FCC and Congress! You gonna listen to Big Telecomm/Media? or US?
There’s a lot going on right now on the Telecomm/Big Media front.
Murdoch. Ugh. Don’t even wanna go there. I hope the FCC starts to do something about this manure. It stinks.
Harold Feld has a wrap up of the humongous heap of paper out of the FCC that documents the Spectrum Auction Rules. It’s a huge three parter, and gives us some reason for optimism, but the devil is always in the details, and commenting to the FCC on some of the problems will be necessary, notably with footnote n. 644 on anonymous bidding, which needs to be overturned, according to Harold. “. . . despite the fact that the Commission voted to adopt anonymous bidding, the Order has a lengthy footnote (n.644) trashing the Rose Report on the AWS auction. Even if the criticisms were just (which, as you might imagine, I think they are not, but I will leave it to Dr. Rose to explain why on his blog), it creates an enormous litigation risk for the FCC to trash the one piece of empirical evidence in support of a major policy change.”
Harold’s take on things:
700 mhz Spectrum Auction Rules Wrap Up, Part 1
700 mhz Spectrum Auction Rules Wrap Up, Part 2
700 mhz Spectrum Auction Rules Wrap Up, Part 3
I must mention here that not everyone thinks we got a win, and Harold does link to some dissenters from his viewpoint, being the even handed guy he is. But I think he’s right, since any wins we get in this are going to be incremental, and Anonymous Bidding is pretty damn big, especially given the evidence of Dr. Rose’s report and the buzz about Google teaming up with Sprint et al, which gives a whole new complexion to the possible outcome of this auction. However, I’ll also say that I have a wish for some fairy dust to sprinkle on the “dickishness” and blockheads who don’t get it.
But meanwhile Verizon is making more deregulation noises. To put this in perspective for you, in 1996 there was a little regulation called Local Loop Unbundling that was instituted in the ‘96 Telecomm Act that made the Telecomms sell wholesale access on their infrastructure, a concession the Telecomms put up with in exchange for billions of dollars in tax incentives they got to build out the broadband network. This LLU Regulation resulted in the blossoming of the internet, as ISPs came into being, and competition flourished. Ever since then though, Verizon, AT&T and the other Telecomms have been petitioning the FCC and courts for relief from this regulation, first by setting dsl resale rates so high it put the wholesale buyers out of business, then by seeking to override local loop unbundling in certain markets, a move they’ve accomplished in many areas of the country, which has resulted in the current scenario of little or no competition. Now Verizon wants more. It wants Local Loop Unbundling to be discontinued in some of their biggest markets, such as Boston, Providence, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Virginia Beach metropolitan areas.
Verizon keeps using the tired argument that they will not be able to recoup costs for building out the network if they have to sell service wholesale (which they have every incentive to build anyway in these low build cost concentrated population areas), at a cost, they say, that is less than it costs them. Funny how they don’t mention that they’ve already received BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to build that network which still isn’t built, the one they promised Congress to have in place within ten years (which would have been LAST YEAR.) And what have they spent that money on? Putting Ma Bell back together again, and lobbying Congress to give them relief from pesky regulations such as Net Neutrality and Municipal Franchising.
To further put this in perspective, Local Loop Unbundling is the regulation that has made countries like France such an incredible success at building out broadband. Customers in France pay approximately 40 bucks a month and get Open bidirectional broadband access at speeds up to 11 mbit/second (I’m lucky to get 5 one way) in a bundle INCLUDING voice calls, TV, and Wi-Fi. The burgeoning competition has been so successful that the startups that have been buying wholesale are now building their own FiOS networks WITHOUT ANY GOVERNMENT MONEY. Contrast that to the US duopoly that always has its hand out, builds/improves as little of the network as it can get away with, despite that tax relief, and only hates regulation when it cuts even a tiny bit into their HUGE profits. Cory Doctorow coined the term “Regulatory Whores” for the Telecomms. It fits.
I really HOPE that Senator Durbin and the others working on Telecomm Policy Reform in Congress start to understand that our current kowtowing to the Telecomms and Cable Companies has created a situation which, if it’s left the way it is, will ensure that the US becomes a backwater and a has-been in the digital age, and we’re already partway there since even countries like Sweden and South Korea are beating our butts in Broadband Buildout. Unfortunately I already know that Senator Specter is going to kiss the asses that fill his campaign coffers, Comcast and GE.
We really need to treat the internet like a dumb pipe and consider stopping these companies from trying to turn it into a “Push” media. I don’t want the company who is wiretapping me to tell me what I should be looking at (can we say Pearl Jam Censorship???) Only then will the internet and its surrounding economy flourish and produce more Googles, Ebays and Amazons.
Technorati Tags: 700 mhz Spectrum Auction Rules, Murdoch, Senator Durbin, Senator Specter, Verizon, Local Loop Unbundling, Pearl Jam, Net Neutrality
