NOI Asks if FCC Broadband Speed Benchmarks Should Be Raised
Recognizing changing consumer Internet demands, the FCC issued a notice of inquiry (http://bit.ly/1srx6Gz) Tuesday asking if it should raise the benchmarks for defining “advanced telecommunications capability” in preparation for its national broadband progress report. Because of a “tremendous growth in the online video and audio markets in the past few years,” the NOI asked as expected (CD June 4 p1) if the agency should modify its current broadband benchmark of 4 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload. “The demand for video services and the introduction and use of new services on the market” may mean the old benchmark “no longer allows consumers the ability to ‘originate and receive’ the broadband services identified in section 706” of the Telecom Act, NOI said. Republican commissioners concurred in part and expressed concern that higher benchmarks could bring more regulation.
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The NOI asked if a 10 Mbps download benchmark would “more appropriately reflect the statutory requirements in Section 706. The standard is the mid-range of what the agency estimates a three-person household would use “at peak periods to stream a movie, participate in online education, surf the web, and have a mobile device syncing to its email account,” the NOI said. It asked if the 1 Mbps upload benchmark is adequate given a “'High-Use Household’ could have difficulty simultaneously streaming a movie, making a video call, using cloud storage, and have a mobile device syncing to its email account."
The wide-ranging NOI also asked whether the speed benchmark should be based on the fastest speed tier to which a “substantial” portion of consumers subscribe in an area, and asked if 70 percent adoption was a reasonable standard, and to what extent latency should be considered. It asked if the agency should adopt a forward-looking benchmark of 25 Mbps download and 6 Mbps upload and if separate benchmarks should be set for schools and libraries. It asked if the agency should adopt a single benchmark regardless of technology.
Saying nearly one quarter of Americans living in rural areas lack access to speeds of 4 Mbps download or 1 Mbps upload, and 29 percent of Americans living on all tribal lands do not have access to those speeds, the NOI also asks whether deployment should be based on “whether rural Americans have access to broadband that is ‘reasonably comparable’ to that available in urban areas? For example, if 90 percent of urban residents have access to broadband with particular characteristics, should the fact that a similar service is not available to at least half of rural residents weigh against a determination that deployment to all Americans is reasonable and timely?"
"Congress has instructed us that all Americans should have access to robust broadband services, no matter where they live,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement attached to the NOI. “Because consumers demand increasing levels of bandwidth capacity to support the applications they want to use online, we are asking if it is time to update the benchmark broadband speed. And as more people adopt faster broadband speeds, we are asking if all consumers, even in the most rural regions, should have greater access to better broadband."
With “each inquiry, the Commission invents new analyses, contorting itself in an effort to justify a finding that broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion so that it can regulate broadband service,” said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. An “honest and straightforward assessment” of advanced telecom capability “does not mean whether ‘each person in every household across America can simultaneously stream video while using Skype during peak hours on weeknights,” he wrote. “Many of the questions posed appear designed to achieve an already predetermined outcome that is both unnecessary and dubious."
The NOI “perpetuates the recent trend of reading section 706 ... as a roving mandate to do something -- anything -- about broadband,” wrote Pai. “In recent years, the Commission has treated statutory terms like ‘availability’ and ‘deployment’ as open ended invitations to intervene into the marketplace, rather than the deregulatory guideposts they are (and Congress intended them to be).” The agency has invoked Section 706 “to advance whatever issue seemed appealing,” said Pai.
A determination that broadband isn’t being sufficiently deployed would bolster FCC statutory authority to regulate net neutrality and help undergird the ability to parcel out USF money for broadband, agency and industry officials told us in June (CD June 9 p9).
Benton Foundation Director of Policy Amina Fazlullah praised the NOI: “The primary goal of the National Broadband Plan is for 100 million U.S. homes to have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second by 2020.” The FCC is using its “broad powers under Section 706” to “ask the right questions and take the right measurements to ensure the U.S. reaches our stated goal,” she said.
The annual NOI can be a critical tool in assessing broadband deployment, said NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Michael Romano. “It’s essential that we get this right and take careful stock of the actual state of deployment and availability, rather than allowing selective cuts of data or inaccurate representations of service coverage or capabilities to influence important policy decisions.”
The current definition of broadband is “woefully outdated,” said Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel for Consumers Union. “As technology advances allow companies to provide more complex products, it’s important that the bar is raised for baseline broadband speed so that consumers can get the most out of these services. We are also encouraged that the FCC is considering taking elements like data caps, price, and quality in to consideration.” (kmurakami@warren-news.com)