AT&T miscasts telecom infrastructure as competitive market requiring level playing field

AT&T GigaPower Ready to RSVP | Light Reading: AT&T has been known for taking action, politically and in the courts, to fight municipalities that want to build and operate their own networks, but Harrison insisted her company does not oppose government-owned networks. "We only want to have a level playing field for all competitors, so everyone works by the same rules and regulations," she said. That means a municipality can't favor its own network when it comes to using public rights of way or issuing permits in a more timely fashion.

Translated, that means we (AT&T) want to control the rules on our terms, not the public's. That's an overreach on AT&T's part. The government and the private sector are not equal partners and cannot be because unlike a private company, the government is obligated to act in the public interest. If the government wants to provide telecommunications as a common carrier utility consistent with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet rules (and accordingly serve all properties unlike AT&T's rampant redlining and cherry picking), it can do so regardless of what AT&T or any other legacy incumbent desires.

Finally, AT&T as a monopoly market player knows better than to cast telecommunications infrastructure as a competitive market of many sellers where a level playing field is necessary to ensure fair competition. It is not.

Service Unavailable: The Failure of Competition - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 196 | community broadband networks

Service Unavailable: The Failure of Competition - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 196 | community broadband networks: If you are paying close attention to discussions about broadband policy, you may have come across Fred Pilot's reminders that competition is not a cure-all for our Internet access woes across the United States. The blogger and author joins us for episode 196 of Community Broadband Bits.

Fred Pilot's new book, Service Unavailable: America's Telecommunications Infrastructure Crisis, discusses some of the history behind our current challenges and proposes a solution centered around federal funding and cooperatives.

We discuss the switch from telecommunications as a regulated utility, to which everyone was guaranteed access, to a system relying on competition, in which some people have many choices but others have no options. We also discuss the merits of a national solution vs encouraging more local approaches with federal financial assistance.

Christopher Mitchell interviews me for his Community Broadband Networks podcast. Give it a listen.

Barring ambitious federal program, state & local government P3s with legacy providers not a solution for U.S. telecom infrastructure deficits

CenturyLink, Frontier and TDS mull public, private fiber network partnerships - FierceTelecom: CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), Frontier Communications and TDS are amongst a growing group of service providers that are considering partnering with local communities to build out and upgrade their networks to support higher speed residential and business services. Jennifer M. Fritzsche, senior analyst for Telecommunication Services - Wireless/Wireline at Wells Fargo, said that while CenturyLink, Frontier and TDS are looking at working with local communities, the one remaining barrier is who will oversee and operate these networks.

Actually, the bigger -- and biggest barrier -- is funding. These legacy players lack business models to generate adequate funding to build out fiber to the premise infrastructure serving all premises within their service territories within a reasonable time frame. But so do state and local governments. Especially as they continue to cope with the aftermath of the Great Recession and many competing needs for public funding such as deteriorated roads and highways and other infrastructure and enormous public pension obligations.

Some local governments and particularly those with pre-existing telecom or electric power infrastructure such as those mentioned in this article are the sole viable candidates for these P3 arrangements. That could change if the federal government launched an ambitious program appropriating the many billions needed to ensure every American home, business and institution has a fiber connection.

Affordability only part of the solution to #homeworkgap; lifeline goes hand in hand with universal service

Boost the homework connection - Times Union: But more can be done. For starters, on Thursday, the FCC is expected to vote on a proposal to modernize a program called Lifeline. Lifeline began more than three decades ago, when President Ronald Reagan was in the White House and rotary phones were still in style. Then and now, this program provides a discount for basic phone service. But broadband is the essential technology of our time. So it's time for the FCC to take steps to make this program broadband-capable and use it to help close the homework gap.

It should be recalled that when lifeline was implemented in 1985, the United States had achieved universal or near universal access for telephone service. Unlike today when according to the FCC's figures released earlier this year, 34 million Americans are unable to obtain telecommunications service capable of delivering high-quality voice, data, graphics and video.

Universal service is an essential component and not separate and distinct from lifeline subsidies for low income households. Another difference from 1985 is telephone service rates were tightly regulated in order to keep them affordable, unlike Internet service today. Notwithstanding the fact the FCC classified Internet service as a common carrier telecommunications utility in 2015 with its Open Internet rulemaking. Prices will naturally tend to be unaffordable for low income households in a price unregulated natural monopoly market.

Why the privatized, vertically integrated business model of telecom produces market failure and disparate access

Australian telecom strategist Malcolm Moore posted in a LinkedIn discussion forum one of the best and most succinct explanations I've read of why market failure and disparate access results from regarding telecommunications infrastructure as privately held, vertically integrated and highly localized service. According to Moore, this is a "diametrically incorrect business model for infrastructure (that) focuses on every wrong economic aspect." Moore adds its widespread adoption explains why fiber to the premise technology "was developed about 20 years ago but never rolled out."

Moore elaborates on the economics and makes a case for policymakers to regard telecommunications as essential public infrastructure and to stop thinking of it as a private "broadband" service offering:

The primary focus of (privately held telecom infrastructure) is very short term maximised ROI (minimised service delivery, maximised end user cost) - perfect for retail reselling / product bundling.

