Dave Farber
2018-09-02 03:30:43 UTC
Date: September 1, 2018 at 10:09:51 PM EDT
Subject: Re: [IP] FCC can define markets with only one ISP as "competitive," court rules
The FCC's biggest problem, when it comes to broadband, is in fact the opposite: defining markets with multiple ISPs as lacking competitors. Or even counting areas that are well served as unserved.
The FCC recently closed its "CAF II" reverse auctions, in which it offered billions of taxpayer dollars to ISPs willing to provide "unserved" areas with broadband. Which sounds good... until one learns that its regulations do not consider any ISP which is not a telephone company to be an ISP, and therefore the areas that they cover not to be served. (Never mind that there are hundreds of "over the top" VoIP services, including Vonage, Magic Jack, and Ooma, to choose from - all of which are accessible from even the slowest broadband connection, and that the majority of telephone users are cutting the cord and going mobile.) What's more, the list of "unserved" areas which were auctioned was based on data that was more than a year old - an eternity in Internet time - and there's no provision in the FCC's rules to challenge the handouts on the grounds that an area has been provided with service in the meantime. (My ISP rolled out service to several areas which did not have it before just this summer.)
All of these problems are the result of arbitrary decisions made within the FCC bureaucracy, which has ignored petitions to fix them.
As a result, millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars - extracted from citizens via record high surcharges on their telephone bills - are going to waste as the FCC picks winners (telephone companies) and losers (everyone else) and misdirects money to areas where it need not be spent. Worse still, the money is going not to the most competitive providers but rather to those who are able to jump through the necessary hoops (securing bank letters of credit, undergoing expensive financial audits, becoming a telephone company merely for the purpose of receiving the money) to cash in on the FCC's gravy train.
The time to subject the disbursement of the money that stands to be wasted to annual reviews and challenges, and to eliminate the Commission's absurd preference for ISPs which are telephone providers when the law clearly allows it to declare over-the-top VoIP as functionally equivalent, is growing short. Let's hope that the FCC wakes up - or that Congress prods it to do so - before huge amounts of taxpayer money are wasted.
--Brett Glass
-------------------------------------------Subject: Re: [IP] FCC can define markets with only one ISP as "competitive," court rules
The FCC's biggest problem, when it comes to broadband, is in fact the opposite: defining markets with multiple ISPs as lacking competitors. Or even counting areas that are well served as unserved.
The FCC recently closed its "CAF II" reverse auctions, in which it offered billions of taxpayer dollars to ISPs willing to provide "unserved" areas with broadband. Which sounds good... until one learns that its regulations do not consider any ISP which is not a telephone company to be an ISP, and therefore the areas that they cover not to be served. (Never mind that there are hundreds of "over the top" VoIP services, including Vonage, Magic Jack, and Ooma, to choose from - all of which are accessible from even the slowest broadband connection, and that the majority of telephone users are cutting the cord and going mobile.) What's more, the list of "unserved" areas which were auctioned was based on data that was more than a year old - an eternity in Internet time - and there's no provision in the FCC's rules to challenge the handouts on the grounds that an area has been provided with service in the meantime. (My ISP rolled out service to several areas which did not have it before just this summer.)
All of these problems are the result of arbitrary decisions made within the FCC bureaucracy, which has ignored petitions to fix them.
As a result, millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars - extracted from citizens via record high surcharges on their telephone bills - are going to waste as the FCC picks winners (telephone companies) and losers (everyone else) and misdirects money to areas where it need not be spent. Worse still, the money is going not to the most competitive providers but rather to those who are able to jump through the necessary hoops (securing bank letters of credit, undergoing expensive financial audits, becoming a telephone company merely for the purpose of receiving the money) to cash in on the FCC's gravy train.
The time to subject the disbursement of the money that stands to be wasted to annual reviews and challenges, and to eliminate the Commission's absurd preference for ISPs which are telephone providers when the law clearly allows it to declare over-the-top VoIP as functionally equivalent, is growing short. Let's hope that the FCC wakes up - or that Congress prods it to do so - before huge amounts of taxpayer money are wasted.
--Brett Glass
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=26461375
Unsubscribe Now: https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=26461375&id_secret=26461375-c2b8a462&post_id=20180901233052:9618F7BA-AE60-11E8-A9FF-B8117C6DBB6B
Powered by Listbox: https://www.listbox.com