The news today is that, in order to flesh out the assertion that there are enough folks who can’t get decent broadband, the FCC has voted, 3-2, to simply change the definition of broadband, increasing the base benchmark speed and, by regulatory fiat, declaring that millions of Americans who had "high-speed Internet" yesterday are now listening to Spotify with soup cans on strings. From The Guardian:
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It’s like mission creep within mission creep. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 pushed the FCC into involvement in making sure broadband spreads across the country (like the FCC was needed for this in any way, shape, or form). As broadband improves, the FCC is going to make sure they get to keep their spoon in the stew (or whatever "too many cooks" metaphor applies) by just ordering innovation via regulation. Who is this "we" Commissioner Mignon Clyburn refers to?
"We are never satisfied with the status quo. We want better. We continue to push the limit, and that is notable when it comes to technology. As consumers adopt and demand more from their platforms and devices, the need for broadband will increase, requiring robust networks to be in place in order to keep up. What is crystal clear to me is that the broadband speeds of yesteryear are woefully inadequate today and beyond."
All of this is true, and yet none of what Clyburn says is an argument for direct FCC involvement. Commissioner Michael O’Rielly dissented, pointing out, "Selecting an artificially high standard and applying it in a way that is impossible to meet in order to reach all Americans certainly in the near term makes a mockery of a process that was supposed to provide an honest assessment of broadband deployment in the United States." He wondered that, because some people believe we’re on the way to teleportation technology, whether the FCC should estimate the bandwidth needs for that as well. Don’t give them any ideas.
In an interesting bit of a sort of cronyism as a result of the limits of technology, telecom companies that offer DSL services through the phone lines—AT&T and Verizon, for example—will not be forced to adapt to these new demands because it’s physically impossible. This means
broadband providers will be required by the FCC to improve their Internet speeds up and probably far beyond what many of their customers need, therefore driving up their prices and encouraging customers who don’t need bleeding edge download speeds to consider dumping them for their phone company competitors to save money. No wonder cable companies are upset by the news.
Originally Posted by Zippyjuan
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