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FCC Undoing Rules That Make It Easier For Small ISPs To Compete With Big Telecom (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The Federal Communications Commission is currently considering a rule change that would alter how it doles out licenses for wireless spectrum. These changes would make it easier and more affordable for Big Telecom to scoop up licenses, while making it almost impossible for small, local wireless ISPs to compete. The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum is the rather earnest name for a chunk of spectrum that the federal government licenses out to businesses. It covers 3550-3700 MHz, which is considered a "midband" spectrum. It can get complicated, but it helps to think of it how radio channels work: There are specific channels that can be used to broadcast, and companies buy the license to broadcast over that particular channel. The FCC will be auctioning off licenses for the CBRS, and many local wireless ISPs -- internet service providers that use wireless signal, rather than cables, to connect customers to the internet -- have been hoping to buy licenses to make it easier to reach their most remote customers.
The CBRS spectrum was designed for Navy radar, and when it was opened up for auction, the traditional model favored Big Telecom cell phone service providers. That's because the spectrum would be auctioned off in pieces that were too big for smaller companies to afford -- and covered more area than they needed to serve their customers. But in 2015, under the Obama administration, the FCC changed the rules for how the CBRS spectrum would be divvied up, allowing companies to bid on the spectrum for a much smaller area of land. Just as these changes were being finalized this past fall, Trump's FCC proposed going back to the old method. This would work out well for Big Telecom, which would want larger swaths of coverage anyway, and would have the added bonus of being able to price out smaller competitors (because the larger areas of coverage will inherently cost more.) As for why the FCC is even considering this? You can blame T-Mobile. "According to the agency's proposal, because T-Mobile and CTIA, a trade group that represents all major cellphone providers, 'ask[ed] the Commission to reexamine several of the [...] licensing rules,'" reports Motherboard. The proposal reads: "Licensing on a census tract-basis -- which could result in over 500,000 [licenses] -- will be challenging for Administrators, the Commission, and licensees to manage, and will create unnecessary interference risks due to the large number of border areas that will need to be managed and maintained."
The CBRS spectrum was designed for Navy radar, and when it was opened up for auction, the traditional model favored Big Telecom cell phone service providers. That's because the spectrum would be auctioned off in pieces that were too big for smaller companies to afford -- and covered more area than they needed to serve their customers. But in 2015, under the Obama administration, the FCC changed the rules for how the CBRS spectrum would be divvied up, allowing companies to bid on the spectrum for a much smaller area of land. Just as these changes were being finalized this past fall, Trump's FCC proposed going back to the old method. This would work out well for Big Telecom, which would want larger swaths of coverage anyway, and would have the added bonus of being able to price out smaller competitors (because the larger areas of coverage will inherently cost more.) As for why the FCC is even considering this? You can blame T-Mobile. "According to the agency's proposal, because T-Mobile and CTIA, a trade group that represents all major cellphone providers, 'ask[ed] the Commission to reexamine several of the [...] licensing rules,'" reports Motherboard. The proposal reads: "Licensing on a census tract-basis -- which could result in over 500,000 [licenses] -- will be challenging for Administrators, the Commission, and licensees to manage, and will create unnecessary interference risks due to the large number of border areas that will need to be managed and maintained."
No driving from city to city and changing to smaller more expensive networks.
No fees to access another small network in the USA simply for enjoying the freedom to move around the USA.
Stay with your existing plan all over the USA as your brand will finally be able to get access to all of the USA.
No more very local monopolies that gathered up all the local spectrum keeping out other brands from all over the USA.
Enjoy your bands support, pricing and quality of service all over the USA. No more unexpected payments demanded from local monopolies to connect in their state, city.
Wireless spectrum was to allow innovative communications services all over the USA. Not to be small local monopolies that demand connection payments as they got granted the ability to be the only network in that part of the USA.
Enjoy the freedom to travel all over the USA with your own trusted telco plan. No more strange costs just for making a call in California or New Jersey because someone local got all the spectrum and kept it so they could get extra payments for people trying to make a call.
