Market forces cannot address U.S. telecom infrastructure needs -- because infrastructure is not a market

Lawmakers eye broadband deployment issues | TheHill: When asked about that contention, witness Deb Socia, Executive Director of NextCentury Cities, argued that broadband was essential enough that government should step in to improve access.

She said that she believe “we’re coming to the place where we need to think of it in the same way, that it is essential infrastructure and that we need all hands on deck.

“And if the market can’t solve the problem then we need to figure out how to solve the problem.”

Socia's point goes to the nub of America's telecommunications infrastructure problem. Telecom infrastructure is not a competitive market and never will be. Market forces therefore cannot offer a solution. Indeed, as I posit in my eBook Service Unavailable: America's Telecommunications Infrastructure Crisis, the nation's excess reliance on market forces has in fact brought about the issue of inadequate infrastructure wherein large numbers of Americans lack sufficient infrastructure to reliably deliver modern Internet-based telecommunications services to their homes and small businesses.

Germany promises 50Mbps broadband for all, 10 times faster than global average

Germany promises 50Mbps broadband for all, 10 times faster than global average: As around 70 percent of Germany is already connected to networks of 50Mbps or faster, it will be a relatively ‘cheap’ task to connect the final 30 percent. The German government is putting aside €2.7 billion for the project, but will be looking for matched funding from local providers who will benefit from extending the reach of high-speed broadband networks.

“The German Federation will contribute up to 50 percent of the costs. A combination with development programs provided by German states is possible and can offer a further 40 percent of financing. The community would then have to provide the remaining 10 percent,” a spokesperson said.

The implicit policy assumption here is that by providing generous federal government and German state contributions along with a minor (10 percent) community contribution, the incumbent providers will have incentive to undertake Internet infrastructure construction and modernization.

The economics don't work out quite the same way in the United States. Unlike Germany, it isn't "relatively cheap" to build telecommunications infrastructure to reach the 55 million Americans who according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission aren't offered service meeting even half Germany's benchmark. Instead of an ambitious initiative to bring fiber to nearly all American premises, U.S. policy is to provide small subsidies to incumbent telephone companies to build one off, 1990s-era DSL projects using existing copper outside plant serving small numbers of premises that don't even meet the FCC's benchmark and are already obsolete given burgeoning Internet bandwidth demand.

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.

Open access fiber networks offer way to boost access to Internet services

The United States suffers from costly and disparate Internet access due to a vertically integrated business model based on the old copper telephone network. Under that model, the network infrastructure and the telecommunications services sold over it are provided by a single company such as AT&T or Verizon. It’s the same model used by cable companies, where the network operators that bring the cable to customer premises “own” the customer and bill for separate or bundled services on a monthly subscription basis. Google Fiber also operates under this business model.

That business model is inherently limited because it can expand and upgrade service only to the extent new customers and revenues can be added quickly enough to generate a rapid return on the money invested to build out the infrastructure. That circumstance and the high cost of constructing telecommunications infrastructure naturally make telcos and cable companies very conservative when it comes to expanding their networks.

That risk aversion in turn has brought about widespread market failure. There are potential buyers clamoring for service but the telephone and cable companies decline to provide it. This is essentially where the U.S. has been stuck for the past decade, creating massive frustration for consumers and for state and local governments hoping to improve Internet telecommunications access that has grown increasingly vital for their communities and economies.

Fortunately, there is a way out of the mire with open access fiber networks as Andrew Cohill of Wide Open Networks explains in this article appearing in the March/April issue of Broadband Communities magazine. Highly recommended reading for government officials and consumers.

Obama administration continues to ignore US need for ubiquitous FTTP

The Obama administration continues to ignore the need for ubiquitous fiber to the premise infrastructure serving all American homes and small businesses.

The administration instead is pursuing a PR campaign to shift attention to mobile wireless service that can't accommodate growing premise bandwidth demand as well as pointless activities such as "broadband mapping" and measuring "broadband speeds" that will do nothing to construct the FTTP infrastructure the nation should have been putting in place a generation ago.

Levin's Law of Internet Infrastructure Inertia may prevail over FCC universal service mandate

This week’s report and order by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that imposes a universal service requirement on Internet infrastructure providers may do little to over the next decade to ensure all premises have access to landline Internet connections.

