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Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
policy
Content tagged with "policy"
FCC Rural Broadband Workshop Video
In case you missed it, you can still stream the FCC's Rural Broadband Workshop. The announcement describes the event:
The workshop will include an examination of the broadband needs of rural populations and the unique challenges of both broadband deployment and adoption in rural areas. In addition, the discussion will highlight the economic, educational, and healthcare benefits that can be realized through broadband deployment and adoption. The workshop will also examine different business models that have been used to deploy broadband in rural areas, including a discussion of the factors that drive investment decisions and technology choices of different types of providers in rural communities. Finally, the workshop will examine the role that states have played, and can continue to play, in meeting the rural broadband challenge.
The first discussion, Broadband Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities in Rural America, focuses on the impact broadband access has on education, healthcare, and economic development. Panelists are:
- Jeff Fastnacht, Superintendent, Ellendale School, Ellendale, ND
- Charles Fluharty, President and CEO, Rural Policy Research Institute
- Brian Kelley, CEO, Ag Technologies
- Thomas F. Klobucar, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Office of Rural Health, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- Linda Lord, Maine State Librarian
- Don Means, Coordinator, Gigabit Libraries Network
Rural Broadband Buildout - Effective Strategies and Lessons Learned, will start at 11:00 a.m. and will include:
To Overbuild or Underbuild? A Rural Policy Conundrum - Community Broadband Bits Podcast #91
Lisa Gonzalez and I, Christopher Mitchell, are back in studio for a short conversation about the implications of a municipal network or a coop receiving subsidies from government to engage in overbuilding, where it builds a fiber network in an area already served by slow DSL and cable networks. This has become an important issue as Minnesota considers a fund that would encourage networks in areas currently unserved and possibly underserved. We discuss the economics, fairness, and practial realities of both allowing "overbuilding" and disallowing it as Minnesota features two similar networks that have come to different conclusions, to the advantage and disadvantage of different local stakeholders. Read the transcript from this episode here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address. This show is 13 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Valley Lodge for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Sweet Elizabeth."
Minnesota Local Governments Advance Super Fast Internet Networks
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Local governments in Minnesota have been at the forefront of expanding fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access - often in some of the most challenging areas of the state. ILSR has just released a policy brief to explore some of these approaches: Minnesota Local Governments Advance Super Fast Internet Networks.
The full report is available here.
The brief examines five communities that have taken different approaches to expanding access, from working with a trusted local partner to creating a new cooperative to building community-wide FTTH networks.
Lac qui Parle County has worked with Farmers Mutual Telephone cooperative to bring fiber networks to those who had been stuck on dial-up. Finding itself in a similar situation with no reliable partner, Sibley County is creating a new coop to work with.
Scott County built a fiber ring to connect community anchor institutsion to dramatically expand access to high capacity networks and lower telecommunications budgets. That network has helped to lure several major employers to the area by leasing fiber to them.
Windom and Monticello have built FTTH networks in extremely challenging conditions. Though Windom is far smaller than most have believed is feasible to build such a network, it has thrived and is now connecting many of the small towns surrounding it. It was essential in retaining jobs in the community that would have been lost without it and has attracted new jobs to the region. Monticello is a younger network and has remarkably benefited the community even as it has struggled financially due to dirty tricks from the telephone and cable companies.
The policy brief makes some policy recommendations while focusing on some local solutions to difficult problems in ensuring all Minnesotans have fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access.
History of the Quickly Subverted 1996 Telecommunications Act - Community Broadband Bits Episode 89
If all had gone according to the plan behind the 1996 Telecommunications Act, we would have lots of competition among Internet service providers, not just cable and DSL but other technologies as well. Alas, the competing technologies never really appeared and various incarnations of the FCC effectively gutted the common carriage requirements at the heart of the Act.
Earl Comstock joins us today to explain what they had in mind when they spent years developing the goals and text of the Act. A staffer to Senator Stevens - and yes, we discuss the legacy of Senator "series of tubes" Stevens and you might be surprised when you learn more about him - Earl helped to craft the Act and then had to watch as the FCC and Courts misinterpreted it.
At the heart of our conversation is what they believed would be necessary to achieve the goals of expanding access to telecommunications service to all.
Read the transcript from our conversation here.
We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is 30 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.
Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.
Find more episodes in our podcast index.
Thanks to Valley Lodge for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Sweet Elizabeth."
Kentucky Municipal Utilities Association Passes Resolution Favoring Local Control in Telecommunications
We recently reported that local leaders in Chanute and Westminster had passed resolutions supporting the FCC as it considers its authority. The Kentucky Municipal Utilities Association (KMUA) passed a similar resolution on February 28th.
KMUA members include 45 city-owned utilities including electricity, water, wastewater, natural gas, and telecommunications services. Members include places our readers are familiar with - Franklin, Glasgow, and Russellville - in addition to a lengthy list of other Kentucky communities.
The KMUA is publicly offering its support to the recent court decision finding that the FCC has the authority to remove or prevent state barriers.
The resolution reflects one of the KMUA credos, as listed on their website:
KMUA opposes any action, legislative or administrative, which would curb, limit, or remove local control of the operations of municipal utilities from their citizen owners.
