Coalition seeks legislation mandating universal access

I’m still amazed how many very intelligent people believe we have an unregulated access market in America. The reality is, we have a lightly regulated, government sanctioned duopoly. This duopoly was created and is maintained by the best politicians that the duopoly’s money can buy.

A group that includes many notable innovators and founders of the internet (sans internet creator Al Gore) is calling for a coherent national broadband policy. This is good.Such a policy will probably require an act of Congress. This is bad. That means the same politicians who have propped up the duopoly will craft the new policy. If you think that’s a good idea, look at the poor level of rural telecom and electric service that we continue to subsidize decades after construction was completed. These same rural areas are at the top of the coalition’s list to serve.

They announced InternetforEveryone.org during the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City Tuesday. The group said it would bring together Internet users, content creators, and innovators to make universal, affordable, high-speed access a national priority. 

Some of them, including Stanford Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, Columbia professor and author, Timothy Wu, Google VP and Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, and FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, already are on board and attended the launch. The group — announced by Free Press and supported by many of that organization’s members — said that high-speed Internet is a necessity, not a luxury, for education, the economy, free speech, and America’s ability to lead.

Their goal is “to see that every American gets connected to a fast, affordable, and open Internet.” They called it a “basic right” that should be afforded to all Americans. (Information Week)

Should a minimum service level be established as policy? You bet. The FCC should do as much of this as their charter allows. If left to entirely to Congress we’ll likely end up with a Stalinist style central planning bureau with plenty of new taxes that will feed the duopoly monster.

I make no claim to have all of the best solutions, but here are a few.

1) A minimum level of service should be established at a reasonable price. This should require no new subsidies if any subsidy if correctly crafted. Rural Telcos already have access to federal funds for broadband. If you take advantage of a monopoly franchise, you agree to serve all. This means rural telcos will have a lower return on investment for some customers, but they will still essentially have a monopoly. It goes with the territory. You buy the ranch, you get the wolves who live there and it’s your problem to solve.

1) A contest between two players is not a competitive arena, it’s a fixed game. Incumbent carriers should be required to offer local loop sharing and wholesale access to any address that is not served by  at least 5 competing primary access providers (not resellers). With the need for fiber overbuild along with two flavors of wireless, that should be doable even without BPL. Until then, we need to get competition going in the current infrastructure. Telecoms in France, Japan, UK, and Korea are making platy of money wholesaling as well as retailing, so there’s no reason why it won’t work here too. As a last resort, municipalities should be able to build their own fiber loops without duopoly interference.

3) Permanently ban any tax on internet access. This is government putting a little skin in the game of keeping prices low, and will discourage sweetheart subsidies for duopolies.

4) Impose a limit to how much spectrum a single entity can lease, and make new leases for a shorter term with more potential for turnover to new players. Remember that spectrum belongs to the public and the carriers are tenants, not landlords.

5) Create more unlicensed spectrum for broadband use. The current white spaces proposal is an example of one possibility. The NAB does not have exclusive rights to keep unused frequencies empty. See point #4.

6) Encourage new competition and investment with tax abatement and requirements for access to right of ways. A third pipe would be great for competition. Five pipes would be better.

And what about Al Gore?  We’ve heard rumors that he’s hard at work to protect the human race from another threat. You can learn more here.