The FCC's Broadband Plan - It's the Politics, Stupid

And the parallels with the health-insurance bill are striking...

So I finished reading through the Executive Summary of the FCC's broadband plan announced on Tuesday of last week, and I've heard the commentary on the business channels (yes, I still monitor these during the day, although I switch to another one when the all-to-frequent commercials come on). The heat surrounding all this is reminiscent of the "debate" (I'm being kind here) regarding the just passed-health-insurance bill. No surprise - we're really discussing the same issue.

Let's be clear - there is no "plan" on the table yet. What we have is more of a set of concepts, and the plan itself, as was the case with the just-passed healthcare legislation, will take a very long time to devise, codify, and pass into law, at which point the battle will regardless continue. This is, after all, about politics, not technology. There are a huge number of vested interests at work here - politicians, carriers, equipment suppliers, and broadcasters, just for starters, to say nothing of us mere-mortal end-users - and not all of them will benefit, equally or otherwise, from these ideas or, likely, from whatever action is ultimately taken by Congress and the President.

With respect to wireless, a number of key proposals are made, including obtaining additional spectrum for licensed, unlicensed, and backhaul (with auctioning, as usual, to raise revenues to ensure "revenue neutrality" for the whole proposal; I remain opposed to auctioning spectrum as I think it's just another hidden tax and regardless believe nothing the government tells me about budgetary impacts), data roaming (which I interpret to mean mobile broadband data services), and privacy regulation (good luck with that one). The whole spectrum issue is really at the heart of the matter, as the plan states the need for 500 MHz. of new spectrum within 10 years, and 300 of that available for mobile use within three years. There is only one place to get that much useable spectrum, and that's from the broadcasters, who will fight to keep their obsolete businesses stealing our cash and time as long as they can. If there ever were a case for disintermediation and spectrum re-allocation, this is it. On a related matter, I recently heard Chairman Genachowski says he has no interest in taking up the issue of ala carte cable pricing, something else that is sorely needed ASAP. The FCC is, by the way, making available a beta of a "Spectrum Dashboard" to show what spectrum is in use by whom and where. It's not very useful at this point, but you can take a look regardless.

Another interesting - but woefully misguided - proposal is $6.5 billion for a "public safety mobile broadband network". I've nothing against public safety, but we should be well past the time when spectrum needs to be dedicated to that or most other functions, national defense perhaps being an exception. Rather, public safety should simply have priority access on commercial networks. This is in keeping with the principles of open access and network neutrality, both near and dear to my heart, and also makes the best use of the scarce resource that spectrum is. Allowing a huge chunk of spectrum to lie fallow waiting for an emergency is just plain stupid - kind of like letting the broadcasters keep all of their spectrum when today they add very little value.

And, finally, there's a proposal to create a "mobility fund", which, in true Lake Wobegone fashion, is designed "to ensure no states are lagging behind the national average for 3G wireless coverage". Hey, I took a math class or two, and - see the problem here? But this proposal is really key to the whole mess - just exactly what should the role of the federal government be in bringing broadband to the masses?

I am normally a strict constructionist, and I therefore believe that the power of the federal government should be severely limited. Read the Ninth and Tenth amendments to the Constitution, which, I think, trump the so-called commerce clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) - if it's not in the Constitution, the government can't do it. Period. Unbridled federal expansion has brought this country severe inflation and perhaps to the brink of bankruptcy, or even worse, and it's all because we just can't seem to decide what the role of government, particularly at the federal level, should be. There are real costs in these proposals that are not well-understood at present. Should broadband be a right? Should it be free? Reminiscent of the above-mentioned health-insurance debate, no?

As an aside, even I believe that the government does in fact need to play a role in health care, and I do support some form of national health coverage. The reason for this is that supply and demand will never balance in healthcare unless we can place a dollar value on a particular human life at a particular moment in time - and we're not going to do that. The Farpoint Plan, much better than what was passed into law this week, includes three federally-chartered, non-profit primary insurers, so as to enable fundamental competition, secondary insurers offering all manner of perks and other benefits, so as to throw off cash to fund care for the less wealthy, and a policy regarding the availability of care so as to encourage rational resource allocation and a renewed emphasis on personal responsibility. Every citizen would have to buy at least a basic plan or post a bond if they have sufficient financial resources and choose to opt out. But, of course, any action by the federal government here would be woefully unconstitutional, as is precisely the case with the new law, so supporters of the President's new law, the Farpoint Plan, or just about anything else proposed in this space beyond whatever the states want to do or a purely free-market approach need to get busy on the necessary Constitutional amendments to enable what they want. BTW, I won't be taking that route myself - too busy with my day job.

And I would also continue to argue, then, that the FCC does not have the authority or right to auction spectrum, mandate free broadband, assure the uniformity of broadband services, or even define what broadband might be, although I would continue to grant them the right to regulate the orderly use of the radio spectrum, the analogy being land-use planning or traffic laws, both legitimate provinces of government. In short, though, the proposal represents another huge opportunity to decide who gets what, and who pays for it. And, as much as I think broadband is much more amenable to market-based solutions than healthcare, the political elements aren't going away.

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