Tag: "regulation"

From Broadband Barriers to Section 230 - Episode 450 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Posted March 9, 2021 by Ry Marcattilio-McCracken

This week on the podcast we're joined by Berin Szoka, President of TechFreedom, to talk about the pressing broadband issues of today and tomorrow. Christopher and Berin share what they see as the biggest barriers to universal, high-quality Internet access today, including the jurisdictional issues facing communities large and small, as well as the regulatory solutions which would facilitate more rapid and efficient infrastructure deployment.

They debate whether we should spend public dollars not just on rural broadband where there are no options, but in town centers with slowly degrading copper networks where monopoly providers have signaled little intent to ever upgrade that infrastructure.

Christopher and Berin then dive into an issue Berin has been working on for the past few years: the Section 230 debate, and what it means for the future of the Internet if content platforms become liable for the third-party content they host.

This show is 51 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed. You can listen to the interview on this page or visit the Community Broadband Bits page.

Transcript coming soon.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Subscribe to the Building Local Power podcast, also from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, on iTunes or Stitcher to catch more great conversations about local communities, the...

Overbuilding and the Value of Real Competition - Episode 7 of Connect This!

Posted March 5, 2021 by Ry Marcattilio-McCracken

This episode, co-hosts Christopher and Travis Carter (CEO, US Internet) are joined by Deb Socia (President/CEO, The Enterprise Center), and Brian Worthen (President, Visionary Communications and CEO, Mammoth Networks) to talk about overbuilding.

The group talks about the importance of reclaiming the term as what it really is: plain old competition. They discuss the economics of building competitive broadband infrastructure in rural and urban areas, pending and related Washington Public Utility District legislation, and why we don't see more small, competitive fiber builders around the country.

We also get the first installment of a recurring segment during the episode, wherein Christopher asks Travis to identify a picture of random piece of wireless infrastructure from the area around his house.

Referenced during the discussion was Benton Institute for Broadband and Society Senior Fellow John Sallet's recent paper "Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s."

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Email us with feedback and ideas at broadband@muninetworks.org

Republican Broadband Agenda Would Preempt Local Authority and Ban Municipal Networks

Posted February 25, 2021 by Ry Marcattilio-McCracken

Last week, House Republicans introduced a bill package ostensibly to promote broadband expansion and competition across the country. In reality, the legislation is a wish list of monopoly cable and telephone companies that will protect them from competition and decrease their accountability to the public. It would also ban communities from building their own networks or engaging in public-private partnerships.

A Rights of Way Free-for-All

About a third of the bills in the Boosting Broadband Connectivity Agenda would preempt regulations (including application timelines and fee schedules) set by government subdivisions on wireless deployment. The major mobile carriers are already in the process of slowly rolling out 5G networks which will require the installation of hundreds of thousands of small-cell sites over the next several years. AT&T spent more than $23 billion on the recently concluded 3.7 GHz C-band auction, with T-Mobile spending $9.3 billion. Verizon outspent every other bidder combined at $45 billion. Establishing shorter shot clocks and maximum fees for the installation of new hardware in public Rights of Way would simultaneously reduce the income municipalities receive and lead to the proliferation of poles and attachments across the country with limited public input. We’ve already seen how it has negatively impacted cities like Milwaukee and Tucson.

Another handful of bills in the package would remove environmental or historic preservation regulations for wireless and wireless providers. If passed, they would exempt from review new or replacement facilities installed in public Rights of Way and those less than 50 feet tall (or ten feet taller than surrounding buildings), as well as remove protections so that telecommunications facilities can be installed on federal lands.

...

Listen to Doug Dawson on the Rural Broadband Today podcast

Posted January 25, 2021 by Ry Marcattilio-McCracken

Doug Dawson was on a recent episode of Rural Broadband Today, and though the topic was what we can expect to see from a Biden adminstration on broadband, the discussion ended up ranging much wider. They end up talking about how and we we've come to define basic broadband as 25/3 Megabits per second (Mbps) and why that's not good enough today, how the FCC has historically approached its role as regulator, and what the solutions will need to be to bring high-quality, affordable Internet accces to unconnected rural and urban households.

