Industry, Public Interest Groups Debate How to Judge if Broadband’s Availability Adequate

The comments, most of them posted Friday, came at the end of the initial comment period for the agency’s Aug. 5 notice of inquiry (NOI) (WID Aug 6 p7) asking if the agency should adopt higher standards for speed. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, in the eyes of some analysts and observers, appeared to signal support for the higher standards, during a speech Thursday (WID Sept 5 p3). The NOI asked if the standard should be raised from 4 Mbps download and 1 Mbps up to 10/1.5 Mbps, to help determine if broadband is being deployed in a timely and reasonable fashion as called for under Communications Act Section 706.

At the heart of the debate was how to get the most realistic picture of the state of broadband deployment in the U.S. Some, like AT&T, NCTA and the Telecommunications Industry Association, argued the deployment of broadband shows the act’s standards are being met. Public interest groups and others argued the current standard does not reflect the growing need for speed as more people Skype and stream videos, often at the same time. In addition to calling for an even higher download speed standard of 25 Mbps (http://bit.ly/1AeDLWt), Public Knowledge asked the commission to factor in data capacity thresholds that cap how much faster broadband customers can use without a fee.

The debate over how to judge the state of broadband also involved whether wireless should be considered. NCTA (http://bit.ly/1t8M0Aw) said the agency should prepare a report that “accurately reflects the tremendous scope and variety of broadband services available to American consumers.”

Defining whether the nation’s level of broadband is adequate “affects almost every policy question involving broadband,” said Public Knowledge Vice President Michael Weinberg in an interview. BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield told us there’s more competition at the lower speed. More competition means “less fear about a broadband cable monopoly,” said Greenfield, who had said in a note to investors Thursday the agency’s failure to propose even higher standards was good for the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable.

The filings also proposed sometimes starkly different strategies for promoting broadband deployment. AT&T urged the commission to set a date after which companies would no longer be required to provide TDM service or interconnection, and to make it clear that carrier of last resort obligations don’t apply when carriers replace TDM with IP services. Netflix said the commission should grant the petitions of Wilson, North Carolina, and the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, to pre-empt state regulations that impede the development of municipal broadband networks.

Wireless a Subtheme

A major subtheme in the filings was how the FCC should treat wireless in the report. CTIA had said the FCC should include wireless, but should avoid setting “arbitrary latency or usage thresholds,” which could exclude wireless offerings “widely deployed in the market and demonstrably valued by consumers.”

The Competitive Carriers Association said the commission should “acknowledge the important role that mobile broadband plays in the overall broadband ecosystem while recognizing both the differences between wired and mobile broadband services, and therefore take steps to further encourage mobile broadband deployment” (http://bit.ly/1pTPLwc). But “any reasonable assessment” of broadband must take into account “all network technologies are not created equal, and that benefits and challenges exist for each separate network technology, and particularly for mobile technology,” CCA said. Because of “constrained access to necessary inputs” from spectrum to backhaul to devices, “many smaller providers may not currently be able to offer download speeds in excess of 10 Mbps, even if they have deployed LTE technology in their networks,” CCA said.

The Satellite Industry Association said a 10/1 Mbps benchmark would be reasonable. “Consumer broadband satellite services provided by Hughes go as high as 15/2 Mbps and by ViaSat go as high as 12/3 Mbps, and they offer all of the above applications as part of their respective satellite services,” SIA said (http://bit.ly/1xm6tZ6). Verizon said carriers “are racing to deploy 4G LTE services to meet consumer demand for broadband” and that in 2013 they invested $34 billion in their networks, compared with $21 billion in 2009.

Debating Speed

The NOI and Wheeler’s remarks questioned the adequacy of the 4/1 Mbps standard because households often have people using multiple devices at the same time. NCTA and AT&T said a standard of 10 Mbps to accommodate a household’s ability to stream video and send emails at the same time is too high. The current standard is “sufficient to perform the primary functions identified in section 706 -- high quality voice, video, and data,” NCTA said.

Sixty-one percent of U.S. households have only one or two residents, less than the average of three people the agency used to determine the 10 Mbps standard, NCTA said, and “the assumption that each member of a household is using multiple devices to access the broadband network simultaneously is not realistic. To read section 706 as requiring that every broadband connection be capable of supporting simultaneous video streaming by multiple people using multiple devices cannot be justified."

The 10 Mbps standard is a “one-size-fits-all estimate of the connection speeds that “high use” (and often affluent) broadband households would desire if they were trying to access three or more relatively bandwidth-intensive applications all at the same time,” AT&T said (http://bit.ly/1Af6UAO). “Section 706, however, is not myopically focused on the subset of consumers that are the heaviest users of advanced services; rather, it asks only whether Americans have access to capabilities that are sufficient to use the specific applications listed in the statute.” AT&T said broadband networks and applications “are engineered in ways that efficiently allow concurrent uses, so that less overall bandwidth would typically be necessary.” The company said it was not opposed to raising speeds, but the standards should have a basis. “Particularly given that Section 706 now provides the Commission with an affirmative grant of authority to promote advanced capabilities, the Commission must be judicious and faithful to the statutory language in defining the term advanced capabilities,” AT&T said, referring to Verizon v. FCC (WID Jan 16 p1).

Fixed broadband connections have continued to expand, but the rate of growth has slowed because there are “significantly fewer non-broadband households” in the U.S., said TIA (http://bit.ly/WoPep9). Mobile wireless is “deploying and investing in broadband connections that meet modern user needs,” and it’s clear “advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion,” TIA said. The Communications Workers of America supported (http://bit.ly/1tyBHtM) a 10 Mbps standard, saying that since the current standard was set in 2010, “the widespread development and adoption of video- and data-intensive Internet applications and services means that households need even higher-bandwidth Internet connectivity to access those services in a reasonable and timely fashion.” The Institute for Local Self-Reliance echoed that view (http://bit.ly/YhLho3).

Netflix also urged a revised standard factor in data caps, saying (http://bit.ly/1lFcefw) a “gigabit broadband service that heavily penalizes consistent use may be worth less to consumers than a 10 Mbps broadband service with no cap or penalty.” It also urged a higher speed threshold.

The Fiber to the Home Council said the commission should stop using speed but assess broadband’s availability based on whether all-fiber networks are “being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” Relying on speed has “resulted in an annual game of catch-up, with the Commission’s standard rarely capturing market realities,” FTTH said (http://bit.ly/1rQaxi1).

Responding to an NOI question of whether standards in rural areas should differ from standards in other areas, NTCA and other groups said the commission should adopt a standard “independent of geographic location.” All Americans “regardless of where they happen to live, should have access to advanced capabilities and services,” said the Eastern Rural Telecom Association, National Exchange Carrier Association, NTCA and WTA (http://bit.ly/1lLRweb). The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association echoed that view (http://bit.ly/1CyqyeR) saying different rural standards would “create two classes of Americans -- the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.'” ,