We expect to see more resolutions like this as communities decide to go on record. The language is very similar to the Chanute and Westminster resolutions. We have made the document available below.
Save the White Spaces! From Public Knowledge
The FCC is now contemplating how much newly freed spectrum to retain for public use and how much to auction off to private companies for their exclusive use. Public Knowledge is leading the effort to ensure we retain enough shared spectrum to unleash more innovation and public benefits rather than simply padding the profits of a few massive firms that already control plenty of it.
In addition to the Gigabit Libraries Network's White Spaces Pilot Project, we have shared white space technology stories from North Carolina and New York.
Public Knowledge recently created a video on the prevalence of spectrum in our lives, included below. Most of us take for granted the fact that shared (or unlicensed) spectrum permeates our culture.
Instead of sitting by while the resource is auctioned off to the highest bidder, Public Knowledge has also created a petition to retain the spectrum needed for white space technology to spur more innovation. From the petition:
One of the most promising new technologies uses the empty spaces between television channels, the so-called "TV white spaces" (TVWS). The United States currently leads the world in this new technology. In the few short years since the FCC approved use of the TVWS, companies have built and shipped equipment to bring needed broadband to rural communities, creating jobs and expanding opportunities.
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We call on the FCC to set aside 4 reclaimed TV channels, or 24 MHz, for TV white spaces. This will still leave the FCC more than enough to auction to wireless companies for their commercial needs. By reserving 24 MHz of "unlicensed" spectrum across the country for TV white spaces, the FCC will encourage further innovation in wireless services and foster the growth of next generation WiFi contributing billions of dollars in new products and consumer savings.
Susan Crawford on National Public Radio
"Unless somebody in the system has industrial policy in mind, a long-term picture of where the United States needs to be and has the political power to act on it, we'll be a Third World country when it comes to communications."
Susan Crawford recently spoke with Dave Davies on NPR's FreshAir. During the conversation Crawford touches on a variety of interrelated topics that affect telecommunications in the U.S. The interview is worth a listen; Crawford and Davies discuss her book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, and get into U.S. telecommunications policy.
Crawford discusses the recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision on network neutrality. Davies and Crawford also tackle the inteplay between the court decision and role of government in bringing access to more people:
I think the problem is actually much more profound than mere discrimination by a few cable actors when it comes to high-speed Internet access. We seem to currently assume that communications access it a luxury, something that should be left entirely to the private market, unconstrained by any form of oversight.
The problem is, that's just not true in the modern era. You can't get a job, you can't get access to adequate healthcare, you can't educate your children, we can't keep up with other countries in the developed world without having very high capacity, very high-speed access for everybody in the country. And the only way you get there is through government involvement in this market.
That's how we did it for the telephone. That's how we did it for the federal highway system. And we seem to have forgotten that when it comes to these utility basic services, we can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement.
You can listen to the 38 minute interview and read the transcript at the NPR website.
A Roadmap for the FCC To Ensure Local Authority to Build Networks - Community Broadband Podcast #84
When the DC Circuit Court handed down a decision ruling against the FCC's Open Internet (network neutrality) rules, it also clarified that the FCC has the power to overrule state laws that limit local authority to build community networks. Harold Feld, Senior Vice President for Public Knowledge, joins us for Community Broadband Bits Episode #84 to explain the decision.
Harold exlains what Section 706 authority is and how all the DC Circuit judges on the case felt that the FCC, at a minimum, has the authority to strike down laws that delay or prohibit the expansion of broadband infrastrcturue.
We then discuss how the FCC can go about striking down such laws to reestablish local authority - a community in a state like North Carolina could file a petition with the FCC for action or the FCC could decide to take action itself. Either way, it will have to build a record that laws revoking local authority to build networks are harmful to expanding this essential infrastructure.
Finally, some of this power filters down to state public utility commissions, but just how much is unclear at present.
Read the transcript from our discussion here.
We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is 15 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.
Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.
Find more episodes in our podcast index.
Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.
Circuit Court to FCC: You Can Restore Local Authority to Build Community Networks
As we noted yesterday, the DC Circuit of Appeals has decided that the FCC does not have authority to implement its Open Internet (network neutrality) rules as proposed several years ago.
But the court nonetheless found that the FCC does have some authority to regulate in the public interest, particularly when it comes to something we have long highlighted: state barriers to community owned networks. For example, see North Carolina and recent efforts in Georgia.
States have been lobbied heavily by powerful cable and telephone companies to create barriers that discourage community owned networks. Nineteen states have such barriers (see our map with the states shown in red), largely because communities have nowhere near the lobbying power of massive cable and telephone companies, not because the arguments against municipal networks are compelling.
For those who remember a certain Supreme Court decision called Nixon v Missouri, the Court has once weighed in the matter of state barriers to community networks. In the '96 Telecom Act, Section 253 declares "No State or local statute or regulation, or other State or local legal requirement, may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications service."
However, the Supreme Court decided in 2004 that Congress was insufficiently clear in its intent to preempt state authority - that "any" did not mean "any" but rather meant something else. In making this decision, it ignored a legislative history with plenty of evidence (see Trent Lott for instance) that suggested Congress meant "any" to mean "any."
ANYway, we lost that one. States were found to have the right to limit the authority of communities to build their own networks.