As they did soon after the Communications Act was amended in 1996 requiring telephone companies to share their network infrastructures with competitive providers, the large telephone companies -- joined by cable companies – could challenge the rule in the courts and drag their feet implementing it.

They might also argue that they cannot afford to provide universal service within their service territories because there are insufficient subsidies given this week’s draft order defers enforcement of Section 254(d) of the Communications Act requiring telecommunications carriers to fund universal service.

With a generation of progress toward connecting all American premises with fiber already squandered, the associated delays could buy the big incumbent telephone and cable companies another 10 years or more of business as usual, allowing them to continue to cherry pick communities, neighborhoods and roads and streets they prefer to serve and redline those they reject.

That would leave Levin's Law of Internet Infrastructure Inertia* intact and the resulting entrenched disparate access to landline Internet service that leaves about one in five U.S. homes and small businesses unable to order service.

*Blair Levin, a former U.S Federal Communications Commission official and lead author of the FCC’s 2010 National Broadband Plan observed in 2012 that the major landline ISPs had no plans to improve and build out their infrastructures. “For most Americans, five years from now, the best network available to them will be the same network they have today," Levin stated.

On telecom infrastructure, policymakers must choose between sanctioning market failure or serving their constituents

Rural Tennesseans limited in Internet choices

As time goes on, it’s going to grow increasingly difficult for policymakers to continue to provide protection to legacy telephone and cable companies that want to preserve their partial service area infrastructure footprints. Such protectionist policies amount to government sanctioned market failure.

In the face of market failure, naturally those who live outside the boundaries of those limited footprints are looking to the public sector for help to get landline telecommunications service -- just as they did nearly a century ago for electrical distribution infrastructure. 

If their elected representatives fail to support them, they will face growing political risk come election time, particularly as more stories like this one show they’ve sold out their constituents by taking campaign contributions from the legacy providers.

Disparate Internet access likely to continue in US without comprehensive policy, strategies

Want Fiber? Do more to get it, Google exec tells cities | Gigaom: The upshot for the foreseeable future is a patchwork of different broadband speeds across the country as competitors flock to easy-access markets, while leaving many millions of others (including me in Brooklyn) stuck with monopoly service.

According to Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer, who also spoke on the panel, this situation will require a future wave of policy inducements to produce more broadband offerings.

Lacking comprehensive policy inducements and strategy to further the construction of fiber optic telecommunications infrastructure to reach all homes and businesses and updating outmoded metal wire infrastructure operated by incumbent telephone and cable companies, the United States does indeed face a less than bright future of disparate Internet access in both metro and rural areas.

Today's adoption of rules by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission only partially implementing Title II of the Communications Act subjecting the Internet to common carrier utility regulation will serve to reinforce the disparity without a solid universal service obligation. More in depth analysis of the FCC's action will follow here once the final rulemaking is published in the Federal Register.

No fast or slow lanes for Internet? New rules proposed | The Sacramento Bee

No fast or slow lanes for Internet? New rules proposed | The Sacramento Bee: "Net neutrality" means that whether you're trying to buy a necklace on Etsy, stream the season premiere of Netflix's "House of Cards" or watch a music video on Google's YouTube, your Internet service provider would have to load all of those websites equally quickly.

This is a much less important problem in the United States than inadequate Internet infrastructure that leaves millions of American homes and small businesses to substandard slow dialup, satellite or costly bandwidth rationed mobile wireless connections. The Federal Communications Commission recently reported that Internet infrastructure is not being deployed in a timely manner.

FCC Chair Wheeler may still be trying to split the baby on regulation of Internet as common carrier telecom service

U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler issued a fact sheet today summarizing a draft rulemaking the FCC will vote on this month to classify Internet service as a common carrier telecommunications utility under Title II of the Communications Act. It should be borne in mind this document represents a starting point in the FCC's deliberations preceding formal promulgation of proposed regulations and the public comment period before their final adoption.

Here are some quick takes on some of the provisions mentioned in the FCC fact sheet:

Reasonable Network Management: For the purposes of the rules, other than paid prioritization, an ISP may engage in reasonable network management. This recognizes the need of broadband providers to manage the technical and engineering aspects of their networks.

This is a big loophole that will likely send net neutrality proponents up the wall. A major friction point between core content providers and ISPs is the edge ISPs won't upgrade their last mile networks to fiber to support higher throughput. "Reasonable network management" could thus mean core content will have to be throttled so as to not overwhelm their networks.
 

