Wheeler Reaffirms Support for Networks for All in Broadband Communities Summit Keynote
Promoting ultra-high-speed networks for all Americans and defending the recent net neutrality vote, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler gave the keynote Tuesday at the Broadband Communities Summit in Austin. Wheeler said it's in everyone’s interest to make sure communities across America have access to robust broadband networks that deliver high-speed connectivity to all: “We are all here because we recognize that broadband is the indispensable infrastructure of our 21st-century economy and democracy."
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Despite that, no matter what the FCC does to remove barriers to broadband investment, some communities will be underserved, or even unserved, by the private market, Wheeler said. Many communities work with existing private sector providers to facilitate improved broadband service, he said, but when that doesn't work, they seek alternatives, including various forms of public-private partnerships and, in some cases, deploying broadband networks themselves. “These efforts are reaping dividends, enabling new economic opportunities and improvements in education, healthcare and public safety for the communities that take these steps,” Wheeler said.
In Chattanooga, for example, large companies such as Amazon and Volkswagen invested in new facilities. Chattanooga is emerging as an incubator for tech startups, Wheeler said. A Tennessee state senator plans to introduce legislation in 2016 that would lift state restrictions and allow municipal broadband providers to expand services, he said. In Wilson, North Carolina, the area's top employers all rely on the community broadband network, new companies have located in Wilson because of its network, and residents and businesses in five surrounding counties are pleading for access to this gigabit connectivity. “The commission respects the important role of state governments in our federal system, and we do not take the matter of pre-empting state laws lightly,” he said. “But it is a well-established principle that state laws that inhibit the exercise of federal policy may be subject to pre-emption in appropriate circumstances." Earlier this year, the FCC voted to pre-empt certain challenged provisions of Tennessee and North Carolina law restricting municipal provision of broadband service (see 1502260030).
Wheeler said the discussion of how to encourage better, faster broadband starts with competition. “Competition benefits not only the customers of the challenger, it also brings benefit to customers of the incumbent, in the form of lower prices and higher quality,” he said. Because consumers' bandwidth demands have increased dramatically, copper networks aren’t keeping up, Wheeler said, and the country has passed a tipping point where traditional DSL is no longer a practical competitive option to cable.
“We want fast, fair and open networks,” Wheeler said. “We don't get fast networks without private investment. That's why I made it clear that our Open Internet Order must achieve two equally important goals: assuring consumers' and innovators' right to use the Internet without interference from gatekeepers, while also creating conditions that enable economic returns as an incentive for infrastructure investment.” He said the best way to achieve both goals is to adopt new rules using a modernized version of Title II authority, which he said was modeled after the rules for the mobile voice industry.
From the late-1990s until 2005, under the old heavy-touch approach to Communications Act Title II, the nation saw the highest levels of broadband infrastructure investment ever, Wheeler said. AT&T, Qwest and Verizon increased their capital investments as a percentage of revenue immediately after the FCC expanded Title II requirements pursuant to the 1996 Telecom Act, Wheeler said. “But because competitive broadband investment is more important now than ever before, the Open Internet Order took pains to create an investment climate that is significantly better than carriers experienced during the last buildout boom,” Wheeler said. “That's why our Open Internet Order explicitly states that there will be no retail rate regulation. The economic underpinnings for competitive infrastructure investment have never been better.”
The summit, which ends Thursday, is sponsored by major telecom carriers, including Verizon and AT&T, and cable companies such as Time Warner Cable and Cox.