural 5G any more than they have invested in rural fiber. So even if 5G is made to work, it’s not going to bring a wireless solution to anywhere outside of cities.

Doug Dawson provides a good explanation of why the economics and technology of telco wireless service -- including the next generation 5G service -- can't provide an economical solution compared to fiber to premise. Aside from spectrum providing inadequate bandwidth for growing household demand that only fiber can satisfy, telcos would have to invest in a lot more cell sites to feed the network, which as Dawson explains can't pencil out except in very densely populated areas.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

A damning indictment of U.S. telecom infrastructure policy failure

Wired to fail - Tony Romm - POLITICO: A POLITICO investigation has found that roughly half of the nearly 300 projects RUS approved as part of the 2009 Recovery Act have not yet drawn down the full amounts they were awarded. All RUS-funded infrastructure projects were supposed to have completed construction by the end of June, but the agency has declined to say whether these rural networks have been completed. More than 40 of the projects RUS initially approved never got started at all, raising questions about how RUS screened its applicants and made its decisions in the first place.

But a bigger, more critical deadline looms for those broadband projects still underway: If these networks do not draw all their cash by the end of September, they will have to forfeit what remains. In other words, they may altogether squander as much as $277 million in still-untapped federal funds, which can’t be spent elsewhere in other neglected rural communities.

And either way, scores of rural residents who should have benefited from better Internet access — a utility that many consider as essential as electricity — might continue to lack access to the sort of reliable, high-speed service that is common in America’s cities. Even RUS admits it’s not going to provide better service to the 7 million residents it once touted; instead, the number is in the hundreds of thousands.

A damning indictment of the United States' policy failure to properly fund, plan and build Internet telecommunications infrastructure to serve all Americans. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's (ARRA) funding for Internet telecommunications infrastructure construction could have helped create a new generation of consumer cooperatives to build modern fiber optic telecom infrastructure just as the Rural Utilities Service did starting in the 1930s to support the deployment of electrical service.

But the ARRA allocated no technical assistance funding to help new cooperatives and local governments plan for the necessary fiber infrastructure to replace outdated copper cable, leaving the RUS and the National Telecommunications Infrastructure Agency unable to offer much in the way of real assistance. These agencies themselves erected roadblocks by adopting rules allowing legacy telephone and cable companies to block progress and veto proposed ARRA projects that could have constructed modern fiber to the premise infrastructure. Consequently, 55 million Americans (17 percent of the population) live in areas of the nation without Internet service as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission reported in early 2015.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Obama administration's ConnectHome initiative offers only partial solution to homework gap

Rather than a bold, disruptive initiative to speed the construction of fiber to the premise (FTTP) Internet infrastructure to serve all Americans and replace aging metallic infrastructure designed for legacy analog telephone and cable TV service that leaves many U.S. homes without Internet service, the Obama administration today announced a weak, narrowly focused initiative that targets low income households. From a policy perspective, that runs counter to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's adoption this year of new regulations classifying Internet as a common carrier telecommunications service that must be universally available to all homes as voice telephone service has been for decades.

The administration's ConnectHome initiative also adopts classic incumbent telephone and cable industry talking points aimed at:

  • Shifting the focus away from the nation's infrastructure deficits by playing up dollars invested in infrastructure and particularly mobile wireless infrastructure that can't provide sufficient bandwidth to serve most homes.
  • Emphasizing Internet adoption and developing "digital literacy" as if it were still the 1990s when the Internet was just emerging and households were using it only for web and email access versus today when the Internet delivers voice and video services as well.

The United States faces a serious telecommunications infrastructure deficit that is reaching crisis proportions as those living in areas without service grow increasingly economically disadvantaged and their properties become less marketable. Data released by the U.S Federal Communications Commission in early 2015 indicate approximately 55 million Americans (17 percent) live in areas unserved for basic Internet service as defined by the FCC, with the gap narrowing by only three percentage points in the last year.

The White House fact sheet on ConnectHome issued today contains a narrowly proscribed analysis of the "homework gap" that occurs when school pupils can't access learning materials at home because their homes lack Internet service:


While many middle-class U.S. students go home to Internet access, allowing them to do research, write papers, and communicate digitally with their teachers and other students, too many lower-income children go unplugged every afternoon when school ends. This “homework gap” runs the risk of widening the achievement gap, denying hardworking students the benefit of a technology-enriched education. 

The homework gap isn't confined solely to low income households. It affects any home located in an area of the nation lacking premise Internet service regardless of socio-economic status. The administration need only ask educators like Jeremy Meyers, superintendent of the El Dorado County (California) Office of Education. Meyers wrote in his community newspaper about the emerging educational method known as "blended learning" in which pupils do much of their learning and class projects outside of the classroom via the Internet. Back in the classroom, teachers review their projects, answer questions and lead discussions.

As Meyers notes, blended learning requires good Internet connectivity both at schools and at students' homes. However, too many homes in Meyers' district lack even basic Internet service. "El Dorado County faces a special challenge that is assuming greater urgency each year: How to bring all our households into broadband Internet access in a cost-effective manner," Meyers wrote. "Having large Internet 'dead zones' is not acceptable in today’s world of connectivity. It limits us academically and hurts us economically."

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

AT&T teases a $5 Internet service to help seal the DirecTV deal - The Washington Post

AT&T teases a $5 Internet service to help seal the DirecTV deal - The Washington Post: AT&T will offer cheap Internet to food-stamp recipients if the Federal Communications Commission approves the telecom company's big acquisition of DirecTV.

In a regulatory filing, AT&T says it's prepared to make two plans available to low-income consumers. The first would provide speeds of up to 5 megabits per second (or roughly half as fast as the current national average) for $10 a month. After the first 12 months, that price would rise to $20 a month.

The other plan would be offered in places where AT&T lacks the infrastructure to provide faster speeds. In those areas, poorer Americans would be able to buy a 1.5 Mbps plan starting at $5 a month for the first 12 months. At that point, the price would increase to $10 a month.

It's hard to see how this will influence the FCC's review or what relevance it has given the FCC earlier this year set a minimum standard for Internet connectivity at 25/3Mbps. The proposal also is based on the inappropriate concept of Internet service as a consumptive utility like electric power, natural gas or water and that low income households thus should be offered a low cost consumption option to ensure they have service.

Wednesday, July 01, 2015

WSJ gets it wrong on Title II Internet universal service obligation

How Fast Internet Affects Home Prices - WSJ: Telecom companies by law are required to make telephone service available to every residence in their service areas, but the same isn’t true for all high speed Internet providers.
The Federal Communications Commission's newly issued Open Internet rules that took effect June 12 reclassified Internet service from an optional information service to a mandatory common carrier telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act, thereby bringing Internet service under the same universal service obligation as telephone service.

This is a glaring example of how the mainstream and much of the info tech media have buried and lost this quintessential Title II requirement as it was termed by Harold Feld of Public Knowledge under the rubric of "net neutrality."