Some data services do not go over the public Internet, and therefore are not “broadband Internet access” services subject to Title II oversight (VoIP from a cable system is an example,

This carves out Internet voice service from Title II -- a major telecommunications service.

Bolsters universal service fund support for broadband service in the future through partial application of Section 254.

It will be interesting to see what exactly "partial" means. Section 254(b) of the Communications Act requires common carriers to provide access to advanced telecommunications and information services (i.e. Internet service) in all regions of the nation. Will the FCC provide waivers for some areas of the country even as it finds Internet infrastructure is not being timely deployed to all parts of the nation?

The proposed Order applies “core” provisions of Title II: Sections 201 and 202 (e.g., no
“unjust and unreasonable practices.”

Section 202 bars “discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services...” It also contains an anti-redlining provision barring providers from discriminating against localities in providing service. That means dominant providers would have to serve all premises in their service territories and not just selected neighborhoods, roads and streets as is current practice.

No last-mile unbundling.

This effectively neuters common carrier under Title II and protects the closed access monopoly incumbent providers enjoy over what services are sold to customers since they would continue to be able to bar access to ISPs offering competing content and services.

Common carrier utility regulation appears a near certainty in 2015

Legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies have threated to sue the U.S. Federal Communications Commission if as expected the FCC follows President Barack Obama’s call to classify Internet services as a common carrier utility under Title II of the Communications Act. The incumbents hope the specter of prolonged litigation and uncertainty will give the FCC pause before it acts next month.

The problem for the incumbents however is even if they make good on the threat, it may not buy them the degree of uncertainty and delay they would like. Any litigation arising from the expected regulatory action by the FCC would likely be disposed of in relatively short order. The courts operate under a doctrine of judicial deference to how regulators interpret and apply statutory law such as the Communications Act. They are loath to put themselves in the place of regulators and second guess administrative rulemaking, reasoning the regulators and not the courts hold the requisite expertise when it comes to figuring out how to apply the finer points of statutory law. 

Possibly realizing this, the incumbents’ lobbying corps is implementing a backup strategy in Congress to amend the Communications Act to carve out Internet service on the grounds that it doesn’t function as a market monopoly – the underlying rationale for classifying it as a common carrier utility like telephone service. Demerits of that legislative rationale aside, that nascent effort also isn’t likely to be productive since even if passed it would face a likely presidential veto.

The outlook for 2015 is common carrier utility regulation of the Internet is coming and isn’t likely to be derailed.

Obama administration seeks public option for Internet infrastructure - The Washington Post

Obama wants to help make your Internet faster and cheaper. This is his plan. - The Washington Post: Frustrated over the number of Internet providers that are available to you? If so, you're like many who are limited to just a handful of broadband companies. But now President Obama wants to change that, arguing that choice and competition are lacking in the U.S. broadband market. On Wednesday, Obama will unveil a series of measures aimed at making high-speed Web connections cheaper and more widely available to millions of Americans. The announcement will focus chiefly on efforts by cities to build their own alternatives to major Internet providers such as Comcast, Verizon or AT&T — a public option for Internet access, you could say.

The public option is certainly needed given Internet telecommunications infrastructure is to the 21st century what roads and highways were to the 20th. Relying totally on commercial, investor-owned providers won't build that needed infrastructure. There simply isn't enough investment capital to get it done. And to get the choice and competition for Internet services the administration seeks, that infrastructure must be open access fiber to the premise, selling access on a wholesale basis to service providers who compete to offer services to businesses and consumers.

Like building the highways of the 20th century, that infrastructure won't come cheap. For the public option to become a reality rather than aspirational rhetoric, it will have to be backed with billions of dollars in funding to help regions of the United States build fiber to the premise Internet infrastructure on a par with telephone lines in the last century that served all Americans no matter where they made their homes or operated a business.

Story on CAF subsidies encapsulates much of what's wrong with U.S. telecom policy

This story on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's high cost infrastructure subsidy program, the Connect America Fund (CAF), encapsulates much of what's wrong with U.S. telecommunications policy.

CAF subsidizes technologically obsolete copper cable designed to serve a pre-Internet telecommunications system. Not only that, the telecom companies that would benefit from the CAF subsidies aren't grateful to get them and immediately put them to work. Instead, they bitch and moan as CenturyLink and Windstream do here.

