dig once – Techdirt (original) (raw)

England Makes Gigabit Broadband A Requirement For All New Home Builds

from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come dept

England has taken a big step toward crushing the digital divide with new rules requiring that all new home builds must include gigabit (1000 Megabits per second, Mbps) broadband. Estimates suggest that around 12 percent of the 171,190 new homes constructed in England last year didn’t have gigabit broadband capabilities upon completion.

Amendments to Building Regulations 2010 require that all new builds have gigabit-capable connections, though there is a construction cost cap of £2,000 per home. According to the government’s new guidance, if a gigabit line can’t be found within that price range, the next-fastest speed available has to suffice.

I’m not sure this will be quite as transformative as headlines suggest. Readying a home for gigabit broadband isn’t the same thing as actually delivering gigabit broadband. It can often cost users tens of thousands of dollars (sometimes hundreds of thousands) to get ISPs to expand “last mile” access to your home. Still, mandating that new homes are gigabit ready is useful.

The new laws also make it easier for ISPs to gain access to homes or apartments for broadband installs should landlords prove unresponsive:

Previously, tenants living in the UK’s estimated 480,000 blocks of flats and apartments (also known as multi-dwelling units, or MDUs) would usually have had to wait for a landlord’s permission to have a broadband operator enter their building to install a faster connection. These access rights are essential for the delivery of broadband upgrades as operators are unable to deploy their services without first obtaining permission, either from the landowner or a court, to install their equipment.

Like here in the States, there’s an awful lot of shenanigans where ISPs work in concert with landlords to block access to competitors. It’s taken the FCC here in the States decades and numerous rule revisions to even try and tackle that problem. But it remains very much a work in progress, as deep-pocketed telecom monopolies and their lawyers often tap dance around the requirements.

While many landlords are annoying and difficult, telecom giants often like to over-state landlords’ role in the overall lack of quality broadband deployments. That was evident in New York City, where Verizon flaked on a 2008 agreement to wire the whole city with fiber, then repeatedly tried to exclusively blame landlords for the company’s own (well in character) failure to follow through on the agreement.

There are other policies that are common sensical that we just don’t do because it would (gasp) make it easier to drive competition into monopoly markets. Such as “dig once” requirements that all new highway builds come with fiber-ready conduit already installed. This sort of policy is a no brainer, yet in the U.S. meaningful mandates on this front always seem stuck just around the next corner.

Filed Under: dig once, digital divide, fiber, gigabit, high speed internet, landlords, telecom policy, uk

House Passes Massive Broadband Bill That Surprisingly Doesn't Suck

from the not-a-chance-in-hell dept

Wed, Jul 8th 2020 06:33am - Karl Bode

The majority of broadband bills that wind their way through Congress don’t actually address the most pressing problem in US telecom: a lack of meaningful broadband competition. Often the bills focus almost exclusively on heavy subsidization of incumbent telecom monopolies, an approach that requires a level of diligence the U.S. has historically not been capable of. The Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act, which passed the House last week, certainly includes its fair share of subsidization, including $80 billion in fiscal year 2021 to help deploy fiber broadband networks to the underserved parts of the country.

But the bill also contains a number of other improvements most objective experts have long supported, including:

• Wording that eliminates the 19 state laws, usually literally written by incumbent ISPs like AT&T, that prohibit or hinder your town or city from building its own broadband network, even if existing private providers have refused to upgrade your area.
• A “dig once” mandate that dictates that fiber conduit must be installed alongside any new highway construction in a bid to make widespread fiber deployment easier.
• a 9billionBroadbandConnectivityFundthatwoulddoleout9 billion Broadband Connectivity Fund that would dole out 9billionBroadbandConnectivityFundthatwoulddoleout50 monthly discounts for low-income broadband users, and 75monthlydiscountsforlow−incomehouseholdsinTriballands.Ourexistinglowincomeprogram(Lifeline)wasstartedbyRonaldReagan,anddolesoutameasly75 monthly discounts for low-income households in Tribal lands. Our existing low income program (Lifeline) was started by Ronald Reagan, and doles out a measly 75monthlydiscountsforlow−incomehouseholdsinTriballands.Ourexistinglowincomeprogram(Lifeline)wasstartedbyRonaldReagan,anddolesoutameasly9.25 credit that must be used on wireless, phone, or broadband service, and the Pai FCC has been fairly relentless in its quest to eliminate even this modest subsidy. Often, according to the courts, without actually measuring the real-world impact of their tactics.
• A provision that dictates that any new subsidized fiber builds must be “open access,” meaning that numerous ISP competitors will be allowed to come in and compete using centralized infrastructure. For decades, data has indicated that such a model results in better, cheaper, faster broadband service thanks to forced competition — and for just as long, US policy makers have ignored this data.

These are, again, all things that actual telecom policy experts (not to be conflated with the army of academics, think tankers, consultants, lobbyists and lawyers often tangentially employed by ISPs to help pretend US broadband isn’t a shit show) have been advocating for for years. Many of them — specifically “dig once” provisions and eliminating protectionist state laws — generally have wide, bipartisan public support.

But while the bill passed the House with a vote of 233-188, there’s not a chance in hell of it passing the Senate or getting Trump’s signature. In large part because it runs in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s and Pai FCC’s approach to telecom policy, which largely involves doling out massive tax cuts, regulatory favors, and other perks to natural monopolies in exchange for massive layoffs and reduced overall sector investment. Then not only pretending that this approach worked wonders, but ignoring the high prices and limited competition that has plagued the US telecom sector for decades.

Like so many other things in tech policy (like net neutrality), actually recognizing a lack of competition in telecom — and wanting to actually embrace pro-competition policies — has somehow become a partisan issue, dooming us to inaction and further Comcast and AT&T dominance. While this bill is decent, its backers pushed it as election season fodder with the knowledge it won’t pass. Without a dramatic Congressional shakeup, arm in arm with serious efforts to rein in Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon’s dominance over state and federal legislatures, it likely never will.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, congress, dig once, fcc, house, lifeline, muni broadband, open access