Report on past event

[Commentary] At the end of October, Jonathan Baker, Fiona Scott Morton, and I organized a day-long conference entitled Unlocking the Promise of Antitrust Enforcement. Our premise was simple: In a time when the purpose and future of antitrust is again an important topic of political discourse, we need to understand what antitrust enforcers can do today with the laws that exist right now. Laws that have been on the books for a long time – The Sherman Act was passed in 1890 – but which retain their vitality. And their importance.

It’s no secret that America’s low-income and low-population communities trail urban areas when it comes to broadband access. Government and industry must ensure that gap doesn’t expand when 5G becomes operational, public- and private-sector officials said in a House Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing Nov. 16. Today, most electronic devices connect to the internet, and some of those items, like connected vehicles, will be creating significant amounts of data that needs to be processed quickly.

Executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter appeared on Capitol Hill for the first time on Oct 31 to publicly acknowledge their role in Russia’s influence on the presidential campaign, but offered little more than promises to do better. Their reluctance frustrated lawmakers who sought stronger evidence that American elections will be protected from foreign powers. The hearing, the first of three in two days for company executives, served as an initial public reckoning for the internet giants.

As the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, I have a special interest in the progress that was made in communications and technology policy during the Reagan Administration. It was an executive order signed by President Reagan that first made the Pentagon’s Global Positioning (GPS) system available for civilian use. FCC Chairmen who served during the Reagan Administration were incredible leaders and visionaries. Mark Fowler and Dennis Patrick each did a fantastic job leading the agency. They moved aggressively to eliminate unnecessary rules and implement President Reagan’s deregulatory philosophy. They set a high bar for those who came after them—and I strive for that bar every day.

The Reagan FCC eliminated the so-called Fairness Doctrine. This misnamed government dictate suppressed the discussion of controversial issues on our nation’s airwaves and was an affront to the First Amendment. The Reagan FCC also built the political foundation for auctioning licenses to spectrum—a free-market innovation blasted back then and widely accepted today. The Reagan FCC introduced “price cap” regulation, reducing government’s role in micromanaging profits and increasing consumer welfare. And the Reagan FCC set the stage for much of the innovation that we see today. In 1985, for example, it had the foresight to set aside what were generally thought to be “junk” airwaves for anybody to use—what we call “unlicensed” spectrum. And entrepreneurs put it to work. Thanks to the FCC’s vision, we now use unlicensed services every day, every time we access Wi-Fi or use Bluetooth or check a baby monitor. Consider this 1985 quote from Mark Fowler, President Reagan’s first FCC Chairman—a quote that applies today: “We want to eliminate, as much as we can, government regulation of the telecommunications marketplace so as to permit present players to provide new and innovative services to consumers and likewise permit new players to come in and compete.” That’s basically our approach today.

It's hard to run a successful business without access to high speed broadband. That was the message that repeatedly surfaced as Senate Democrats discussed issues important to rural America during a rural summit on Sept. 13.

Sen Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) joined senators from Montana, Delaware. North Carolina, Minnesota, Michigan and other states, along with national leaders, to discuss issues important to rural America, with an emphasis on boosting economic opportunity. Representing Wisconsin, Sen Baldwin was joined by Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden and James Wessing, president of Kondex Corporation in Lomira.

In describing the importance of rural communities, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) pointed out that about 60 million Americans live in rural areas, which is equivalent to 20 percent of the US population. However, the other 80 percent of the nation's population relies on that 20 percent for their food, energy and "so much of what they need to survive day to day."

“The Open Internet exists today, and it is under attack.” That was the dire message Tom Wheeler, former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, had for the audience of the Benton Foundation hosted event at 1871 on September 18. What is the Open Internet? Take, for example, the Facebook Live video of his entire speech. As Wheeler put it, no one had to ask permission from a major internet provider to broadcast it to the world. But the FCC under the current administration has done an about-face in policy, signaling they may be looking to reverse protections for consumers and make it much easier for large broadband providers to restrict access to certain content, throttle up and download speeds and perhaps prevent innovators and entrepreneurs from freely distributing their services.

