Role of Government Debated in Broadband Plan Comments

A wireless industry attorney said the record should be helpful to staff as they write the final report at the FCC, including new broadband “coordinator” Blair Levin, who’s expected to play a large role. “It certainly does make it easier on someone new coming in,” the attorney said. “One of the benefits to the FCC … is they can try to combine and compile in one place the relevant positions and views, the perspectives of the parties, knowing that many of them have been expressed before.”

“A lot of this is stuff they've heard before but now they have a record on it, a basis to go to an NPRM, where they actually have a plan that they seek specific comment on” said an attorney whose company filed comments. “When you think about it, the commission really doesn’t have a docket or a fresh record on many of these issues.” A third attorney wasn’t surprised that most of the early comments reflected old arguments: “How many new ideas are there?” he asked.

The length and diversity of comments present the FCC with a challenge, but the agency has until February to plow the record and figure out how to use it, said Curt Stamp, president of the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance. Tackling many, diverse issues was a necessary evil, because in telecom, “very little happens in a vacuum,” he said. Many of the issues are interrelated, and tweaking one policy often affects a variety of others, he said. A benefit of this rulemaking is it will put all the broadband topics in one place, he said.

In comments, incumbent local exchange carriers rejected calls for more government regulation. “The Commission should enter the marketplace only where normal economic forces are incapable of supporting deployment and subscription, and should not undertake any actions that would have the effect of discouraging private investment in broadband,” said ITTA, which represents Qwest, Embarq and other mid-sized ILECs.

But competitive carriers said there are many areas where the FCC should intervene. CompTel suggested the FCC roll back many of its deregulatory actions from the past eight years. The FCC should “acknowledge” that its “predictions that such deregulation would promote competition, increase innovation and lower prices have not panned out,” it said. Competitors steered clear of the net neutrality issue, focusing instead on traditional competitive issues like special access, unbundling, interconnection and copper retirement.

The FCC will need to “balance competing principles” as it develops a national plan, said Robert Quinn, AT&T senior vice president. A successful plan “should aim for an Internet that is universal, open, private and safe,” but it mustn’t discourage industry from making “the massive investments required to create more bandwidth, compelling content and applications that will make everyone in the United States want to be connected.”

Companies should have “wide flexibility” on network management so they can keep networks safe and reliable, said Verizon, saying “consumer preferences” will determine the best company policies. Last week, a Verizon executive said the carrier is willing to discuss a fifth broadband principle on network management (CD June 5 p1), but in comments the company objected to “intrusive new regulations” like “a broad nondiscrimination requirement, cost-based rate justifications, or other common carriage-like regulations.”

Broadband principles included in the FCC’s 2005 Internet policy statement “are sufficient and should not be supplemented,” agreed the Organization for the Promotion & Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. Adoption of a fifth principle “would discourage future broadband investment in already difficult-to-serve rural service areas,” it said. Also, regulation designed to spur wireline competition in rural areas isn’t in the public interest, because it could hurt the quality and affordability of existing service, and increase the size of the USF, OPASTCO said.

The FCC should promote increased competition between broadband carriers to “spur the deployment of high-capacity networks and drive down consumer costs,” said Free Press in its filing. Free Press, which has long advocated strict network neutrality requirements, also said the FCC needs to expand its Internet policy statement into permanent neutrality rules. The FCC’s definitions of broadband should be “flexible and dynamic” to promote innovation in the field, said the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank, in its filing. The group also urged a “light touch” regulatory approach to encourage competition between providers, the group said.

Wireless comments largely touched on many of the areas carriers have stressed in their filings at the FCC in other dockets or in lobbying calls on the agency. In each case, the filers attempted to show how making various policy calls would promote broadband roll out.

CTIA urged the FCC to recognize the key role that wireless has to play in any broadband plan. “Mobile wireless broadband is not a third pipe to the home, but rather broadband to the person, wherever and whenever they want it,” CTIA said. To that end, carriers should be allowed to manage the use of their own networks, CTIA said, and the FCC should neither extend the application of its Broadband Policy Statement to wireless networks, nor adopt a non- discrimination principle for wireless. CTIA also urged the adoption of its proposed tower siting “shot clock” and asked for broad universal service and intercarrier compensation reform.

The Rural Telecommunications Group urged the FCC to implement automatic roaming and eliminate the “home roaming” exception for rules already in place. The group also backed a new spectrum cap and a prohibition against exclusive handset agreements between equipment makers and carriers.

Mobile Future also asked the FCC to give adequate emphasis to the growing role of wireless technologies as it develops a plan. “As the Internet goes mobile, it is shaping our lives in countless new ways,” the group said. “This process is now well under way, but it is still a recent phenomenon. The Commission must ensure that its National Broadband Plan adequately accounts for, and takes advantage of, the profound power of the mobile Internet to improve American life.”