Soon your trusted telco brand will be available all over the USA at the same easy to understand rates. Enjoy making calls and using data all over the USA without local monopolies adding their extra data costs.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Falls all under the category of "more is never enough", "you can fool a lot of people this is good for them and succeed", "you owe the one's helping you out to do what is good for them"
Also called late capitalism or bribery solidly implemented corrupting a lot of minds...
It's happening for a while - 10/20/50 years or more and developing....
T-Mobile asks the FCC to re-examine the proposal because it "will be challenging for Administrators, the Commission, and licensees to manage". In other words, hey guys, do you realize how much fucking work this is going to be for you? Are you sure you don't want to see it our way?
While this is clearly a case of small providers being shut out if they want to stay small, the reality is that for the market and capability upgrades to work, you need the money to invest in the infrastructure to make it work, and that means real money. Shoestring WISPs need to decide if they want to be big, or they want to be gone. There is nothing to prevent a group of small providers to work together to make a bid that will cover a large geographic area.
The title says that licensing new spectrum (with a bias to "Big Telecom") will make it harder for small ISPs to compete.
First, how would "small ISPs" actually use the newly licensed spectrum if they did get authorization? Would they buy the new access points that magically appear to use this spectrum? Are the big equipment producers in WIFI even interested in licensed spectrum? I think these are material questions.
My conclusion is that this is just another spectrum lottery, and the end result is noone is harmed and very few benefit.
A dingo ate my sig...
I can't wait for all those companies to merge and become the Omni Consumer Products corporation. Only then will we enjoy all the great products and services we deserve.
lucm, indeed.
This has every to do with the head of the FCC being a former manager at Verizon and using the FCC to gain future employment. He had the nerve to argue that the NN regulations hurt small business when in fact they did the exact opposite. He's in this to make his next job a high power executive position at one of the major telecoms. He doesn't care about any small business or any consumer, all he cares about is empowering the large teleco's to wipe out competition and be able to toll the connections of their customers to extort money out of Internet businesses. That's it.
Trump didn't drain the swamp, he pumped an extra million gallons into it giving industry direct control over the government. Hell he proposed fuel requirements for power plants as a way to make all rate payer pay more to support coal which is no longer the cheapest source of power (that's wind, and solar is right behind wind with both cheaper than coal by a significant percentage) these days even with all the subsidies coal gets. Rolling back regulations that advantage small businesses would be the next step in corporate control over government and the head of the FCC that Trump put in position is just the man to do it.
Not too dense to spell dense correctly.
Going by your question, it shouldn't. That's the point. Imagine if land was sold in 10,000 acre plots. Only millionaires and billionaires could own it, and then everyone would have to rent from them to live, and abide by whatever rules they imposed on that land. The smaller ISPs who serve a rural community or fill in a market gap can't use the spectrum at acution here, whether or not T-Mobile uses it, since it will be the only one who has a license to use it (since it's the only one who can afford to use it). By making the plots small, anyone could afford to use it (yes, even the billionaires).
We are so doomed
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Counterpoint. Imagine if land were only sold in 100 sq meter plots, and your as whole neighbor doesn't keep his dog's fenced. Census tracts make absolutely no sense from an RF LOS perspective. This was a deliberate effort to give a handout to people poaching small chunks to screw everybody trying to put together a reasonable chunk of geography.
Remember things like this when congress people say "Small business is the backbone of America" ... then proceed to weaken their "backbone" every chance they get. Yes I realized the FCC is not congress, but the principle still applies.
Re If these small ISP's cant compete then why should they be in business?
Back in the early days of communications networks a local person got the spectrum and set up a wireless internet company selling bandwidth in that area.
The next generation of owners just expected that wealth to keep flowing and no competition to enter their part of the USA as they had the spectrum.
So they expect that the idea of presenting as "small ISP"s" will keep new competition out.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Your asshole neighbour who's dog isn't fenced would be violating their license to occupy and be fined or evicted.