For Infrastructure Business: e.g. Telecomms / FTTP / Mobiles, Electricity Power Stations / Distribution, Transport / Roads / Rail / Ports, etc., the primary focus is long-term, minimum cost, maximised service delivery.

Why states fall short, kick the can on telecom infrastructure modernization

Minnesota to Expand Its Broadband Grant Program: Broadband Internet access has been one of the main policy discussions in Minnesota for the past few years. Governor Dayton’s Broadband Task Force has recommended the state use public dollars to jumpstart broadband infrastructure investment. For FY2016-2017, Governor Dayton and Lt. Governor Smith propose a $100 million in their supplemental budget for this issue, while the Minnesota House’s bill proposes $35 million.

Back in 2010, Minnesota set its broadband development goal: that every resident and business have access to high-speed broadband with minimum download speeds of ten to 20 megabits per second and minimum upload speeds of five to ten megabits per second by 2015 at the latest. As we recently reported, the state failed to achieve its goal, but recently updated its goal to match the FCC’s latest definition of broadband Internet with minimum download speed of 25 megabits per second and minimum upload speed of three megabits per second.

This item points up the futility of state "broadband" initiatives. Instead of setting an infrastructure-based goal of universal service, they use throughput speeds as a benchmark. In doing so, they fall into the speed trap set by the incumbents who've framed the issue of modern telecommunications service as being all about "broadband speeds." That promotes a "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" and "what's fast enough?" debate that by cynical design shifts the focus away from infrastructure. Then when the "broadband speed" goal isn't met, states kick the can and set a new "broadband speed" goal.

Why do states end up kicking the can? Because they are endeavoring to build the 21st century's information highways that cost billions with mere millions -- and without the federal funding that was available for the blacktops and interstates of the 20th century. “This is not a million-dollar problem," Fletcher Kittredge, CEO of Maine's Great Works Internet astutely observed in 2015. "It is far larger.”

Local government Internet infrastructure efforts spurred by FCC's non-enforcement of Title II, encourgement of "competition"

EPB Lays Out Plans To Provide All Of Bradley County With High-Speed Internet, TV Service; Cost Is Up To $60 Million - Chattanoogan.com: State Rep. Dan Howell, the former executive assistant to the county mayor of Bradley County, was in attendance and called broadband a “necessity” as he offered his full support to helping EPB, as did Tennessee State Senator Todd Gardenhire. “We can finally get something done,” Senator Gardenhire said. “The major carriers, Charter, Comcast and AT&T, have an exclusive right to the area and they haven’t done anything about it.”

The "exclusive right" mentioned here isn't generally a government-granted or regulated license or franchise to offer Internet service. It's actually a de facto duopoly market of legacy telephone and cable companies. Title II of the federal Communications Act recognizes that telecommunications infrastructure due to its high cost of construction and operation tends to function as a natural monopoly. In accordance with this, the Federal Communications Commission classified Internet as a telecommunications utility under Title II by adopting its Open Internet rules in 2015. But the FCC is currently not enforcing the universal service and anti-redlining provisions of Title II.

It's therefore unsurprising that barring such enforcement, local governments will attempt to fill in the gaps in unserved or poorly served areas in response to their citizens' complaints. When those living and operating businesses in landline unserved areas attempt to order Internet service, without FCC enforcement of Title II the incumbent telephone and cable companies can summarily turn them down without consequence. That leaves them little recourse other than to demand their local elected officials do something to help. The FCC's non-enforcement of these Title II provisions correlates with its current policy position advocating local government "competition" with incumbent telcos and cablecos -- in conflict with its Open Internet rules predicated on a monopolistic and non-competitive market.

Another year, another U.S. "broadband" conference & same conclusion: Great need for fiber infrastructure -- but no funding

Mayor Murray: Municipal broadband too costly; public-private deal is way to go | The Seattle Times: The best way to expand Internet access in Seattle is through public-private partnerships, (Seattle) Mayor Ed Murray said at a regional broadband conference Monday. The mayor reiterated the position he formed after a city-commissioned study released last summer showed it would cost between $480 million and $665 million to build out a municipal-broadband network across the city. That price tag is less than previously estimated, but the mayor said it was still too much to be feasible.
“When I came into office, I was very excited about the possibility of municipal broadband until the study came back and indicated it would be literally the largest tax increase in Seattle,” Murray said Monday at the conference, co-hosted by the nonprofit Next Century Cities and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

And so it goes across the United States as it has at these "broadband" confabs for the past decade like a never ending season of Seinfeld reruns. Municipalities can't ante up their own dollars to build telecommunications infrastructure, particularly with so many other needs such as transportation infrastructure, public buildings and skyrocketing employee pension obligations all competing for big bucks. Don't look to the states either. They're dealing with similar financial challenges on a larger scale in the slow economic recovery in the years since the 2008 recession. Billions of dollars are needed to fund America's long overdue replacement of its legacy metallic telecom infrastructure with fiber -- now a generation late. Only the federal government can step up with that level of funding. But don't expect much from the current federal government as the Seattle Times story reports:

The federal government did finance about 230 broadband projects nationwide through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Those funds are now spent, but municipalities can apply for smaller grants through other federal agencies, said Lawrence E. Strickling,assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information.
Strickling said Monday the federal government helps municipalities by providing guides to funding and other technical expertise.