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ISPs Won't Invest Without Handouts

posted by martyb on Friday August 17 2018, @07:03AM   
from the socialize-the-costs-and-privatize-the-profits dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Broadband providers have spent years lobbying against utility-style regulations that protect consumers from high prices and bad service.

But now, broadband lobby groups are arguing that Internet service is similar to utilities such as electricity, gas distribution, roads, and water and sewer networks. In the providers' view, the essential nature of broadband doesn't require more regulation to protect consumers. Instead, they argue that broadband's utility-like status is reason for the government to give ISPs more money.

[...] "Like electricity, broadband is essential to every American," USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter and NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield wrote Monday in an op-ed for The Topeka Capital-Journal. "Yet US broadband infrastructure has been financed largely by the private sector without assurance that such costs can be recovered through increased consumer rates."

[...] While ISPs want the benefits of being treated like utilities—such as pole attachment rights and access to public rights-of-way—they oppose traditional utility-style obligations such as regulated prices and deployment to all Americans.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-want-to-be-utilities-but-only-to-get-more-money-from-the-government/

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Original Submission

• rural rural (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday August 17 2018, @07:23AM (1 child)

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday August 17 2018, @07:23AM (#722716) Journal

  Previously from the Rural Broadband Association:

  Rural Wireless Association Opposes U.S. Government Ban on Huawei and ZTE Equipment [soylentnews.org]

  Wait, that [ruralwireless.org] is not the Rural Broadband Association [ntca.org]. How many of these things are there?

  Providing Internet service directly to residents isn't the only municipal-led option, the ILSR notes. Cities and towns can also build "open-access networks [that] allow multiple ISPs to operate on publicly owned infrastructure, creating competition to improve speeds and lower prices."

  That wouldn't please broadband industry lobbyists who have been fighting municipal efforts to expand public broadband options. USTelecom and NTCA both fought an FCC attempt to preempt state laws that limit the spread of municipal broadband, and they cheered in 2016 when a court struck down the FCC attempt to allow expansion of city-run broadband networks.

  In their op-ed, Spalter and Bloomfield argued that government funding should be given to "experienced broadband providers" rather than to newcomers.

  "With adequate and constructive government support, alongside the continued commitment and innovation of our nation's broadband companies, the dream of a truly connected nation is within reach. It's time to make it a reality for all Americans," they wrote.

  I can't wait for Starlink to arrive and grind these companies into dust.

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• Re:rural (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday August 17 2018, @04:37PM

  by Freeman (732) on Friday August 17 2018, @04:37PM (#722852) Journal

  I would love an ISP that I could get for reasonable price/performance. Throw in no data cap for kicks and I'm hooked. Current ISPs won't even give me a wired connection. Screw that, my In-Laws were a block or two from a junction, and they couldn't get wired internet for 10 years or so. The people next door had it, but no we can't/won't service your house. They have wired internet now, but I'd almost choose anything else.

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  Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

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