Listen to the episode here.

This Christmas Morning, Listen to a Podcast Episode on the Future of US Broadband

Posted December 25, 2020 by Ry Marcattilio-McCracken

On Episode 265 of the Techdirt podcast, Sonic CEO Dane Jasper joins host Mike Masnik to talk about how the broadband market in the United States is a failed competitive market, how the regulatory environment brought us from a place with thousands of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to one where the vast majority of households have just one or two options at basic broadband speeds of 25/3 Megabits per second (Mbps), the arbitrariness of imposing usage caps and future of net neutrality, and the array of other interrelated issues that will dictate the way Internet access looks over the next decade.

Listen to it here.

Happy Holidays!

U.S. Mayors Face Uphill Battle to Preserve Local Control Of 5G Deployment

Posted November 4, 2020 by Sean Gonsalves

As Mayors must concern themselves with everything from public safety and health to the development of the local economy and the provision of essential municipal services, they tend to have a particular focus on the infrastructure necessary to support it all, amid a cacophony of competing interests.

Over the summer, having reached consensus on the fundamental importance of “the digital infrastructure of tomorrow,” a particular focus of the United States Conference of Mayors 88th National Annual Meeting was to issue a resolution declaring the necessity of “Preserving Local Public Rights-of-Way and Regulatory Authority to Most Effectively Deploy 5G Broadband Access and Bridge the Digital Divide during the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

The Mayors’ resolution comes in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC's) 2018 preemption of local governments’ authority to regulate 5G infrastructure in their cities.

At the heart of the regulatory debate: local governments’ ability to determine the amount of fees to charge mobile carriers that want to place 5G equipment in Rights-of-Way. In addition to putting limits on those fees, the FCC Order also sets strict timelines by which cities and towns must respond to carrier applications. The FCC decision, issued over the objections of industry observers and policy experts, essentially eliminates local communities’ ability to negotiate in order to protect their own Rights-of-Way and the poles, traffic lights, and other potential structures within those Rights-of-Way.

Preempting Local Authority

When the FCC handed down the order in the fall of 2018 we noted that it represented a significant giveaway to wireless carrier corporations while placing additional restrictions and undue financial burdens on local regulators, most of which are county boards and city departments.

To justify the order, the...

FCC Ends Speculation On Broadband Speeds, Mobile Internet Access

Posted January 22, 2018 by Lisa Gonzalez

On January 18th, the FCC ended months of speculation and released a fact sheet that included several key conclusions to be included in the 2018 Broadband Deployment Report. The most important is that the FCC continues to recognize that mobile Internet access is not a substitute for fixed access. The Commission has also decided to leave the definition of broadband at 25/3 Mbps (down/up).

Download the fact sheet here.

“Broadband” Will Not Slow Down

The Commission had proposed reverting to a slower definition of broadband from the current standard of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload. Under Tom Wheeler’s leadership, the FCC decided to update the standard to its current definition in January 2015, but current Chairman Ajit Pai and other Republican Commissioners suggested in last year’s Notice of Inquiry (NOI) that the FCC might effectively take us backward to a 10 Mbps/1 Mbps standard.

The suggestion rankled better connectivity advocates and Internet users. Many recognized that lowering the standards would make it easier for the FCC to proclaim that the U.S. was making strong progress toward universal household deployment. The Commission would have been justified making such a conclusion under the standard because large sections of rural American receive DSL, fixed wireless, satellite, or mobile Internet access that would meet a lowered 10/1 standard.

Hundreds of thousands of people, organizations, and businesses filed comments opposing a slower standard. Many of them live in areas where 10/1 speeds are already available but who have been waiting for better options. Commissioners Rosenworcel and Clyburn also spoke out against the lowering broadband speeds.