We’re here to celebrate former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s public service, and discuss protecting the Open Internet, the most critical communications issue of our time. We’re here today to recognize Tom’s many efforts on behalf of the American people: to uphold the public interest; use the power of communications to strengthen communities; and to modernize and reform programs that bring open, affordable, high-capacity broadband to all Americans. Tom, your work as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission created opportunities for all Americans to connect to jobs, education, healthcare, and family. And in the years to come, you and your team’s many accomplishments will not be measured by the initiatives you proposed, the dockets you opened, or the votes you won. The day-to-day impacts of your work will be seen in the community that was once left behind, that is now able to get ahead with new broadband options; in the child who can now reach a hand across a keyboard to access a whole new universe of knowledge thanks to gigabit connections to the school and Wi-Fi in the classroom; in the young mother who can now coordinate work and her child’s medical care thanks to her Lifeline connection; and in the small business owner who can now compete on a level playing field with its bigger business competitors thanks to a free and open Internet. In your first major address as Chairman, you stressed that the FCC is the public’s representative in the ongoing network revolution, and you promised to use the Commission’s full authority to protect competition, accessibility, interconnection, public safety, and security. Thank you for delivering on that promise. You are truly .

This paper looks back at forty years of US communications policy, and concludes that all of the challenges that were salient when Telecommunications Policy published its first issue—the lack of competition in CPE, long distance, local telephone service, television networks, and multichannel video program distribution—have essentially been addressed. The other technology that has grown in importance since 1976—the Internet—is widely regarded as a raging success.

Although no history is completely uniform, the past forty years illustrates the key considerations underlying the choice between whether to impose access regulations or whether to rely on facilities-based competition. Moreover, the paper considers the important role that US courts have played in promoting competition and consumer welfare. In many cases, timely judicial intervention has forced regulators to retreat from positions that protected incumbents and limited competition. The paper concludes with outlooks on new issues and debates that will continue to arise.

At a recent panel convened by the Wireless Future Project at New America, Ellen Satterwhite, of the American Library Association, noted that 40 percent of libraries cannot meet the minimum speed requirements set by the Federal Communications Commission (100Mbs for small libraries and 1Gbs for large ones) because of high costs or lack of access. We need only look at Idaho to get a glimpse of this absurd pricing: One library there pays $1000 per month for 5Mb service, while another pays $650 per month for 40Mb service.

So how can we ramp up connectivity in these areas? One potential solution that has shown promise is fixed wireless internet. This, in a nutshell, involves beaming internet access from a broadcasting tower directly into people’s homes via a small receiver on their roof. These sorts of point to multi-point (P2MP) fixed wireless services are becoming increasingly popular, particularly in Middle America, in part because of the relative ease of deployment and the ability to provide gigabit-level speeds. You might be wondering, then, how we can encourage fixed wireless. At the panel, advocates and industry leaders discussed the possible benefits of expanding, or sharing, wireless spectrum access in the 3.7-4.2GHz band to wireless internet service providers, or WISPs. This would be a boon to rural WISPs like Jeff Kohler’s Rise Broadband. Kohler noted that companies like Rise are starting to “feel the squeeze” on the spectrum they’re currently allowed to operate on. He also noted that the cost per customer is considerably less as well, often being roughly $250 for someone using fixed wireless, where the average rural fiber consumer could be upwards of $1,000. In fact, the overall cost of deploying “wireless fiber” for his company was roughly one-tenth of the price of standard fiber.

Tom Wheeler, former chief of the Federal Communications Commission under President Barack Obama, warned the Trump Administration’s plan to repeal network neutrality rules could make accessing the internet like buying a cable TV package.

Wheeler, who led the passage of the embattled rules at the FCC in 2015, said the new Republican plan to undo them would let broadband providers like Comcast and Verizon carve up internet access like premium cable channels. “Do you want your access to the internet to look like your cable service?” Wheeler told a crowd in Baltimore. “Stop and think about it — cable operators pick and choose what channels you get. Cable operators pick and choose who they let on. Cable operators turn to you and say, ‘Oh you want that? That’s going to be a little bit more.'” “That is the difference between a closed network and an open network,” he said. “Net neutrality without Title II is net nothing.”