Competition/Antitrust

US customers pay some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world, and broadband availability is sketchy at best for millions of Americans. But instead of tackling that problem head on, the Federal Communications Commission is increasingly looking the other way, relying on Internet service provider (ISP) data that paints an inaccurately rosy picture of Americans’ internet access. And as long as regulators are relying on a false picture of US broadband access, actually solving the problem may be impossible. 

The birth of wireless home internet has been so frustrating to observe. While major telecommunication companies like Verizon and T-Mobile make grand proclamations about disrupting home broadband with speedy 5G wireless internet service, the reality on the ground–or, rather, in the air–is harsher. Even with low buildout costs and limitless consumer demand, building out the wireless home internet of the future is a painstakingly methodical endeavor.

AT&T and Verizon are trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission that mobile broadband is good enough for Internet users who don't have access to fiber or cable services, in filings they submitted for the FCC's annual review of broadband deployment. The carriers made this claim despite the data usage and speed limitations of mobile services. In the mobile market, even "unlimited" plans can be throttled to unusable speeds after a customer uses just 25GB or so a month.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) has called on the Federal Communications Commission to prove its commitment to “closing the digital divide” by adding home broadband affordability, the broadband adoption rates of low income households, and the digital redlining of urban neighborhoods to the issues covered by the agency’s upcoming 2019 Broadband Deployment Report.

Charter Communications Chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge explained why 5G isn’t an existential threat to cable’s connectivity business. “We have a better platform to deploy [5G] technology, I think, than the cellular industry does because we are fully distributed from a high-capacity wireline perspective,” said Rutledge. “If you think about what 5G is, it is small cells,” Rutledge added. “Small cells mean you needs lots of wired line connectivity to make the small cells work. We think we are actually in a better position to do that than traditional cellular companies.

The debate over the right approach to privacy took center stage during the Federal Trade Commission’s inaugural hearing on competition. David Vladeck and Howard Beales, both former directors of the agency’s consumer protection bureau, clashed over whether the FTC requires a bigger stick when it comes to privacy enforcement. Vladeck argued the agency needs the power to impose civil penalties from the get-go. “I think that a civil penalty, for example, against Google or Facebook initially would have had a deterrent value,” Vladeck said. “Facebook is currently under investigation again.

5G technologies are expected to put mobile broadband on par with fiber networks — and they're rolling out on a city-by-city basis similar to how Google Fiber deployed networks between 2010 and 2016. Google has stopped expanding its expensive fiber build-outs and, as a result, is seen as a failed experiment.

An interview with Rise Broadband co-founder Jeff Kholer. Rise Broadband is the largest US wireless Internet service provider (ISP). 

Looking at the Federal Communications Commission’s Form 477 data from 2015 and 2016, three empirical facts emerge:

Residents across Nashville (TN) have been waiting for the highly anticipated Google Fiber internet service since Google announced its expansion to Nashville three and a half years ago. While parts of several neighborhoods and apartment buildings have access to Google Fiber, many Nashvillians continue to renew contracts with existing providers they pledged to drop when the city rolled out its red carpet to Google.