Not to be confused with the Australian CBRS (Citizen Band Radio Service).
Everyone is subject to the same laws regardless of how much money they have.
Yes. It's equally illegal for the billionaire and the pauper to sleep under a bridge.
That is how a fucking free market works.
I'm a big fan of the free market, and I have to say it seems like you don't know the first thing about how it works.
Politicians say bullshit they don't believe in order to get us to vote them into office. Neo-cons used to pull this small business shit with us in the 80's and 90's, but then tore the grants and small business loan programs out of our hands. Probably because single mothers and people of color were getting into programs originally intended for white male breadwinners of nuclear families.
Second, this has nothing to do with cell phones, so the comment about how someone's phone doesn't cover this band and there will be no phone that do is irrelevant.
Third, it is under consideration, not a done deal. The headline is flamebait -- "FCC Undoing" is wrong. They might.
And fourth, yes, licensing small areas creates a lot more work for everyone involved than licenses for large areas. It's called "coordination", and the work goes up exponentially with the number of parties that need to be coordinated. Someone has to make sure that the licensee for Backwater, IA doesn't interfere with the licensee for South Backwater, IA. That's harder than telling T-Mobile in IA not to interfere with AT&T in the next state over.
All of that doesn't mean I support the change. It's just not that earth shattering to begin with.
If you havent seen a mention for months, youre either a liar, or you never read the threads you post in.
Republicans have only fixed it so their rich friends get richer, and the environment gets more damaged.
That you can say anything good about this clusterfuck of ineptitude reveals just how incredibly deluded you are.
As for Hillarys so called federal offence, its just another delusional fabrication of the right, who are so scared of her, they have continually made plainly insane allegations for 20 odd and provided no proof at all, other than the ranting of nut jobs, despite investigations by republicans, still nothing.
You really are a dumb sad ass bastard.
All the republicans have done is the same thing they've been trying to do for 40 years now... destroy the federal government. It takes someone especially stupid not to see what's going on, but then, that pretty much describes the dipshit head-up-ass fascists that they GOP has become.
And to make it real simple for you... while you may think what Hillary did was a crime, the people who are actually responsible for making that decision didn't... so your opinion is either uneducated, ignorant, or just a whiny little lie to make yourself feel better.... although in your case, i'd probably go with all three of those.
To answer acrimonious howard's question.. it's because there's a dedicated little group of neo-nazi's and fascist on this site that toe the fascist conservative line, and down vote anything that remotely resembles reality.... or are apologists there of.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
If you havent seen a mention for months, youre either a liar, or you never read the threads you post in.
I read all the threads I post in, find a link that mentions it.
Republicans have only fixed it so their rich friends get richer,
Wrong - the rich in CA and NY are getting poorer after the tax bill passed, as they can no longer deduct state taxes. I see they are furiously trying to get out of that...
The poor however, get bonuses from many companies they work at, and will see paycheck increases EVERY MONTH from now on and have a lower tax bill in the end.
As for the environment getting more damaged - you just don't understand how people work. The better off a country is economically, the better they care for the environment.
That you can say anything good about this clusterfuck of ineptitude reveals just how incredibly deluded you are.
If you can only see all bad in a thing, that means you are not looking clearly. I'm very sorry you cannot break yourself out of the maze you have thrown yourself in, to the extent you cannot even see clear help for the poor being delivered and being rabidly against it! I mean how screwed up is that that you want to hurt the poor just because you are so insane with rage over Trump? That's just wrong man.
As for Hillarys so called federal offence, its just another delusional
Um, no, running classified material out in the open is clearly a federal offense. There are emails we have from the FBI now that state what they intend to do about the final judgment on the case, before they even interviewed people. Oh and they gave a heads up to Clinton staff so they could wipe the server. Kind of bad form in a criminal investigation.
You really are a dumb sad ass bastard.
I really am very sorry you think that way. Because I have not been clouded by hate, I can see you for a probably nice person who has just been misled badly. I hope you can find your way back someday.
