ISPs say they can't expand broadband unless gov't gives them more money

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: August 16, 2018 at 11:12:55 PM GMT+9
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] ISPs say they can't expand broadband unless gov't gives them more money
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> ISPs say they can’t expand broadband unless gov’t gives them more money
> Industry asks for handouts, arguing that broadband is essential—like a utility.
> By Jon Brodkin
> Aug 16 2018
> <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-want-to-be-utilities-but-only-to-get-more-money-from-the-government/>
>
> Broadband providers have spent years lobbying against utility-style regulations that protect consumers from high 
> prices and bad service.
>
> But now, broadband lobby groups are arguing that Internet service is similar to utilities such as electricity, gas 
> distribution, roads, and water and sewer networks. In the providers' view, the essential nature of broadband doesn't 
> require more regulation to protect consumers. Instead, they argue that broadband's utility-like status is reason for 
> the government to give ISPs more money.
>
> That's the argument made by trade groups USTelecom and NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association. USTelecom represents 
> telcos including AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink, while NTCA represents nearly 850 small ISPs.
>
> "Like electricity, broadband is essential to every American," USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter and NTCA CEO Shirley 
> Bloomfield wrote Monday in an op-ed for The Topeka Capital-Journal. "Yet US broadband infrastructure has been 
> financed largely by the private sector without assurance that such costs can be recovered through increased consumer 
> rates."
>
> ISPs want benefits but not responsibilities
>
> While ISPs want the benefits of being treated like utilities—such as pole attachment rights and access to public 
> rights-of-way—they oppose traditional utility-style obligations such as regulated prices and deployment to all 
> Americans.
>
> The industry's main arguments against net neutrality and other common carrier regulations were that broadband 
> shouldn't be treated as a utility and that the broadband market is too competitive to justify strict regulations. 
> "Utility regulation over broadband can only inhibit incentives for network investment," AT&T warnedin November 2017.
>
> Industry groups have also tried to stop cities and towns from building their own networks, saying that the government 
> shouldn't compete against private companies. Telecom-friendly legislatures have passed about 20 state laws 
> restricting the growth of municipal broadband.
>
> Despite the industry's fight against municipal networks, Spalter and Bloomfield wrote that the "private-led 
> investment model" only works well in "reasonably populous areas." In rural parts of America, "the private sector 
> can't go it alone," they wrote.
>
> To close the rural broadband gap, the US needs "solutions that unite the public and private sectors to finish the job 
> of building a truly connected nation," Spalter and Bloomfield wrote. This public/private model is "without 
> question... the only acceptable path forward just as it was in wiring rural America with electricity and building our 
> nation's highways."
>
> "Broadband providers need a committed partner to finish the job of connecting unserved communities. That partner 
> should be all of us as Americans—in the form of our government," they wrote.
>
> The op-ed did not explain why the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules wasn't enough to spur expanded broadband 
> investment, though broadband industry lobby groups previously claimed that the rules were holding back network 
> expansions and upgrades. ISPs also promised more investment in exchange for a major tax break that was passed by 
> Congress late last year.
>
> Broadband’s similarity to utilities
>
> To make their point, USTelecom and NTCA commissioned a report titled, "Rural Broadband Economics: A Review of Rural 
> Subsidies."
>
> The "costs per user" of building networks in sparsely populated areas led to "unsustainable business models to 
> provide network services," the USTelecom/NTCA report says. The report was written for USTelecom and NTCA by telecom 
> consulting firm CostQuest Associates. It continues:
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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