Telcos/Cable: FCC Looking To Get to 'No' in Broadband Deployment Inquiry
The FCC appears to be seeking new ways to find broadband isn't being deployed fast enough, major telco/cable interests and allies said in comments to the agency. AT&T, Verizon and others said broadband is being deployed rapidly but voiced concern the commission could add mobile service standards and other hurdles to make it harder to find that broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion pursuant to Section 706 of the Telecom Act. The FCC’s Section 706 inquiry “has become a results-oriented exercise in which the Commission frequently moves the goal posts to ensure a negative finding,” NCTA said in docket 15-191. But smaller wireless carriers suggested the FCC should make a negative finding and take remedial steps.
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Under Section 706, if the FCC finds broadband (“advanced telecom capability,” or ATC) isn't being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, it's to act to speed deployment. The commission has used this mandate to help justify actions such as net neutrality and broadband reclassification. The commission’s August notice of inquiry contemplates retaining its 25/3 Mbps broadband definition for terrestrial fixed services while seeking comment on whether to include terrestrial mobile and satellite fixed services in its broadband assessment. The NOI included suggestions that mobile and fixed broadband were not substitutes for each other, and other ideas that Commissioner Ajit Pai said were designed to ensure a negative finding (see 1508060049 and 1508100054)
AT&T criticized the FCC for raising its fixed broadband speed benchmark to 25/3 Mbps and then making a negative deployment finding in its last Section 706 report based on the 17 percent of Americans lacking that level of broadband, ignoring that the percentage was rapidly declining. “The Commission now proposes to extend this unlawful approach to the mobile context and, in the process, unreasonably narrow the definition of advanced telecommunications capability even further,” AT&T said, noting the agency had asked whether consumers lacked ATC access unless they had access to both 25 Mbps fixed and 10 Mbps mobile broadband service. The telco didn’t object to including mobile broadband in the analysis, but “any such inquiry would have to begin and end with the obvious fact that the wireless industry has deployed the most advanced technology available -- LTE -- on a nationwide basis.”
AT&T said the FCC was proposing mobile speed, latency and other metrics that were arbitrary and unworkable, lacking reliable data, even with new broadband deployment information from Form 477. While not taking the same bottom-line policy stands as AT&T, Windstream and the California PUC agreed (here and here) that the FCC still lacked sufficiently reliable mobile broadband data to include it in a granular Section 706 analysis.
Verizon said LTE availability was over 98.5 percent in 2014, up from 67.5 percent two years before. The FCC “should not manufacture new tests to justify a negative assessment” of the pace of broadband deployment, Verizon said. The commission should reject the notion that both fixed and mobile broadband options must be present to make a positive finding, Verizon, USTelecom and others said. Verizon also said the FCC shouldn't add new criteria “that are unnecessary or unreliable, such as latency and service quality.” NCTA said the notice “proposes to add even more complexity to a report that already includes arbitrary metrics that seem designed to preclude a meaningful assessment of the marketplace and the services that consumers actually purchase and use.” Citing a raft of wireless industry growth statistics, CTIA said mobile broadband deployment is reasonable and timely “by any measure.”
Adtran said the FCC appeared to be asking the wrong question. “Instead of asking whether we are making timely and reasonable progress towards the goal of ubiquitous broadband, it appears -- like the kids in the back seat on a car trip -- merely to be asking ‘are we there yet?’” Adtran said. “This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Commission has adopted a forward-looking goal in defining 'advanced services,' but looks backwards at historic data to see if we have reached that goal.” Free State Foundation President Randolph May and Senior Fellow Seth Cooper said the current FCC has a “conflict of interest” because it wanted to use negative 706 findings to justify further regulation, leading it to redefine what constitutes broadband deployment. “Agency conclusions dependent on repeatedly moving goalposts lack analytical credibility -- and they diminish the agency’s credibility,” they said.
But the Competitive Carriers Association said the FCC should find that ATC isn't being deployed fast enough and take steps to speed it up. Mobile broadband should be included in the assessment but with a lower speed benchmark and without latency or service consistency standards, CCA said. U.S. Cellular said ATC should be defined to include both fixed and mobile broadband. “If the Commission includes mobile broadband in its Section 706 analysis, and reaches the likely determination that mobile broadband currently is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely manner, then the Commission will have a statutory mandate to take action to promote mobile broadband deployment,” it said. Fixed and mobile broadband are not substitutes for each other, Public Knowledge said.
NTCA, WTA, the Eastern Rural Telecom Association and the National Exchange Carrier Association agreed fixed and mobile broadband are complementary, not substitute, services. They urged the FCC to adopt rate-of-return USF changes to help spur broadband in high-cost areas and close the rural/urban divide -- and in a sustainable way. Deere & Company called on the FCC to make deployment of broadband to rural and agricultural areas a priority, with wireless the superior technology.