The National Broadband Plan Gets an International Flavor

By Brad

Sara Jerome of The Hill reports that at an event today in Los Angeles, the FCC will be unveiling translations of the National Broadband Plan in six languages: Mandarin, Samoan, Tagalog, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese.

Cowboy Up for Better Technology:  Internet Innovation Means Cattlemen Connect

By Jess Peterson, Guest IIA Blogger

Based on my observations there are a lot of similarities between the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communications Commission when it comes to matters affecting rural America. The most prominent of these similarities is the overwhelming use of heavy-handed regulation by both the FDA and FCC when a light touch is really what would best serve the industries they regulate. Quite simply, heavy-handed regulation scares potential investors, especially those looking to invest or enter into public-private partnerships in rural Communities.

In the case of FCC regulation of broadband, the Commission is failing to take into account the need for regulatory certainty that investors in rural broadband infrastructure require. With all due respect to the FCC: heavy-handed regulation makes investors and business owners nervous. Conversely, conservative regulation creates the certainty required for investors to commit capital to multiyear broadband infrastructure projects serving communities in rural America. It should come as no surprise that building out broadband infrastructure in rural communities is more time and capital-intensive. This is why a period of regulatory stability would go a long way toward providers deploying broadband connections in rural areas.

Let me be clear: the fact of the matter is that investment and public-private partnerships involving broadband providers are critical to providing ranchers and farmers with the same business opportunities that businesses in urban communities enjoy. This type of investment will not occur if the FCC continues to advocate for measures that would leave ranchers to continue to live as second-class digital citizens.

We all want to be connected in Rural America:  to run our businesses, to improve quality of life and reap the benefits of resources such as education and health care online. And the FCC has a critical role when it comes to bringing broadband to cattlemen… and that’s to implement the National Broadband Plan.

— Jess Peterson is Executive Vice President for the United States Cattlemen’s Association and a 5th generation rancher. 

More Broadband Grants On the Way

By Brad

Yesterday, RUS and NTIA announced $1.8 billion in broadband stimulus grants. Among those awarded were satellite broadband providers and emergency responders.

All told, 94 projects received grants.

For People with Disabilities, Technology is Disproportionately Empowering!

By Tom Foley, Guest IIA Blogger

This is a guest blog post from Tom Foley, Deputy Director of the World Institute on Disability and the Director of the Access to Assets Program. — IIA.

That is absolutely one of my new favorite sound bites, because it rings so true. For most people, technology and the Internet provide scales of efficiencies and convenience not dreamt of twenty five years ago. However, for those of us with disabilities, well, old enough to remember, this access represents far more. It represents the first time we have completely independently read and paid bills, followed our favorite team’s news, and controlled our banking, investing and retirement planning.

Just in the last hour, I have paid college tuition, checked my most recent stock calamity, and recognized being a Chicago Cubs fan is completely futile. As a person who is blind, in the past, I would have been dependent on someone else to read the financial aid contract, check the news paper stock listings, and well…you get the idea.

From a professional point of view, it is probably impossible to underestimate the importance of technology for me. Email and Internet access are but the first and obvious advantages, but the value of a virtually paperless office is immeasurable. It seems so common place today, but when I take the time to reflect, it is amazing that I can now, independently, read and organize thousands of files across numerous programs to add value for my employer. I can do this in the office, from home in the middle of the night, or even, as recently observed, from a smoky Paris hotel lobby, as I compiled an issue of my organization’s newsletter with colleagues in two other countries. This is amazing, empowering, transformative, really cool stuff that, somehow, has nearly become pedestrian for many, but certainly, not for all.

Perhaps, as some sort of Zen exercise, the true nature and value of technology can only be appreciated in its absence.

This was vividly illustrated to me, in that same smoky, cramped lobby, a few months ago. I was about to transmit yet another email to the office, when a virus detection alert popped up demanding immediate attention. I knew something was horribly wrong, when I did not recognize the name of the software which detected the virus. Before I could do anything, the voice output on my computer had crashed, and shortly thereafter, the dreaded blue screen of death.

Losing access to the Internet, email and all of one's work product is difficult enough. However, when it happens in a foreign country, where English is discouraged, and oh, yeah, you are marooned by a volcanic ash cloud going on day four, and all media reports are in French, one gains an entire new respect for the empowering nature of technology. I was simply lost. I could not determine the status of my three times rescheduled flights, access the necessary information for the newsletter, or even locate a new hotel, as my existing reservations expired.

Nationally, less than one third of people with disabilities have broadband access according to a December 2009 Chamber of Commerce study. For these people, the consequences of this technology gap are far more significant than a mere travel inconvenience. Without the critical technology, skills and broadband access, people with disabilities’ employment and economic outcomes are guaranteed to decline from today’s dismal numbers.

