Network management

James Comey may have sucked up all the oxygen June 8 on Capitol Hill, but NTIA Administrator-nominee David Redl, previously senior counsel for the House Commerce Committee, addressed several issues of interest to technology and telecommunications folks during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee:

On striking the right balance for spectrum: "One of the core jobs that NTIA has is balancing the need for spectrum for government users to meet their very important needs and balancing that with the need for spectrum in the commercial sector ... there's always an opportunity for more efficient use of spectrum."
On the ICANN transition: "The reality is that we're in the situation we're in ... We're going to have to move forward and be a vigorous representative of U.S. interests before ICANN. It would have been very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle."
On FirstNet: "The statute is clear, that NTIA is to work with FirstNet and the states, to make sure there is deployment, particularly in rural areas."
On expanding rural broadband: "Everyone in America should be able to benefit from the economic value of broadband ... I would want to look across all the different challenges facing individual states, particularly rural areas, and try to find individual mechanisms that will help support private sector investment in those places."
On 5.9 GHz spectrum and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications: "As we go forward and look at ways to increase use of that band ... we need to ensure that those systems that are planned for and incumbents are protected as we look at additional uses."

[Commentary] Recently, NCTA, the trade association for the industry formerly known as cable, posted this amazing graph and blog post showing that the "virtuous cycle" the Federal Communications Commission predicted would happen when it adopted the Open Internet rules (a.k.a. net neutrality) back in December 2010. Indeed, as the NCTA graph shows (based on the latest Akamai State of the Internet Report), the average speed of broadband connections has not only continued to rise since the FCC first adopted net neutrality rules in 2010, but the rate of increase has accelerated since the FCC adopted the Title II reclassification Order in February 2015. Finally, as NCTA also points out, in the approximately 10 years since the FCC first began to enforce net neutrality through the "Internet Policy Statement" and the Comcast/BitTorrent Complaint, the cost of moving bits from their source to your home has dropped 90 percent on a per bit basis. (Whether we are actually still paying too much because of our lack of competition in the broadband market is something of a different question.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this matches the findings from Free Press' Derek Turner in this massive and meticulously documented report, "Broadband Investments And Where To Find Them." But it's still nice to see NCTA confirm it.

With President Donald Trump emphasizing his infrastructure revamp proposal, the Communications Workers of America wants Congress to emphasize broadband investment in any plan it approves. That came in a letter to the leadership, Republican and Democrat, of the House and Senate Commerce Committees.

CWA says any broadband infrastructure bill should: 1) direct $40 billion in funding to unserved communities; 2) change the tax laws to accelerate depreciation for broadband capital expenditures; 3) direct $10 billion to the Federal Communications Commission 's E-rate fund for high-speed broadband to schools and libraries; and 4) supplement the FCC's Lifeline subsidy (basic telecom for those who need help affording it) with a $100 tax credit per year on the purchase of broadband by low-income families (less than $35,000 per year).

Competitive cable operator WOW! reaffirmed a commitment not to implement data caps and usage-based policies for all of its high-speed Internet customers, holding that it’s taking the “consumer side” in that debate. WOW! said the promise of no data caps comes amid recently updated Internet-only plans and new bundles, adding that it now offers speeds up to 500 M bps across 95% of its footprint. WOW is also pushing ahead with a rollout of 1-Gig speeds using DOCSIS 3.1 technology, starting in markets that include Auburn and Huntsville (AL), Evansville (IN), and Knoxville (TN).

[Commentary] This post kicks of a series of blogs examining some of the more pernicious myths and misunderstandings in telecommunications policy. With a new fire lit under the network neutrality warriors, misinformation runs rampant and spreads quickly.

Let’s turn to the first myth: that financial data shows that Title II isn’t hurting Internet service providers’ investment in their networks.

Financial filings shows broadband investment went down roughly 2-3 percent after the Open Internet Order, consistent with industry’s own findings. It’s especially important that we see continued investment in the infrastructure that supports “best-efforts” open Internet. And there is good reason to think Title II would affect this. Not only did the Open Internet Order take potential business models off the table, and throw others into uncertainty under the Internet Conduct Standard, it represents the first step down the slippery slope to more onerous utility regulations, such as network unbundling requirements or price regulation.