Competition/Antitrust

Broadband is emerging as a critical campaign issue for the US 2020 presidential election, and there’s good reason: nearly 60 million people in the US do not have broadband service at home. Despite this staggering fact, only four of the 14 presidential candidates we looked at have released fleshed-out policy proposals to expand broadband access (all of them democrats). On the Democratic side, broadband has become a central piece to many rural revitalization plans but as mentioned, only four candidates have released detailed broadband proposals.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai visited Abilene (KS) Memorial Hospital recently to observe how broadband connects the local emergency department with specialists in South Dakota.  “5G promises speeds that are 100 times as fast as 4G LTE,” Chairman Pai said. “The amount of data that you can send wirelessly will be much greater.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai spoke to a group trying to get internet access to more people in Kansas. "Bandwidth needs for rural communities are higher than people think," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. "There has to be a business case," Chairman Pai said. "There has to be a return on investment. So that, in some cases, requires federal subsidies." "Some people, for example when they think of the internet, they might think, all the person needs to do is to download Netflix," Pai said.

Comcast offered customers in Utah a "lifetime" price guarantee in order to compete against Google Fiber, then later violated the lifetime promise by raising those customers' prices, according to a lawsuit pending in a federal court. "In 2016, Comcast was under intense competitive pressure from Google's high speed fiber-optic data service," the lawsuit says. In Salt Lake City, "Comcast engaged extra sales staff to try to effectively beat the Google Fiber sales staff as they made their way up and down the streets of each neighborhood.

Based on growing signs that platforms are tipping toward monopoly in key market functions, it is very likely that antitrust is not enough of a solution without targeted regulation that opens markets to new competition. Perhaps the most important change we need is competition-expanding regulations that address the  problems antitrust cannot solve.  A new expert regulator equipped by Congress with the tools to promote entry and expansion in these markets could actually expand competition to benefit consumers, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

North Carolina officials are streamlining a self-reporting tool that allows residents to document their internet speed, in hopes of mounting a challenge against the Federal Communication Commission’s broadband coverage map data. Jeff Sural, director of the NC Department of Technology’s broadband infrastructure office, said the goal is to get federal broadband expansion funding for the parts of his state that remain unserved.

When money is tight, Elysia Lucero has to make a choice: Pay the internet bill or buy food for her family.  She bought food last month. On Wednesday, she stopped by the PCs for People store on West Alameda Avenue in Denver (CO) to take care of the unpaid internet bill.

Does municipal broadband stimulate broadband adoption or employment growth? I conduct an empirical study of American towns that have built municipal networks to answer this question. Using data from the FCC’s Form 477 and the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, I track broadband deployment, adoption, and employment statistics for these towns from 2013 to 2017. A town’s decision to install a municipal network in the first place is not random, however.

Competition is a crucial component of broadband policy in that it pressures providers to be efficient and innovative. Whether any given market has adequate competition is a key underpinning question for the regulatory structure of broadband networks. However, broadband competition is not always analyzed directly. How much competition is enough, and is more always better? Many seem to believe the United States needs more broadband competition.

The Federal Communications Commission publishes a bi-annual dataset based on data submitted by internet service providers using Form 477. This dataset provides information at the Census block level, the most granular geography used by the US Census Bureau, on types of technologies available (e.g. Cable, Fixed Wireless, Fiber-optic, etc.), maximum advertised download/ upload speeds, and providers’ names among other information. However, this dataset has several limitations.