That simply cannot be allowed to happen. Perhaps at no other time in history have the stakes for people with disabilities been so great. The opportunities for employment and economic advancement via technology are limitless and must be protected, expanded and recognized. With great opportunity comes great obligation. It is up to all of us within the disability community to continue to strive to deliver the promise of employment and economic opportunity through access to available technology.

I returned to the Bay Area 25 hours prior to leaving for Washington, D.C. for a series of meetings I had planned for weeks. Thanks to the heroic efforts of far more tech savvy friends, my computer was restored to health with all data preserved in time for the trip.

In the end, technology has allowed me to work, pay a mortgage, help friends’ children attend college, build a financial future, and live more independently than I ever thought possible. Ultimately and without hyperbole, technology has allowed me to live my life.

— Tom Foley

More Stimulus Cuts

By Brad

Via the Washington Post, some more bad news about federal efforts to bring broadband to everyone:

President Obama signed new legislation on Wednesday that will cut $302 million in federal broadband Internet grants and use those funds to stave jobs losses among teachers.

On the heels of the latest findings from Pew that 53% of respondents don’t think wiring all of America should be a priority of the government, this has been a rough week for the National Broadband Plan.

 

Adoption Up, Support for Broadband Plan Down

By Bruce

The latest report from the Pew Center finds that nationwide home broadband adoption has increased — from 63 percent last year, to 66 percent so far in 2010. That’s the good news. The bad news, the Washington Post reports, is that support for the FCC’s National Broadband Plan is relatively lackluster:

When asked their views about efforts by the government to provide affordable high-speed Internet access to everyone in the country, 53 percent said the government shouldn’t attempt the effort or that it was “not too important” a priority, according to the Pew Center report. The phone survey of 2,252 adults comes as the Obama Administration and Federal Communications Commission have made it a priority to bring broadband Internet connections that are faster and more affordable to all homes.

Obviously, more needs to be done to educate the public at large that bringing broadband to everyone will benefit America as a whole. Unfortunately, the FCC’s current Title II distractions may be getting in the way of that effort.

The full Home Broadband 2010 report is available at the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Trimming the Budget for Grants

By Bruce

Broadband Breakfast reports:

Attached to [the] Federal Medical Assistance Percentage Bill was an amendment which removed “$302 million in Recovery Act funding provided to the Department of Commerce for broadband grants.” The bill passed the Senate 61-38.

More Grants on the Way

By Brad

Government funds for critical broadband deployment in unserved areas continue to roll out, with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announcing that 126 new projects in 38 states will receive funding. Total price tag for this round: $1.2 billion.

The full list of projects are available at whitehouse.gov.

(Via Broadband Breakfast, which also has a quote from Secretary Vilsack about the projects.)

David Sutphen in EbonyJet

By IIA

IIA Co-Chairman David Sutphen has penned a column for EbonyJet covering the digital divide, the National Broadband Plan, and the effect the FCC’s move to impose Title II regulations on the Internet will have on both. Here’s a taste:

The Obama Administration’s support of a national broadband plan that would grant access to the 100 million Americans that remain disconnected is a clear sign that they understand the challenges that communities like ours are facing in the current digital era. However, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) recent moves to regulate the Internet with rules that have been used to regulate the phone system for the past 70 years are clear signs that the implementation of the national broadband plan is getting bumped down on list of priorities. Plainly said, the promise of materializing a national broadband plan to empower our communities is taking a back seat to a discussion about who can regulate the process and how.

What does this mean for all of us? It means that the FCC’s authority could very well lead to policies that will force the private sector to spend more money on regulatory process and ultimately pay for it by billing it consumers. It also means they won’t be in a hurry to invest money where it needs to be concentrated – in building broadband infrastructure which would create jobs and offer online resources that we need.

Read the entire column at EbonyJet.

State of (and Statements About) Broadband Deployment

By David

Yesterday, the FCC released its latest report on broadband deployment. From Chairman Julius Genachowski’s statement about the report:

On Congress’s question of universality—whether all Americans are on track to being served—the best available data shows that between 14 and 24 million Americans live in areas where they cannot get broadband.  These are mostly expensive-to-serve areas with low population density. Without substantial reforms to the agency’s universal service programs, these areas will continue to be unserved, denied access to the transformative power of broadband. So, taking account of the millions of Americans who, despite years of waiting, still have little prospect of getting broadband deployed to their homes, we must conclude that broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.

