USTelecom makes case for Title II common carrier regulation of Internet

Consumers Continue Shift Away From Landline – Regulations Are Behind | USTelecom

This telecom industry article helps make the case for regulating consumer Internet services as common carrier telecommunications services under Title II of the Communications Act. As the article notes, the existing common carrier regulations are designed for a bygone era of analog voice telephone service delivered over copper that is becoming increasingly outdated as landline technology shifts to fiber optic that can deliver voice and other services using Internet transmission protocols.

Administration’s “broadband” push window dressing

Always something happening and nothing going on
There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot
-- John Lennon, Nobody Told Me

The Obama administration’s PR initiative this week on U.S. telecommunications infrastructure deficiencies is largely window dressing and will likely mean the wired network that Americans have today for their home and small business Internet connection is likely the same one they’ll have for the foreseeable. This prediction was made in 2012 by former U.S Federal Communications Commission official Blair Levin and continues to hold true in 2015:

"For the first time since American ingenuity birthed the commercial Internet, we do not have a single national wireline provider with plans (real plans, not “fiber to the press release”) to deploy a better network. For most Americans, five years from now, the best network available to them will be the same network they have today."

The reason is the same as in 2012: insufficient available capital. Building Internet infrastructure to serve homes and businesses is a high cost endeavor. Those high costs have produced market failure on the supply side as the administration acknowledges, noting in this fact sheet that three of four Americans lack networks providing a level of service increasingly required for many online services. “Rarely is the problem a lack of demand — too often, it is the capital costs of building out broadband infrastructure…”

The administration is correct that local governments will have to play a major role in meeting the Internet infrastructure needs of their residents, infrastructure many argue is as critical in the 21^st century as roads and highways were in the 20^th. But it has no meaningful plan to help these localities finance infrastructure construction beyond highly limited and restricted funding available through existing grant and loan programs directed to rural areas of the nation that are only a drop in the bucket relative to the many billions of dollars needed.

In fairness to the administration, even it if did have a plan, it would face difficult odds getting Congress to appropriate the necessary funding. That has left the administration with little to offer in the way of tangible economic assistance. The administration is relaunching its BroadbandUSA website, where among other things it will offer “funding leads” for financing infrastructure construction. Given the lack of needed dollars, the administration has also been reduced to talking points that unfortunately won’t do anything to build last mile fiber to the premise infrastructure including:

• Increasing “competition.” (Sounds great, but ignores the fact that telecommunications infrastructure is a natural monopoly, not a competitive consumer market like groceries, vehicles and air travel. It also undermines Obama's position that Internet should be regulated under Title II telecommunications common carrier rules that are predicated on a monopoly market.)
• Enforcing “net neutrality” rules on Internet service providers. (A wonky term that doesn’t mean anything to consumers with subpar or no wired Internet service options).

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.

Net neutrality takes new twist as Congress appears ready to step in - CNET

Net neutrality takes new twist as Congress appears ready to step in - CNET: Large broadband providers, such as AT&T and Verizon, say that reclassifying broadband as a utility will stifle innovation by imposing antiquated telecommunications regulations. 

The innovation argument is a canard. Fiber optic technology had been around for decades. The challenge isn't technological but rather one based in economics and policy so that fiber is as ubiquitous as copper telephone cable was in the pre-Internet era.

Some consumer advocates and content companies, such as Netflix, say reclassifying broadband services as utilities is the only way to ensure that the Internet will give equal treatment to content and sites.

Net neutrality alone won't ensure equal access to the Internet's core content. Title II classification of Internet services must also ensure all U.S. homes and businesses at the network edge have access to those services -- something they don't currently have given the nation's checkerboard of the limited "footprints" of incumbent telephone and cable providers that serve some areas but leave many others unserved.

The number of Americans lacking broadband could soon go up. That’s a good thing. - The Washington Post

The number of Americans lacking broadband could soon go up. That’s a good thing. - The Washington Post: Virtually overnight, nearly 1 in 5 Americans would no longer be served by what the government considers adequate Internet, according to the FCC. That's 55 million Americans, up from an estimated 13.8 million that lack access under the current definition of broadband, according to a forthcoming FCC report.

But that may be a good thing — a recognition of the way technology has improved over time and a sign the government is finally catching up.

Sorry Mr. Fung of The Washington Post. It's not a good thing. It's an embarrassment. The United States should have had plans and processes in place in the early 1990s to build fiber optic telecommunications infrastructure to serve all Americans regardless of where they make their homes, work or receive education and healthcare services. It was clear by then that telecommunications were going digital and that fiber would be the necessary delivery infrastructure.

Now in 2015 the U.S. and regulators are still using 1990s terms like "broadband" and engaged in a losing game of catch up, chasing after Internet bandwidth demand that's increasing so quickly that by the time regulators issue their latest definition of "broadband," it's already fast headed toward obsolescence.

FCC pronouncements on Internet adequacy won't address U.S. telecom infrastructure deficit

Only 25Mbps and up will qualify as broadband under new FCC definition | Ars Technica: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler today is proposing to raise the definition of broadband from 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream to 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

As part of the Annual Broadband Progress Report mandated by Congress, the Federal Communications Commission has to determine whether broadband “is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” The FCC’s latest report, circulated by Wheeler in draft form to fellow commissioners, “finds that broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, especially in rural areas, on Tribal lands, and in US Territories,” according to a fact sheet the FCC provided to Ars.

Unless the U.S. Federal Communications Commission under Wheeler's chairmanship decides this year to reclassify Internet service as a common carrier utility that like telephone service must be offered to all premises that request it, the FCC will find itself issuing similar findings next year and every year thereafter.

Blair Levin, who served as chief of staff to one of Wheeler's FCC predecessors, Reed Hundt, predicted in 2012 that for the foreseeable, the best wireline network available to most Americans will be the same one they had then. Nearly three years later, that will remain the case regardless of any FCC pronouncements of what constitutes adequate Internet service and whether Internet infrastructure is being deployed in a timely manner -- lacking meaningful action.