Pathetic. It's no wonder other nations look at U.S. telecom policy and shake their heads.

Verizon exec: We'll continue to invest in FiOS and mobile wireless under Title II common carrier regulation

Verizon: Actually, strong net neutrality rules won’t affect our network investment - The Washington Post: Francis J. Shammo - EVP and CFO I mean to be real clear, I mean this does not influence the way we invest. I mean we're going to continue to invest in our networks and our platforms, both in Wireless and Wireline FiOS and where we need to. So nothing will influence that. I mean if you think about it, look, I mean we were born out of a highly regulated company, so we know how this operates. But related to this discussion around Net Neutrality, the FCC has the right to regulate under 765, they do not need to go to Title II, and why would you go to a 1930 piece of literature to try to regulate something that is a 21st-century technology.

This is newsworthly insofar as it signals that Verizon intends to end its 3-year-old moratorium on new fiber to the premise infrastructure CAPEX, even if the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) subjects Internet service providers to common carrier regulation under Title II of the Communications Act.

A common carrier mandate that providers serve all customers without discrimination would bar Verizon and other Internet service providers from their current practice of redlining neighborhoods and streets within their service territories. Under Title II, they'd have to invest in upgrading and building out their infrastructures to serve these areas, but on a faster schedule than they would like. That's why Verizon and other legacy incumbents plan to attempt to delay the mandate by taking the FCC to court if it adopts a Title II common carrier regulatory regime.

As to Shammo's reference to the 1930s when the Communications Act was first enacted, the law's common carrier requirements brought all Americans telephone service in the 20th century. There's nothing outdated about the principle of universal telecommunications service. It only needs updating to encompass IP-enabled telecommunications services in the 21st century.

Incumbent misapprehensions and myths: Time to get real

Fiber fight: Broadening broadband Gig City touted as model in broadband debate | Mobile TFP: In its filing with the FCC, AT&T notes that many municipal broadband networks never got off the drawing board, putting taxpayers are risk, while others have pre-empted private investment.

"Although many government owned networks (GONs) have failed, or at least failed to live up to expectations, GONs can nonetheless discourage private sector investment because of understandable concerns by private sector entities of a non-level playing field," AT&T attorney Christopher Meimann said.

A natural monopoly like telecommunications infrastructure cannot and will not ever be a "level playing field." Whoever is on the field holds a monopoly advantage. Incumbents have used that advantage to pick winners and losers by building Internet telecommunications infrastructure to serve some neighborhoods but not others.

"Any policy that risks diminishing private sector investment would be short-sighted and unwise."

AT&T wants incumbent, private telecom providers to have a "right of first refusal" to deploy high-speed broadband before a government utility starts such a competitive service.

It's entirely appropriate for government to construct telecommunications infrastructure given market forces alone cannot ensure all homes and businesses have access to modern fiber optic telecommunications service. Private sector investment has already been substantially diminished insofar as millions of U.S. premises remain unserved by landline-delivered Internet connections even under current U.S. "light touch" regulatory policy. 

Where service is not available, phone companies and cable providers suggest broadband can be subsidized through the FCC's Connect America Fund, which is targeted at the 18 million Americans living in rural areas with no access to robust broadband infrastructure.

In theory yes. But legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies have largely shunned the Connect America Fund subsidies because they are incompatible with their market segmentation strategies that concentrate their capital investment in high density, metro areas.

Section 706 of Telecom Act offers FCC little to address telecom infrastructure deficit

Net neutrality storm engulfs FCC - POLITICO: FCC officials are meeting with congressional staff this week as Wheeler tries to better explain the options on the table to industry players and the public interest community. Across those meetings, the FCC chairman and his aides haven’t tipped their hand about how they want to proceed, according to multiple sources. The officials have given a rundown of the various options, including adopting the utility-style regulation known as Title II, using a weaker authority known as Section 706 or some combination of the two — but failed to lay out a clear path forward, the sources said.

Section 706, found in Title VII (Miscellaneous Provisions) of the Communications Act, isn't really a mandate on telecommunications providers. Rather, it merely affords the Federal Communications Commission authority to issue rules creating incentives to remove barriers to telecommunications infrastructure investment and to promote competition.

