The idea that broadband is a public utility that should be extended
everywhere contradicts the notion of water, sewer, and natural gas
services. Many, many rural residents have no access to public water,
sewer, and gas systems and have to provide these things on their own by
way of wells, septic systems, and propane or butane tanks filled out of
truck. Broadband networking is understandably rare in these settings as
well, with the exception of satellite broadband which is ubiquitous but
high in latency and unsuitable for Skype. Even where government is the
service provider, there are cases in which it's simply too expensive to
provide certain utility services, so I don't see that the utility model
really makes the case for universal high-speed, low-latency broadband.
[ On the other hand, the vast majority of persons in the U.S.
*are* served by utility-based structures for water, power,
natural gas, etc. Here in L.A. my water and power are provided
by a city-owned system. Expensive? Yeah. But on the whole the
power at least is still a bit less expensive than the surrounding
private utility areas. Broadband access is now in the necessary
functions arena, we need to treat it as such.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]
On 8/27/2010 11:47 AM, Robert Oliver wrote:
On 8/27/2010 12:51 PM, George Ou wrote:
The most extreme form of Net Neutrality
<http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/08/the-three-extreme-forms-of-net-neutrality/>
advocates taking private property used for delivering non-Internet
services and mandating that it be used for Internet capacity. I know
Bob would love to see this and he has no respect for private property
which he like others mistakenly believes is public property
<http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/08/techdirt-mistakens-broadband-for-public-property/>,
but it has no legal foundation. ...
While it may be inappropriate to consider the existing "last mile"
broadband infrastructure as "public property," it is likewise
inappropriate not to realize that it should be dealt with as a public
utility, just like electric lines, water lines and sewer lines. It is
simply cost-prohibitive (and certainly inefficient) to run multiple
broadband connections to each home (especially rural ones being
subsidized already by the UTF). The "last mile" should be managed more
efficiently for municipal use, just like we figured out years ago for
phones, power, water and sewer.
Should a municipality desire to "own the infrastructure" (such as
Kutztown, PA; an example of municipal fiber suspiciously absent from
Mr. Ou's essay on "failed municipal broadband
<http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/03/why-municipal-fiber-has-not-succeeded#muni-failure>"),
they should be allowed. If, on the other hand, the more common model
is used where a private company builds and manages the infrastructure,
it should be regulated like the monopoly it is and forced to share the
bandwidth, just as I can now, here in Pennsylvania, purchase electric
power from a variety of providers, but it is delivered by the local
transmission network managed by Execlon / PECO, and regulated by the
PA PUC. I'm not saying the PA PUC does a great job of representing
PA's consumers vs. the companies they're supposed to regulate, but
it's a start. Also note that that "telephone companies" have promised
regulatory commissions that they will deliver broadband / fiber to a
wide range of areas, and been allowed rate increases to fund that.
Actual delivery has not matched the promises. Better regulation and
oversight is definitely needed.
And to be clear: I am a "small government" proponent. Smaller
government and fewer regulations are my desire, except in cases where
it makes sense. Last mile broadband is one of those cases where it
makes sense. Competition in the last mile does not make sense. Running
a half dozen fiber optic lines to every home in the US in order to get
a free, open market competitive situation simply is not going to
happen and is not cost effective. We can't even get a single fiber
connection to every home at this point, much less a half dozen. And
it's just a waste anyway. When choice of electric provider was
introduced in PA, we didn't string six more power lines to every home.
To dispute that broadband last-mile networks should not be treated as
a public utility is just as mistaken as calling them public property.
--
Richard Bennett
Senior Research Fellow
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Washington, DC
