Purpose of "broadband maps" is to protect legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies, delay progress

FCC leaders say we need a 'national mission' to fix rural broadband - CNET: But before you can really get things going, you have to address one key issue, Rosenworcel said.
"Our broadband maps are terrible," she said. "If we're going to solve this nation's broadband problems, then the first thing we have to do is fix those maps. We need to know where broadband is and is not in every corner of this country." You can't solve a problem you can't measure, she added.

And one can't reach a destination or goal without a plan. Rather than serve that purpose, American policymakers have instead used "broadband maps" to protect legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies and delay progress. They're continuing the fool's errand the incumbents assigned them. Policymakers instead need to set the goal of bringing fiber to every home, school and business and work from the rebuttable presumption that it doesn't exist in most of the nation.

“Net neutrality” fight over nothing less than the future business and regulatory model of advanced telecommunications

The state vs. federal showdown over “net neutrality” is about far more than regulating ISPs’ ability to favor or “speed up” some advanced telecommunications services or slow or even block others. It’s a fight over nothing less than the future business and regulatory models of advanced telecommunications (ATC). Should ATC be bundled with services owned or procured by the ISP or be a common carrier “dumb pipe” in which the role of ISPs is primarily to provide connectivity?

Because Internet protocol enabled digital ATC can deliver far more services than the analog voice telephone service that preceded it, ISPs naturally see a gold mine in monetizing these services. An example is their push for “video everywhere” displayed on home TVs as well as personal devices and acquisitions of video content producers such as AT&T’s recent purchase of Time Warner.

This is the ATC as an information service regulatory approach favored by ISPs and expressed in current public policy wherein the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has reclassified ATC as an information service rather than a common carrier telecommunications utility as the FCC classified it in its 2015 Open Internet rulemaking.

The problem with treating ATC as a proprietary information service instead of a common carrier telecom utility is it will always have limited availability because the infrastructure to deliver it will only be built to serve “high potential” neighborhoods deemed sufficiently profitable by ISPs. The FCC’s now repealed Open Internet rules by contrast included a mandate on ISPs to make ATC available to any customer in their service territories making a reasonable request for service. As information service, that provision contained in Title II of the Communications Act doesn’t apply since information services are regulated under Title I of the statute.

Big ISPs naturally prefer Title I information service regulation because it supports their vertically integrated business models favoring proprietary content delivered to end users over proprietary infrastructure. That supports their top lines. And not having to serve “low potential” neighborhoods reduces capital and maintenance costs, benefitting their bottom lines. It’s a lopsided winner take all scheme in which the ISPs win big and consumers lose.

It's not the data, stupid. It's the FCC's crazy back and forth regulatory posture on advanced telecommunications

Rural Americans Suffer the Costs of Faulty FCC Broadband Data - Pacific Standard: The FCC conducts a review of the state of broadband deployment and access every year, as required by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. As part of this analysis, the FCC must determine whether high-speed broadband is being deployed to "all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion."

Here, accurate data is crucial. If the FCC finds that high-speed broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in the way it spells out, it must "take immediate action to accelerate deployment." In other words, if broadband isn't being deployed in a timely way to all Americans, the FCC is obligated to enact policies to remedy that. But without reliable data, the FCC might restrict its own ability to do what it's supposed to do. (Emphasis added)

The premise here is flawed. The FCC has already hampered its own ability to ensure universal advanced telecommunications service by failing to consistently regulate it as a common carrier telecommunications utility under Title II of the Communications Act. That regulatory regime accelerates deployment by mandating universal service and prohibiting neighborhood redlining by requiring ISPs to honor reasonable requests for service.

Instead, the agency has vacillated over the past two decades between regulating it under that scheme and as an information service under Title I of the statute. Most recently, the FCC has shifted back to Title I information service regulation after repealing its Title II-based 2015 Open Internet regulations in late 2017. The lack of a consistent regulatory policy and the resulting infrastructure deficiencies is spawning a movement to deprivatize advanced telecom infrastructure as localities study ways to finance and build their own.