McCaskill Backs ISP Broadband Prices Based on Usage

“Does the guy with seven servers in his basement -- should he pay more than my mother, who can’t even imagine wanting to play Bridge online?” asked McCaskill. “Should those prices be the same? I think all of us realize they can’t be.” The ongoing Comcast case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has put into question whether the FCC has authority over ISPs’ network management practices, she said: “We've got money available, we've got regulatory uncertainty, and we've got [a] Congress that hasn’t demonstrated they really know what to do yet.”

Income level is the main barrier to broadband adoption, said Matsui. The congresswoman has a bill (HR-3646) that would create a broadband subsidy for low-income Americans, similar to the Universal Service Fund Lifeline program for telephone customers. Matsui said she plans to work with House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and others “to ensure that a path to universal broadband adoption becomes a reality this year.” She praised Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., and other senators for introducing a similar, bipartisan bill in that chamber. And she urged the FCC to include universal adoption as a recommendation in its National Broadband Plan.

“A Lifeline program for broadband will have a significant tangible benefit for lower income households residing in urban areas,” Matsui said. “It will also greatly benefit consumers in rural areas as more rural telecom providers will build out to unserved areas, knowing that there will be consumers able to afford broadband services.” Broadband is key to creating new jobs and long-term economic growth, she said, citing a study by the Information and Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) that estimated 250,000 jobs are created for every $5 billion in broadband investment. About 75 percent of employers now require job seekers to apply online, she added.

Improving U.S. broadband availability must not depend on industry alone, said McCaskill, backing a public-private partnership: “If it’s just based on a business model, we're not going to make the kind of investments that we need to make.” However, McCaskill criticized the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for putting two departments, Agriculture and Commerce, in charge of the broadband stimulus program. “I think it has to do with committee jurisdiction -- dumb, really, really dumb,” she said. “We should have one program, efficiently operated, without the duplication of services between these two agencies, but that’s not how it happened.” Now, “stopping the food fights on jurisdiction” is another barrier to improving the country’s broadband ranking, she said.

McCaskill noted a conflict between getting broadband money out fast and ensuring it goes to the right places, a juxtaposition that came up in an NTIA oversight hearing last week before the Senate Appropriations Commerce Subcommittee (CD Jan 29 p1). It’s important to “be careful” not to waste money or fund projects without merit, she said. Balancing speed with due diligence is why most of the stimulus money will go out this year rather than last, she said.

McCaskill cited broadband divides between suburbs and rural areas, rich and poor, and among generations. The “generational divide is important as we talk about access and as we talk about spectrum,” she said. Young people’s demand for bandwidth is much larger than older generations’, she said. “As we look to the future, we need to anticipate that the generational demand for broadband is going to dwarf what we have now because the expectation of the younger generation is that they're going to be able to get it very, very quickly and they're going to be able to get anything.”

The government’s role should be to “facilitate” broadband expansion, said ITIF President Robert Atkinson on a later panel. Given limited public funds, the “lions share” of investment will have to come from the private sector, but government will need to provide incentives for industry to reach out to lingering unserved and underserved areas, he said. “There’s a sweet spot in there between the cost where the private sector’s gone, and pretty much they've gone everywhere they're going to go,” he said. “I mean if [they] haven’t done it by now, they're not going to do it without some sort of subsidy.”

One Economy backs Matsui’s broadband adoption bill, said Howie Hodges, senior vice president of government affairs. Expanding USF would be an effective way to improve affordability, he said. Other ways government could improve adoption among the poor include mandating free broadband in public housing, and establishing a “progress board” to monitor the FCC’s broadband plan, he said. Broadband adoption among minorities is increasing, said Nicol Turner- Lee, vice president at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, citing a report due to be released by the joint center in two weeks. However, people with less education and lower income are still much less likely to be online, she said.