The main barrier to wireline Internet infrastructure investment that according to the FCC has left about 19 million American homes without Internet connections is economic, not regulatory. The business models of investor-owned providers typically require relatively quick return on monies invested to build infrastructure. In less densely populated areas, there is greater risk that standard won't be met, extending out the time for investors to break even and begin generating profits. No FCC rulemaking can change those economics.

The FCC provides subsidies to help bridge the gap (the Connect America Fund), but providers have generally spurned them. Instead, they've concentrated capital investments in more densely populated and profitable parts of their service territories and in mobile wireless services.

As for removing barriers to competition, there is little the FCC can do within the existing market-based model for telecommunications service. That's because telecommunications infrastructure is a natural monopoly that due to high cost and risk barriers deters would be competitors from entering the market.

FCC Chair Wheeler faces either/or choice on Internet regulation; the baby can't be split.

Obama’s call for an open Internet puts him at odds with regulators - The Washington Post: Huddled in an FCC conference room Monday with officials from major Web companies, including Google, Yahoo and Etsy, agency Chairman Tom Wheeler said he has preferred a more nuanced solution. That approach would deliver some of what Obama wants but also would address the concerns of the companies that provide Internet access to millions of Americans, such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable and AT&T. “What you want is what everyone wants: an open Internet that doesn’t affect your business,” a visibly frustrated Wheeler said at the meeting, according to four people who attended. “What I’ve got to figure out is how to split the baby.”

It's natural given Tom Wheeler's background as a telecom lobbyist that he would look for some kind of deal or compromise that opposing parties in a contentious policy issue can live with. But that's not what President Obama -- who designated Wheeler as Federal Communications Commission chair -- had in mind when he issued a statement this week calling on the FCC to issue rules defining Internet service a common carrier telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act instead of a more narrowly offered, specialized information service under Title I of the statute. These are entirely different regulatory schemes that don't lend themselves to hybrid models. It's an either/or choice. The baby can't be split. Moreover, doing so will only create legal uncertainty and fuel litigation. Rather than satisfying various stakeholders, none will be happy and more inclined to turn to the courts for redress of their grievances, potentially creating years of regulatory uncertainty.

Judging from the millions of comments filed with the FCC on the question, it's eminently clear the public preference is for Title II common carrier regulation of Internet service providers. Which makes sense given the Internet is gradually replacing the role the telephone system served in the past: a universal communications system accessible to everyone regardless of their location and whether they received or placed calls. Even the legacy incumbent telephone companies agree, saying it doesn't make sense for them to have to adhere to regulations governing landline telephone service.

Bottom line at this point, this is now primarily a political and not a regulatory issue. As such, expect politics to come more sharply into play. If Wheeler can't bring himself to make a clear policy call for Title II, President Obama could end up designating another Democrat on the FCC to replace him as chair. Speaking of Democratic politicians, I expect former President Bill Clinton will weigh in siding with Obama, saying something like Title II was where he ultimately intended Internet regulation to go when he signed the 1996 Telecommunications Act into law, with Title I more of a transitional but not permanent regulatory scheme. His vice president, Al Gore, could also join the Title II juggernaut.

The view from South Korea: Incumbent protectionism hobbles U.S. Internet infrastructure

Now that the Internet is maturing to the point that it's the de facto global telecommunications system, the view of the United States -- the nation that innovated the Internet -- from the outside can be quite unflattering. Other developed nations watch as Americans struggle with high cost, low value service. Or no service at all as is the unfortunate circumstance for some 19 million U.S. homes, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

Why didn't the U.S. put in place policies and plans decades ago to ensure all American homes and businesses have fiber optic connections to the Internet? How did it lose its way? Sometimes when one is lost, they don't know it until someone else points out to them they're off course or wandering about.

A spokesman for South Korea's SK Broadband, which is preparing to introduce 10Gbps fiber service, provides an answer: protectionism of legacy telephone and cable companies that failed to put in place plans to transition to fiber infrastructure.

“In my travels to the United States, it is very plain they have lost their way in advancing broadband technology,” said Pyon Seo-Ju. “Internet access is terribly slow and expensive because American politicians have sacrificed Americas’s technology leadership to protect conglomerates and allow them to flourish. Although unfortunate for America, this has given Korea a chance to promote our own industry and enhance the success of companies like Samsung that are well-known in the United States today."

