FCC issues Notice of Inquiry into US broadband market

Will the FCC finally face up to the reality of US broadband? At least they’re even looking into it. After years of pretending that the US broadband market is a cheery place for consumers, the FCC has issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) in an effort to understand the behavior of US broadband market participants — ISPs, backbone providers, content and application service providers, and others. They are also asking for comments on pricing practices. Harold Feld has written an excellent piece on the FCC’s broadband practices NOI.Will the FCC finally face up to the reality of US broadband? At least they’re even looking into it. After years of pretending that the US broadband market is a cheery place for consumers, the FCC has issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) in an effort to understand the behavior of US broadband market participants — ISPs, backbone providers, content and application service providers, and others. They are also asking for comments on pricing practices. Harold Feld has written an excellent piece on the FCC’s broadband practices NOI. Here is an excerpt:

Section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to make sure that deployment of “advanced telecommunications capabilities” are deployed to “all Americans” in a “timely fashion.” If not, Congress orders the FCC to take “immediate action” to “accelerate deployment.” When the FCC did its first Section 706 Inquiry in 1998, it defined “advanced telecommuniations capabilities” and broadband networks capable of 200 kbps in either direction. It has stuck to that definition, with the occasional minor tweak to make sure the answer keeps coming out positive, ever since. To further stack the deck, the FCC only looks to whether a broadband provider has a customer in a zip code. If a provider serves one customer in a zip code, that entire zip code is considered served. Using this definition, the FCC continues to find a happy world of robust broadband competition available to all Americans, and it should therefore continue its highly successful policy of giving incumbents everything they ask for. Unsurprisingly, people who care about the impact of crappy broadband on our economic viability as a country, or who for other reasons like the idea of all Americans getting high-speed internet access, find the FCC’s speed criteria and use of zip code to measure availability of competition inaccurate.

Read the rest of Harold’s post which contains links to other interesting articles on this subject.

Then, download the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry and respond. Comments are due June 15, with replies due July 16.

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