As is typical with the increasingly political FCC, reactions to the report’s findings split along party lines, with Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn — both strong supporters of stricter Internet regulations — siding with fellow Democrat Genachowski, while the Commission’s two Republican commissioners dissented. From Commissioner Robert McDowell’s statement:

Collecting granular data, including subscribership numbers, is important. But, subscribership data does not equate to the “availability” of broadband, which is what Congress requires the Commission to assess under Section 706.  In many instances the Report confuses the facts by substituting the terms “deployment” and “subscribership” as if they were synonymous and interchangeable. They are not. “Deployment” and “subscribership” are two distinct concepts with different attributes and areas for improvement. Our task is to focus on Congress’ explicit directive to analyze deployment progress for purposes of the Section 706 Report. Today, however, the majority is sidelining the deployment figure of 95 percent in favor of a seemingly smaller subscribership number. It is only reasonable to question the rationale behind this confusing pivot.

And from Commissioner Meredith Baker’s reaction:

From 2003 to 2009, under a consistent minimal regulatory framework, broadband providers have invested $27 billion annually in networks and infrastructure. Each year networks go further and faster. The National Broadband Plan found that 95 percent of the U.S. population has access to a 4 Mbps/1 Mbps terrestrial broadband service, and 80 percent have choice of broadband offerings. In every prior Section 706 Report, the Commission concluded that broadband deployment was timely and reasonable. In a striking departure from that decade of consistent Commission findings, the Commission has changed course by concluding that broadband deployment now is not reasonable and timely. I cannot support this decision. Broadband infrastructure deployment and investment are a remarkable and continuing success story, and I am troubled by giving such significant efforts a failing grade.”

The Plan Should Have Priority

By David

Rafael A. Fantauzzi, President and CEO of the National Puerto Rican Coalition, highlights a recent study from the Pew Research Center that finds wireless broadband is helping close the digital divide among Hispanics and African Americans. While the study results are encouraging, Fantauzzi warns that:

[D]despite these gains, a significant number of our citizens still lack the ability to regularly access the Internet and we must remain focused on expanding access to those without it. The National Puerto Rican Coalition (NPRC) was an enthusiastic supporter of the National Broadband Plan and its objective of 100% broadband access. We encourage the FCC to follow through with the implementation of the Plan to get all Americans connected.  Achieving universal broadband access should take priority over policies like the FCC’s recent “third way” proposal, which could inadvertently jeopardize the affordability and availability of broadband services. Let us hope that the FCC’s decision does not undermine the trend of increased broadband adoption in underserved communities.

A Letter to Congressional Leaders

By David

The Hill has posted a letter from a group of minority organizations asking Congressional leaders to step in with broadband legislation rather than the FCC writing up regulations on its own:

[W[e are concerned that the Commission’s proposed regulations could be a distraction from efforts to implement the National Broadband Plan. By injecting uncertainty into the broadband market, we fear that proposed regulations could have detrimental effects on investment, innovation and job creation. As staff from the Commission has estimated that it will take up to $350 billion to deploy broadband nationally, those underserved by broadband cannot afford a decrease in future investments.  Nor can American workers, who we must rely upon to build out broadband infrastructure across the country. The goal of closing the digital divide and creating jobs in our communities should be at the forefront of our broadband policy agenda at this time.

The full letter, including the names and organizations who have signed it, can be read at The Hill.

A Blast From Barton

By Bruce

Via Multichannel News, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) — the ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee — had some strong words for the FCC regarding its Title II efforts:

“It is inexcusable that the FCC chairman is trying to reclassify broadband service under the pretext that the commission lacks authority to implement aspects of the national broadband plan when he should instead be focusing on bipartisan aspects of the plan that he clearly has authority to move on, such as reducing antiquated voice service subsidies.”

“A Lawyer’s Paradise”

By Bruce

PC World talked with some telecom experts about the FCC’s move to regulate the Internet under Title II:

The move to reclassify broadband will create many years of legal uncertainty because of likely challenges to the FCC’s actions, said telecom lawyer Jonathan Nuechterlein, a partner at the Wilmer Hale law firm in Washington, D.C. “What the FCC is proposing to do here is create a lawyer’s paradise,” said Nuechterlein, a former deputy general counsel at the FCC. “They will send my kids to college and their kids to college.”

But Chris Wright, a partner in the Wiltshire and Grannis law firm and former general counsel at the FCC, disagreed. While Genachowski’s plan may not lead to immediate certainty for lawyers and investors, reclassifying broadband may give the FCC clearer legal authority than any attempts to continue to create broadband rules on a case-by-case basis, he said. The FCC, under its current limited authority, would probably “lose a lot” of legal cases when trying to implement its national broadband plan, released in March.

