Steve Blum's Blog
Utility policy and the way it’s implemented, including the possibility of a more activist form of broadband regulation, will be significantly different at the California Public Utilities Commission in 2015. The two most powerful jobs – president and
In 11 months, Michael Picker moved from a job as an energy advisor to Governor Jerry Brown to a seat on the commission to the top job as president, assuming the California senate agrees.… More
There are three ways to deal with a monopoly, natural or otherwise: hope new technology will eventually render it obsolete, accept it but control it with regulation, or use anti-trust rules to break it up.
In a rapidly evolving environment, waiting out a monopoly can be a viable, if uncomfortably lengthy, strategy. Microsoft’s de facto user-side control of computer technology is long gone thanks to iOS, Android and Linux, and not because of the nibbling of regulatory snapping turtles.… More
In the what were they thinking? category, AT&T is trying to slam the idea of common carrier broadband regulation (aka Title II) by posting a lengthy account of a bureaucratic battle it’s fighting over arcane inter-carrier rules (h/t to the Baller-Herbst list for the pointer). True, introducing any kind of regulation makes life more complicated, and companies with the strongest market position will be the hardest hit. Which is the point, of course: common carrier rules exist to provide a counterweight to dominant companies in a monopolised market.… More
Under fire from the FCC, AT&T is walking back a statement by CEO Randall Stephenson that the company will stop building out fiber while common carrier regulation of broadband is on the table. With the exception, Stephenson said, of 2 million homes that were promised as part of AT&T’s bid to get regulatory approval of its purchase of DirecTv.
That statement, made at an investment conference and likely unscripted, provoked a demand from the FCC for AT&T to explain itself.… More
Whether or not the FCC decides to regulate broadband service as a common carrier utility, new net neutrality rules will be imposed, successfully or not. State utility regulators from across the country met in San Francisco this week. The California Public Utilities Commission hosted a conference on Internet regulation, and net neutrality in particular, chaired by commissioner Catherine Sandoval, yesterday afternoon.
A national panel of economics and law professors discussed where state regulators fit in.… More
As detailed yesterday, an article in the the Washington Post describes well the split between U.S. president Barack Obama and FCC chair Tom Wheeler over common carrier regulation of Internet infrastructure and service. But it’s not a game of equals, which is why the safe bet is on adoption of Title II common carrier rules.
Even though the Post article puts Wheeler on an even footing with Obama as an independent policy maker, the reality is far different.… More
Although FCC chairman Tom Wheeler continues to play his cherished Beltway bandit game behind closed doors, the likelihood of Internet service coming largely, if not completely, under common carrier regulation is growing.
An excellent article by Brian Fung and Nancy Scola in the Washington Post clearly lays out the problem: U.S. president Barack Obama wants full on common carrier regulation, while lobbyist-in-chief Wheeler wants to cut a deal that pleases everyone, at least everyone who counts, which in Wheeler’s world is deep-pocketed lobbyists.… More
Consumer broadband service will be regulated as a common carrier service. Either that, or U.S. president Barack Obama is so detached from reality that he records a video pronouncement to that effect and leaves for a summit meeting in China without first making sure that his appointee – FCC chairman Tom Wheeler – has his back. In an accompanying written statement, Obama explained yesterday…
… MoreSo the time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do.
FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is reported to be backing away from his no-lobbyist-left-behind method of imposing and enforcing network neutrality rules. The new plan, according to the Wall Street Journal, is to split the Internet service business into two parts: the consumer-facing retail access business, which would remain as it is – largely unregulated – and the back-side business of interconnecting content companies and other ISPs to those retail customers.
The back-side would be regulated as a common carrier business, presumably subject to some kind of network neutrality rules, although that’s not a given.… More
California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine Sandoval has argued – and voted – in favor of regulating broadband infrastructure companies as common carriers, in much the same way as telephone companies, but with a “light touch”. She made her case in testimony at a congressional hearing in Sacramento in September, and later polished it and submitted it to the FCC for consideration in its network neutrality deliberations.… More