Broadband Should Be Treated As 'Essential Utility'

Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, New America Foundation and US PIRG said the Federal Communications Commission needs to change how broadband is regulated, because the service is an 'essential utility' and not a luxury. In a filing with the Commission, the groups said any new approach should reflect the failures of the marketplace, which have resulted in minimal competition, and higher rates for lower speeds than in many other industrialized nations. The lack of competition can be traced to the reclassification of high-speed broadband services into Title I. As a result, proposed a range of options for the Commission to consider, such as: the FCC should reclassify broadband services into Title II; impose structural separations on the offering of wholesale and retail broadband services; impose functional separations or divestiture on the companies offering wholesale and retail broadband services. Local, state or federal government construction of infrastructure can provide a means of enhancing competition and consumer choice, the groups added. In addition, the FCC should conduct a thorough review of competition and prices in the special access market, with the goal of making certain that incumbents make bandwidth available at reasonable and non-discriminatory rates. The absence of competition for this crucial building-block of the broadband economy makes its regulation necessary.