“It’s a lawyer’s paradise either way,” Wright said. “There is uncertainty. There will be considerable uncertainty for a long time.”

“On a Wrong Path”

By Brad

In an editorial for the Tulsa World, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry (D) has come out strongly against the FCC’s move to regulate the Internet under Title II:

[T]he path the FCC proposes — reclassifying broadband under an arcane section of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 — will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the lofty goal of universal broadband access across the U.S. If the FCC continues on its present course, there is a real threat to rural communities and populations which are underserved by broadband access today.

The chilling effect such a move will have on private investment and job creation is real and is already being felt from Wall Street to Main Street, as Washington moves ever closer to more onerous regulation of the Internet. We cannot afford to stifle private investment, job creation and economic recovery, especially now.

Read the whole thing.

Under Stimulated

By Bruce

Via Broadband Breakfast, last week the House Appropriations Committee quietly rescinded $602 million from the broadband stimulus programs of the Commerce and Agriculture Departments. The cut came as part of an overall effort to funnel an additional $75 billion to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congress Takes a Step Forward

By Bruce

A group of bipartisan leaders overseeing America’s communications policies have announced they will be holding a series of sessions about overhauling communication laws. The first set of staff-led stakeholder sessions will address broadband regulation and FCC authority, with a focus on protecting consumers and promoting broadband investment. The first session will be held on June 25, 2010. After these sessions are concluded, additional stakeholder meetings will be convened to address spectrum policy and broadband deployment and adoption.

there's more...

Urging Congress to Step In

By Brad

This morning, eight prominent labor, civil rights, and environmental organizations sent a letter to Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman John D. Rockefeller and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman urging Congress to quickly and narrowly define the FCC’s authority over the Internet.

The signers were the AFL-CIO, the Communications Workers of America, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the Sierra Club, and in the letter they wrote:

We are united in our support of those elements of the National Broadband Plan that spur building and upgrading our high-speed networks, providing affordable access and digital skills to every American and building high speed capacity to every community anchor institution.

Unfortunately, the recent Comcast court decision threatens to divert our attention from these critical national objectives. The court concluded that the FCC had no demonstrated that it has jurisdiction over broadband Internet access. As a result, some question whether the FCC has authority to enforce its 2005 Open Internet principles and to use the Universal Service Fund to support the build-out of advanced broadband networks.

We can avoid further delays in building out a world class network if Congress quickly moves to pass legislation that clarifies FCC authority to protect an Open Internet and to apply Universal Service funding to broadband.

The full joint letter is available on the CWA website (PDF).

Bruce Mehlman in Fierce Telecom

By IIA

In his latest column for Fierce Telecom, IIA Co-Chairman Bruce Mehlman writes about the “Four Pillars for Broadband Policy” and the negative effect the FCC’s proposed regulations could have on the National Broadband Plan:

While the FCC has demonstrated wisdom and vision in much of the 384-page national broadband policy it issued two months ago, our confidence in their sincere promises to forbear from imposing new regulations does not warrant blind support for the regulatory blank check they seek. Over time, regulators almost always use all of the powers they are given and then some. Better to let Congress narrowly prescribe such authorities when and as they are necessitated by market failures and actual situations “on the ground.”

If we are ever to reach 100 percent broadband penetration—an important goal of the Obama Administration that we wholeheartedly share—we will need to ensure maximum investment, innovation and competition across access platforms. The optimal environment for such outcomes would have narrowly-tailored regulations targeted at specific problems rather than sweeping rules for problems that do not exist. The FCC’s so-called “third way” is the wrong way. The application of these archaic rules will bring uncertainty to the market, stifling Internet investment and innovation.

You can read the entire column at Fierce Telecom.

Qualms From Congress

By Bruce

Tech Daily Dose notes that Democratic opposition to the FCC’s proposed Title II regulations continues to grow in both chambers of Congress, with the tally now standing at 77 members.

Meanwhile, The Hill reports that a bipartisan group of 22 senators sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski last week complaining that the Commission’s National Broadband Plan — which risks being forgotten amid all the Net Neutrality and Title II talk — treats rural areas as “second class”:

Among those who signed last week’s letter to Chairman Julius Genachowski were Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Herb Kohl (Wis.), and Max Baucus (Mont.) and Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and John Barrasso (Wyo.).

It follows a similar House effort last month in which a bipartisan group of 42 members expressed opposition to parts of the National Broadband Plan, the FCC’s decade-long agenda for getting everyone in the U.S. online and boosting broadband speeds across the country.

Both letters charged that the agency is not ambitious enough with its broadband goals for rural America, especially in comparison with its targets for cities.