Dig once, broadband spectrum added to federal budget bill

22 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Broadband is getting a boost in the mammoth spending bill under consideration today in the U.S. house of representatives. But not cash.

Instead, the deal negotiated by republican and democratic congressional leaders rolls in a telecoms bill unanimously approved earlier this month by the house of representatives. It includes some useful, if mild, dig once requirements for federally funded highway projects – state transportation agencies will have to share construction plans, but not necessarily trenches, with Internet service providers and local agencies – and it frees up 255 MHz of spectrum for broadband use.

The bill – formerly house resolution 4986, now called the Ray Baum act – also consolidates several broadband-related reports that the Federal Communications Commission is supposed to periodically issue into one “communications marketplace report”. That’s not a popular idea among consumer advocacy organisations. In a blog post, Phillip Berenroick with D.C.-based Public Knowledge argues that…

By substituting a one-stop-shop report covering the entire communications ecosystem in place of the current reporting regime that takes a detailed, focused look at competition among individual services, the FCC will ultimately receive less accurate, granular, and relevant data across all of the services included in the Communications Market Report. As a result, both policymakers and the public will have less detailed information to understand each individual market.

That’s not necessarily true. The FCC isn’t required to diminish the quality of its work, although it’s not crazy to think it might. I have some misgivings about that provision too, but I also think it’s long past time to start dismantling the artificial regulatory distinctions between broadband companies, based on their corporate ancestry. AT&T and Comcast, for example, offer the same kinds of services in the same markets. There’s no reason for them to have to play by two different sets of rules. In that regard, consolidated market evaluations are a step in the right direction.

The bill has to be approved by both houses of congress before Saturday, otherwise the federal government grinds to a half. Again.

Text of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, 21 March 2018