I'll let you have the last response because I have better things to do that re-tread and argue over history that anyone can easily Google.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Clearly they are suggesting the object of their ire is actually an asteroid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
We're talking about regulatory bodies sapping them over the head and taking the possibilities off of their slumped, unconscious corpus. If you have enough money/pressure/clout at your disposal, you can not quite, but often very close, write your own laws. Talk about a level playing field.
like with a user ID in 5 digits was on one of the other recent threads about the FCC's changes, probably the one that reported that the repeal of Net Neutrality was finalized, and the user made a post that people were overreacting to the repeal. He said the market would fix it. His post was so confident. The big ISPs wouldn't be a problem, because there would be competition to make sure the intended loss of Net Neutrality benefits wouldn't last long after the market corrected for it. Now, the FCC is sewing up the oligopoly for Comcast and their ilk. That user can eat a turd sandwich. I'm thinking that person was a shill for the FCC or Comcast.
TRUMP. TRUMP. TRUMP.
How's that competition working out for you?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Really, you're going to blame this on T-Mobile? The fact that they're even considering this is because the Republicans are bunch of scumbags who would actually consider things like this.
-love, Donald
and yet, you can't fence radio waves. Census tracts are way too small.Counties would be plausible, but still very small, and screw a large part of the population who lives on borders of counties.
This is going to make local wireless Internet service how it was 3 years ago, in other words, zero difference than how it is today.
The article says " companies buy the license to broadcast ".
They do not.
Companies compete for authorizations to use the spectrum. Bidding for the authorizations is just one part of the requirements to use that spectrum. These authorizations are for a few years, then the company with the authorization must file for and be granted a renewal in order to continue using the spectrum.
Every year, a winning company that gets the authorization to deploy/use that spectrum pays a fee to continue that use.
The FCC doesn't sell licenses. It authorizes use, and collects fees. The spectrum is never 'sold' as in it belongs to the company and the FCC (or anyone else) cannot every have it unless they buy it from the user that is authorized.
The company that is authorized can loss the authorization at any time, including at renewal time, for not using the spectrum correctly. This rarely happens, tho.
> Yes. It's equally illegal for the billionaire and the pauper to sleep under a bridge.
What the hell are you going on about?
> I'm a big fan of the free market, and I have to say it seems like you don't know the first thing about how it works.
Says the guy unintelligably advocating injecting ever more government into the economy.
This is the dumbest thing I've read all year. If these small ISP's cant compete then why should they be in business? Are you libtards that dence?
Now people are "libtards" for wanting competition in the market? Man, I'm so confused.
This is just one more battle that's being focused on myopically, while losing sight of the big picture.
The whole problem boils down to a need to differentiate between the infrastructure and the services being provided via that infrastructure.
What would make the most sense and be in the best national interest is to let Federal government control the infrastructure itself. Whether we're talking cellular towers or wireless spectrum allocations or plain old copper wire, coaxial or fiber - give Federal government responsibility for providing good infrastructure using any and all of those methods, to ensure adequate broadband options for all citizens, no matter where you live.
DON'T let government regulate or operate the services that go over those pathways though. Make them equally accessible to any business that applies for the proper permits to use them, and then leave them all alone to conduct their business as they see fit.
Says the guy unintelligably advocating injecting ever more government into the economy.
The wireless spectrum is already regulated, this is about equal access.
Competition held up by big goverment intervention. Of course you are confused, you are just another ignerant liberal.
> Yes. It's equally illegal for the billionaire and the pauper to sleep under a bridge.
What the hell are you going on about?
> I'm a big fan of the free market, and I have to say it seems like you don't know the first thing about how it works.
Says the guy unintelligably advocating injecting ever more government into the economy.
Wow... not only do you not understand the free market, you don't understand the wireless spectrum, the telco/ISP market, or it seems government at all. You're like the poster child for what's wrong with the world right now. People who don't have a clue, thinking they do, and while basking in their own ignorance, making incredibly stupid decisions. I'm just going to start calling that Trumping.