Sohn avoids mention of FCC Title II rules in recent speech

In a speech last week, Gigi Sohn, executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband, conceded that advanced telecommunications infrastructure will largely remain in the hands of private sector investors. Sohn has also questioned the notion of private sector market competition as the means to ensure advanced telecommunications infrastructure reaches all American doorstep.

It’s a logical conclusion since telecommunications like other utilities tends toward monopoly. Companies aren’t going to compete to bring multiple proprietary fiber connections to a given address because it’s economically inefficient and favors those that make the first connection. One might gain customers by bringing in a second fiber line, taking them from the provider of the first. But the return on investment rapidly diminishes with additional lines. This is not a competitive market defined by many sellers and many buyers. Many buyers, yes, but there won’t be many sellers. 

Sohn’s declaration that advanced telecommunications will remain in private hands as a service that naturally tends toward monopoly has powerful implications since market forces aren’t going to balance for buyers’ interests in access and value. Strong, meaningfully enforced regulation is needed to ensure universal and affordable access. Without it, providers are free to offer fiber connections available wherever they want at whatever price they choose.

It is thus striking that Sohn in her remarks voiced no support whatsoever for the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) proposed readoption of regulations that would classify advanced telecommunications under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934. That would make advanced telecom service a common carrier utility where reasonable requests for service – i.e., serviceable addresses – must be honored. No cherry picking and no neighborhood redlining.

It’s even more striking that Sohn didn’t refer to Title II given she promulgated the same regulations while on the staff of the FCC in 2015. The FCC in a split vote opened comment reviving the Title II regulations just two days after Sohn’s speech. As it did in 2015, however, the FCC is setting aside granting state public utility commissions authority over rates charged end users to help ensure affordable access.