The NBP and ISP competition: this fight's just beginning

[Commentary] For a plan that puts "competition" as its number one goal, the National Broadband Plan is remarkably light on policies that will produce much of it in the wireline space.

Talk of competition is everywhere, but all suggestions are remarkably general or terribly banal: "more data collection" and "future policy reviews" are everywhere. Suggestions about how such reviews should turn out is lacking. But the reviews will still be held, and at some point the consensus-building NBP will devolve into ugly battles of wholesale access, special access (middle-mile connections), and ISP disclosure. The FCC commissioners know it, and they're already gearing up for the fights ahead. The NBP reminds us that, within a few years, cable will be the only high-speed choice for most Americans unless the telcos start investing in fiber to replace their aging copper networks.

Even now, in a well-off Chicago suburb, Anderson has a single ISP choice if he want anything over 6Mbps. Promoting competition might not require a return to line-sharing mandates -- but it certainly requires something.