Federal-State-Local Cooperation Important on Broadband Competition, 911, Wheeler Tells NATOA
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler emphasized the importance of partnership between the commission and local and state telecom regulators, saying in a speech Wednesday to NATOA its members have a shared responsibility to increase broadband competition and robust 911 service. Wheeler invoked folk musician Bob Dylan to say the U.S. needs to collectively improve access to high-speed broadband, and those that don’t would “sink like a stone.” Success in high-speed broadband deployment would mean nationwide access to at least 100 Mbps broadband, Wheeler said.
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Wheeler mentioned -- but didn’t opine on -- petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina, seeking FCC pre-emption of their states’ municipal broadband laws. Wheeler has previously said the FCC has the power to pre-empt, and said Wednesday that the commission would decide the Chattanooga and Wilson petitions “on the record and on the merits.” He said municipal broadband can be a successful way of improving broadband competition. Wheeler said forces pushing back against robust broadband competition “seek to block the competitive forces that can produce faster, cheaper, better broadband,” later saying “local choice and competition are about as American as you can get."
New net neutrality rules would also improve broadband competition, Wheeler said, saying “blocking, discriminating, or degrading service for economic gain is contrary to the promise of broadband networks.” Effective net neutrality rules “will establish that an open Internet is the sine qua non of broadband,” he said. The IP transition shouldn’t change fundamental principles on access, interconnection or other key FCC issues, Wheeler said. “The form these responsibilities take may change in an IP world, but the principles do not -- and should never -- go away."
The FCC, state and local telecom officials must also continue to cooperate on 911 issues because of the deployment of next-generation 911, Wheeler said. That cooperation will “ensure that there are no gaps in the reliability of the NG-911 system,” he said. A set of 911 outages in April that affected 911 operations in seven states “and the common issues they raise, are evidence of the challenge we face, and suggest that we are at risk of experiencing far worse failures if we don’t take action now,” Wheeler said. The FCC plans to present the findings of the Public Safety Bureau’s investigation of the April outages during its Oct. 17 meeting (CD Sept 29 p3).