Too Much FCC Focus on High-Speed, Rural Wireline—and PR—Levin Says
National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin said the speech by his old boss, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, announcing the plan was effective in winning short-term publicity but “muddied the waters for the universal service debate” because it focused on speed goals.
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"The speech focused attention on the hortatory part of the plan -- the aspiration -- rather than the more important calls for action, diminishing the real power of the plan,” Levin said at an FCBA event on Wednesday.
The discussion over broadband deployment is dominated by those who think that U.S. policy ought to help maximize speed of the “wireline network to our most rural of residents” -- an idea that “is hurting America” and is “wrong in almost every respect,” Levin said. Now with the Aspen Institute, Levin said that broadband speed is only “an input.” But “what matters is output,” he said.
Instead of guaranteeing rural Americans the same broadband speeds as the rest of the country, “government needs to act in the unserved end -- both deployment and adoption -- and the high end, by stimulating gigabit communities and aiding key public anchor institutions,” Levin said. While “it’s important to connect” rural America to broadband, rural broadband “should not be … the major focus of our policy effort,” Levin said. “Same with residential."
Levin also believes the FCC’s rulemaking notice on USF and intercarrier compensation regime reform “is the most important commission document ever released on the subject,” he said. “While it builds on the plan’s framework, it improves on what it did, as it should.” Wednesday’s speech was the second time in as many weeks that Levin has criticized Genachowski’s approach to USF reform. Last week, he called for Lifeline and Link-Up programs to be scrapped in favor of multi-agency system of block grants. Spokesmen for Genachowski didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Rural Cellular Association CEO Steve Berry said he liked what Levin had to say about focusing on wireless broadband, but disagreed vehemently on auctions. “You're promoting a monopoly in a place that may never ever have more than one choice,” Berry said. “And aren’t you limiting the state’s role in choosing carriers?"
National Telephone Cooperative Association CEO Shirley Bloomfield said that Levin’s focus on institutions misses the mark. The “reality in rural America is that there simply aren’t enough anchor institutions to support a stand-alone business plan,” she said. “A few county seat offices and a few cell towers don’t make a sustainable business case for any network. In addition, in many cases small rural telcos serve outside the towns where anchor institutions exist. The Communications Act mandates getting all consumers access to comparable service -- and we need a robust mix of fixed and mobile networks to make that happen.” Rural telcos have so far offered the most vocal resistance to the broadband plan and to the commission’s rulemaking notice on Universal Service Fund reform (CD March 2 p7).