The National Broadband Plan must create a new competition policy ...
The National Broadband Plan must create a new competition policy to break from past mistakes and trigger new market forces, Free Press said. The plan should judge whether the economics of next-generation networks will put much of the country…
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under natural monopolies, it said. The group asked the FCC to rewrite the rules for Universal Service Fund support for rural phone companies to structure subsidies in recognition of the possibilities of a converged broadband network. And the Commission should fix the middle- mile problem by keeping rates fair in places where monopoly pricing is running up the cost of network capacity. It should then impose a system to collect data to map all U.S. middle-mile infrastructure. One way to reduce middle-mile transport costs might be to create a national fiber network to link public institutions, Free Press said. The broadband plan should also take into account whether reassigning the public airwaves will reduce wireless competition and should recommend programs to bring equipment, training and low-cost connectivity to disadvantaged communities, the group said. It may be too late to gather much new information to help the FCC complete the national plan by the February deadline, it said, but the commission should set out a plan of action for collecting data to help carry out the recommendations over the next several years.