FCC Chair Says Broadband Top Goal

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "FCC chairman Kevin Martin says 'his top goal is to increase Americans access to high-speed Internet,' the Wall Street Journal reports. 'Late last week, he began circulating plans to loosen rules so neither phone nor cable companies will be required to share their Internet connections with competitors like America Online, a change that essentially would create a duopoly in many local markets. He also embraces the idea that local governments should be allowed to offer wireless Internet services, at least in rural areas where some phone and cable companies balk at providing high-speed service.' The Journal also has a transcript of its interview with Martin, in which he discusses indecency and whether broadcast rules should also apply to satellite and cable."

Comments

Think of the Children

[BigZaphod]

The chairman says this: "Fundamentally, the government should be trying to provide tools for parents to help them control what's coming into their living rooms and what their kids are exposed to."

Why? Shouldn't the parents just not buy products that don't offer them the controls they want? All TVs and desktop computers I've encountered have an off switch and there's nothing the government can do to get people to use them. How are more switches, knobs, dials, control panels, etc. going to help anything?

Whatever.

[jpiggot]

Well, that's great Kevin. Glad to see you're loosening rules in order to reward billion dollar companies, whom I'm sure have my best interests at heart (cause, you know, they always have before...just look at how great the customer service for those cable monopolies worked out) And it's nice to see that you're taking a break from being a slave to a highly vocal minority that seeks to impose their quasi-religious views on what I watch in the privacy of my own home.

I also love his supposed problems with "blocking channel options" not being available to cable and satellite customers. What a non-issue to suck up to "concerned parent groups" I don't think I've seen a cable system since the '80s that didn't have some option on your cable box to block channels, and satellite always had it. God forbid parents should read the manual, or actually pay attention to what their children are watching.

What is the trade?

[rolfwind]

Unless some further regulation is attached, I don't see how promoting a duopoly is beneficial to the consumer.

Traditional U.S. government sanctioned monopolies attained their position by HAVING to provide service to the majority of consumer even in areas that would be a losing proposition (because of infrastructure versus population density) and having their prices set for them by a regulatory commission.

Will Verizon have to suddenly build more Central Offices (CO) or mini-CO's (so more people can get DSL) for the sake of this benefit? And what will Comcast trade in?

I fail to see how this helps anything but the big business.

The part of local government and wireless is cool, but at best this initiative will be sporadic or in big cities where getting broadband is less of a hassle.

Re:this doesn't make sence

[dgatwood]

It would help "broadband", which translates "help a handful of companies charge higher rates for worse service so that maybe those companies will have a financial incentive to deploy broadband more broadly." Bottom line: the FCC is now firmly in the pockets of the ILECs and the public had better get used to getting screwed, 'cause it's only going to get worse. Much, much worse.

There is exactly -one- way for the government to help broadband deployment: provide large block grants to communities for use in building up public communications infrastructure. The cities that have put in municipal fiber tend to be years ahead of neighboring communities in terms of broadband deployment, with lower costs for the user, better service, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the government should be in the telecommunications business. I just think it should own the infrastructure and lease it on fair and equal terms to private ISPs and LECs as the ILECs are currently forced to do. That would put everyone on equal footing (except the ILECs, but even then, largely so).

Re:nothing but hot air.

[hackstraw]

Disallow cities from forcing companies to pay extortion to them in "franchise fees"

In looking at my bills, there is a neatly itemized bill that is outside of all advertised pricing that says: "franchise fee".

So to me it seems like I am being extorted, not the poor company.

Now, lets wait until the FCC has fucked up the internet like phones and collects about 33% of the bill due to various FCC fees for the privilege of using the internet like I have for over 10 years already.

Why is it that gasoline filling stations are few of the companies out there that actually tell you up front how much something is going to cost (with a big sign visible to boot)? Everywhere else I go, I can expect to pay an additional 10 to 30 someodd percent additional on my bill for the things that the company "forgot" to put on the price.

