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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"
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.
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).
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.