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Another Profile in Courage
For all the urgency with which the FCC touts broadband, you would think that America’s economic future hangs in the balance. So it was rather curious to see in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan (“NBP”) that the FCC is going to take TEN YEARS to address the two issues that impact broadband deployment most – inter-carrier compensation and universal service reform. I single out these two issues because they are the worst example of a system of subsidization for legacy narrow-band service providers. How can carriers be expected to invest in broadband when they are either (a) paying massive subsidies to narrow-band operators or (b) receiving massive subsidies to maintain narrow-band networks?
I think the fact that the FCC is proposing a ten year transition undermines pretty much everything else in NBP and robs the FCC of any credibility on broadband. If broadband is so important to our economic future, education, energy, and general welfare, then why we are willing to wait ten years to eliminate the subsidies to narrow-band carriers? Evidently broadband is so important to our economic future, but not so important that we are going to upset the rural telephone companies who are the primary recipients of the narrow-band subsidies. According to an FCC survey, 93 million Americans currently lack broadband and are going to have to wait until we are sure that the rural telephone companies are well taken care of. Give me a break.
Of course what makes this all the more absurd is that the FCC has already been “seriously” examining inter-carrier compensation and universal service reform for nine years. The FCC opened a docket on the matter in April 2001 and has revisited and refreshed the record numerous times since. Given the purported urgency of the situation, it is safe to say that the issuance of the NBP by this FCC won’t be the subject of a “profile in courage.”