Re:That's hardly the exclusive goal of government

[kurtu5]

From wikipedia on the War on Poverty;

The 'War on Poverty' was enacted in response to hard economic times which saw a poverty rate of around 25%. However, President Johnson's 'War on Poverty' speech was delivered at a time of recovery and some viewed it as an effort to get Congress to authorize social welfare programs. The poverty level had fallen from 22.4% in 1959 to 19% in 1964 when the War on Poverty was announced. Government officials are always poised just in time to take credit for things it did not create.

Here's an interesting idea for a study...

[Max Nugget]

Unless I'm mistaken all FCC complaint filings are available to the public, with name and address of the filer.

It would be interesting to interview each of these people, and get answers to the following questions:

1. What percentage of them actually pay attention to what their children watch and actively keep their kids from watching "bad" shows.

2. What percentage of them own TVs that include a V-Chip.

3. What percentage of those whose TVs have a V-Chip are actually making use of it. (!!!)

It would be a pretty sad statistic if, say, 60% of parents who have filed complaints say stuff like "I don't have time to monitor what my kids watch on the babysitter, uhh, I mean, the television!"

Far more damning would be the revelation that many parents filing complaints have V-Chips in their televisions and have never bothered activating and configuring them. Oh yes, that would be too much work, but when they walk by and see Fear Factor on TV and their jaw drops, they passionately write the FCC via the PTC's website.

Seriously, all this complaining about indecency aside, the V-Chip *IS* actually a pretty effective solution, as is the TV ratings system. Really the only problem I see is that some shows really push the boundaries of their ratings, but I rarely see FCC filings complaining simply about shows going beyond their ratings.

The problem is, many of these people writing in are simply outraged that everyone else's kids are watching this "smut," they want to usurp the authority of all the other parents out there, perhaps so that their kid doesn't grow up in a world where everyone around him is a whole lot smuttier than he/she is. A sympathetic but ultimately illegitimate and immoral goal.

Publically stated goals != unstated true goals

[Anonymous Coward]

"he began circulating plans to loosen rules so neither phone nor cable companies will be required to share their Internet connections with competitors like America Online,"

Exactly how is this in line with his stated goal of increasing broadband access his top priority?
Wouldn't this increase broadband prices, which in turn would cause FEWER homes to get broadband?

Obviously, he needs practice at spinning so that the publically stated goal and plans to achieve the unstated true goal doesn't make him look like a fool.

Sounding like a fool or making the unstated goal so damned obvious isn't the best way to repay campaign contributors who helped his boss get elected.

Anyone care to show the specifics players by digging up specifics and crafting a link to http://www.opensecrets.org/ ?

Better yet, I'd love to see a website that basically documents publically stated objectives, subsequent actions, and link them to the campaign contributors while refraining from opinions or accusations. The facts alone would make things crystal clear to the general public. Everything published would have to be verifiable of course so that it would stand up to scrutiny.

For example, a neat table showing the following would be particularly useful in countering spin:

Appointed or Elected official
Appointed by (if any)
Primary campaign contributors
Publically stated goals
Actual actions taken
Quantificable impact of actions on campaign contributors
Quantifiable impact of actions on other Americans

Re:Going Backwards

[Sentry21]

Bellsouth had DSL capability for years but releasing to the home user would have cannibalized their business T1 subscriptions.

Pacific Bell tried another tactic - 128k up, 32k down for $39.99/mo, 512k up, 64k down for I think something like $79.99, and 1.5m down, 128k up for a ridiculous $249.99. I compared this to prices for DSL service from Telus, right next door to Pacific Bell (across the Washington/BC border), and found that Telus's prime offering - 1.5m down, 512k up - was a mere $39.99 as well - in Canadian dollars.

I say to the FCC, prevent these companies from stopping other projects, like municipal Wi-Fi, municipal FTTH, etc. These companies refuse to set up these services, which are in high demand, but they want to prevent other entities from doing it too, because then if they ever got around to caring about that market, it would be too bad.

Make the big conglomerates stop jerking people around, and maybe your country's broadband situation will stop being as depressing as it is.