South Korea’s gigabit broadband woes should serve as object lesson for FCC regulators | Network World

South Korea’s gigabit broadband woes should serve as object lesson for FCC regulators | Network World: Private South Korean firms, notably KT (the former Korea Telecom), SK Telecom and the cable provider CJ Hellovision, became the principal participants in the gigabit project, with the government committing about 5 percent of the total estimated budget.

But by 2011, only a very small-scale 1Gbps pilot project with 1,500 households in five South Korean cities had been launched, all with government funding. None of the private firms could make a case for moving ahead, however, since they had not yet developed a business model to justify the scale of investment that the KCC had said would be necessary.

Three years passed without any indication of progress on the effort, leading many to believe that the plan had hit an impasse. Then in July 2014, Chairman Chang-gyu Hwang of KT, the dominant broadband provider in Korea, representing almost half of the country’s total broadband market share, called a press conference—an announcement that I hoped would be an encouraging milestone.

Chairman Hwang told those assembled that the company faced its first annual deficit in 2013 due to its sales declines in wired broadband, along with almost-flat growth in mobile subscribers. It was the worst time in the company’s history, one that he called a “devastating year of poor performance.” KT even had suspended new customer marketing for 45 days and asked 8,300 employees to voluntarily resign to help the company overcome this crisis.

The real object lesson here is commercial investment in high cost telecommunications infrastructure is fraught with substantial business risk. It's that business risk -- and not the risk of common carrier regulation as some such as this article warn -- that produces market failure that in the United States has left some 19 million homes and small businesses without wireline Internet access according to Federal Communications Commission estimates.

FCC chair signals end of “broadband” era and rise of FTTP

Sooner or later – more likely sooner – the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will recognize the irrelevance and futility of defining and subsidizing landline premise telecommunications infrastructure based on specified “broadband” download and upload speeds as Internet bandwidth demand growth tracks Moore’s Law for microprocessor processing power, doubling every 18-24 months.

Consequently, it will likely repurpose the mission of the FCC’s Connect America Fund (CAF) program created to subsidize infrastructure construction in high cost areas to instead help defray the cost of deploying fiber to the premise (FTTP) infrastructure in these areas. At the same time, the FCC could also realize that significantly greater funding will be needed to do the job than the $9 billion the CAF has budgeted for its second phase covering the period 2014-2019.

The FCC this year recognized that its current eligibility criterion for CAF subsidies is potentially outdated. It’s targeted to high cost areas where premises are not served by landline connections providing at least 4 Mbs down and 1 Mbs up. The FCC issued a notice of inquiry in August to take testimony as to whether that standard should be increased and modified to include latency as well as speed.

In prepared remarks delivered this week, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler suggested 25 Mbs should be considered the new minimum. He went on to observe that might also be too low and only a quarter of the throughput that Americans presently expect given their growing appetites for high definition streaming video and multiple connected devices in their homes and small businesses.

“Today, a majority of American homes have access to 100 Mbs,” Wheeler continued. “It is that kind of bandwidth that we should be pointing to as we move further into the 21st century. And while it’s good that a majority of American homes have access to 100 Mbs, it is not acceptable that more than 40 percent do not.”

Relative to high cost areas, Wheeler noted the FCC “will continue to establish requirements for our universal service programs, but beyond that, consumers are establishing their own expectations.” That recognition of end user needs represents a significant departure from existing policy where telecommunications providers and governments tell consumers in these areas what they should expect instead of the reverse. It’s also an implicit recognition that there should be a single standard and not a separate and lesser standard for high cost areas of the nation. Which makes sense given that core content providers and other services are tailored for a single standard of quality at the network edge.

Noting FTTP deployments in several metro areas of the U.S., Wheeler impliedly recognized FTTP infrastructure is replacing the speed-based “broadband” metal wire paradigm of the legacy telephone and cable companies. That model utilizes “bandwidth by the bucket,” speed-based pricing tiers based on the assumption that metal wire infrastructure has limited carrying capacity and that service must accordingly be rationed and priced based on demand.

Wheeler recognized with FTTP, that pricing model that irks many consumers faces obsolescence. “Once fiber is in place, its beauty is that throughput increases are largely a matter of upgrading the electronics at both ends, something that costs much less than laying new connections,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler also acknowledged that mobile wireless services cannot substitute for FTTP. “While LTE and LTE-A offer new potential, consumers have yet to see how these technologies will be used to offer fixed wireless service,” he said.