Commissioner Rosenworcel tweeted:

#FCC proposing to lower US #broadband standard from 25 to 10 Mbps. This is crazy. Lowering standards...

The Challenge of Mobile Only - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 287

Posted January 3, 2018 by Christopher Mitchell

With the Federal Communications Comission Republicans poised to redefine broadband to include slow, unreliable, and often bandwidth-capped mobile service, we talk with two high school students from southeast Ohio, Herron Linscott and Lilah Gagne, that have succeeded despite the lack of fixed broadband access in their homes. Soon the FCC may include those homes as having broadband though they clearly don't fit the description of what any sane person would call advanced telecommunications.

We start off episode 287 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast with Next Century Cities Executive Director Deb Socia, who reminds us why mobile Internet access is not an adequate subsitute for fixed access. Next Century Cities has launched the Mobile Only Challenge - share MobileOnlyChallenge.com around - to highlight the challenges of relying solely on mobile Internet access.

We then talk to Herron Linscott and Lilah Gagne about their experiences in southeast Ohio as high school students without home fixed Internet access. Both have had to schedule lots of time away from home in order to complete assignments and partake in extra-curricular activities and both offer a window into the importance of connectivity for the next generation.

Read the transcript for this show here.

This show is 25 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is ...

Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 281

Posted December 4, 2017 by Staff

This is the transcript for Episode 281 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Will Rinehart of the American Action Forum in Washington D.C. discusses telecommunications and economics with our host Christopher Mitchell. Listen to this episode here.

Will Rinehart: And I do think that obviously good policy is very very important and that's where you and I agree a lot. You know there's obviously some good policies that can be enacted. There's probably better conversations that could be had in this space and that's also something else that I really do really want to see. You're

Lisa Gonzalez: listening to episode 281 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzales as a research organization. We here at the institute make it a habit to hear all sides of the debate along the way we make connections with people who offer perspectives on policy that differ from ours. We consider these conversations critical as we analyze factors that help us create policy recommendations and resources for local communities. This week Christopher talks with Will Rinehart from the American Action Forum. They got together at the recent broadband community's economic development conference in Atlanta. In this conversation you'll hear the two discuss a variety of topics they talk about the area of telecommunications and economics and the forum's approach. You'll also hear that these different perspectives aren't as black and white as they first appear. Now here's Christopher with Will Rinehart from the American Action Forum.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the community broadband bits podcasts. I'm Chris Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Coming to you from Atlanta sitting practically on a runway at the Atlanta airport with Will Rinehart the Director of Technology and Innovation Policy with the American Action Forum. Welcome to the show. Thanks Chris. Thanks for having me. We're at the broadband community's event here. We just had our second panel which is called a blue ribbon panel and general session kind of thing. And you and I are typically brought on as people who have very opposing points of view.

Will Rinehart: [laughs] To...

Another Perspective on Policy From American Action Forum - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 281

Posted November 29, 2017 by Lisa Gonzalez

Christopher went to Atlanta for the Broadband Communities Economic Development Conference in early November, and while he was there, he touched base with this week’s guest Will Rinehart. Will is the Director of Technology and Innovation Policy at the American Action Forum, a DC nonprofit organization that’s been around since 2009.

Will and Christopher don’t always see eye to eye on issues that affect telecommunications and broadband policy, but both agree that it’s important to have spirited debate to share perspectives. Only by examining issues from different sides can we craft policy that creates lasting benefits.

In this interview, Will describes his organization and his work there. Chris and Will look at compelling issues such as ISP competition, government regulations, and how the FCC’s 2015 upgraded definition of broadband has reverberated in the market. The two get into franchising and ubiquitous broadband, local authority, and connectivity in rural America. It’s a spirited discussion chock-full of issues.

You can tweet to Will, he’s @WillRinehart on Twitter.