Competition/Antitrust

The Coeur d’Alene (Idaho) City Council agreed with two local internet providers to back off a proposal to subsidize a Wisconsin company that wants to provide high-speed internet to the city. In a unanimous vote, council members stopped short of cutting franchise fees for the use of its utility right of way for Madison-based TDS Metrocom, which proposes building a one Gigabit broadband system in the city within three years.

Internet access is an indispensable determining factor when it comes to opportunities and resources. Susan Crawford, author and Harvard Law professor, reflects on the monopoly that companies hold over the service, quality and availability of fiber optic internet service. She points out that with little to no government regulatory infrastructure, or representatives with the necessary know-how, provider incentives rarely align with the public’s best interest. “My fear is that we’ve lost the idea that government actually helps people have better lives,” she wrote.

Three districts in northwestern Alaska are pioneering a high-speed fiber-optic cable connection that has the potential to transform how education is delivered in the state—and shrink a connectivity gap between rural Alaska and the majority of American schools. A little-known Anchorage-based company called Quintillion established rapid underwater pathways between global commerce centers, connecting an Alaska branch (phase one) to Asia (phase two) and the United Kingdom (phase three).

Next Century Cities, the American Action Forum, and Public Knowledge held a bipartisan discussion about tech policy priorities for the new Congress. 

Here are 10 questions about broadband we hope to find answers to in 2019:

The Federal Communications Commission released a new, 182-page Communications Marketplace Report it claims proves the US broadband industry is awash with vibrant competition. In reality, consumer groups, third-party data and the report itself paint a starkly different picture; one where consumers increasingly only have access to just one Internet service provider: Comcast.

As a staunch supporter of limited government and free speech, I have regularly objected to government attempts to own and control the nation’s communications networks. I have been a staunch critic of government projects to build and operate broadband networks. Beyond flirting with a perverse form of socialism, municipalities’ overbuilding of private providers creates market inefficiencies, distorts competitive outcomes, encourages regulatory favoritism towards state-owned networks, and can be a waste of taxpayer money. Even in instances where municipal, or muni, broadband reaches unserved a

The Federal Communications Commission adopted its first Communications Marketplace Report, which provides a comprehensive evaluation of the state of the communications marketplace. As required by Title IV of RAY BAUM’S Act of 2018, the report consolidates several separate reports to address the state of the broader communications marketplace in one place. And as mandated by Congress, this report will be issued every two years.

With gigabit expanding across the nation, fixed broadband speeds in the US are rapidly increasing. Speedtest data from Q2-Q3 2018 reveals a 35.8 percent increase in mean download speed during the last year and a 22.0 percent increase in upload speed. As a result, the US ranks 7th in the world for download speed, between Hungary and Switzerland. The US ranks 27th for upload, between Bulgaria and Canada. Though 5G looms on the mobile horizon, fixed broadband speeds in the US continue to outpace those on mobile showing both faster speeds and greater increases in speed.