Concerns Raised About 25/3 Broadband Benchmark
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “has made it clear” that his agenda is to increase the benchmark for broadband deployment to 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload, and then use the higher standard to “justify reclassification of broadband under Title…
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II” of the Communications Act and pre-empt state laws posing obstacles to municipal broadband, said TechFreedom President Berin Szoka in a letter to the agency, posted Friday in docket 14-28. Wheeler may also use a finding that broadband is not being deployed sufficiently under the higher standards to “justify blocking (or at least heavily conditioning)" Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, Szoka said. The FCC is expected to approve an annual report on the progress of broadband deployment, which calls for the higher standards, as well as issue a notice of inquiry on how to increase deployment at its Jan. 29 meeting (see 1501070046). Pre-emption from municipal broadband laws will be taken up at the Feb. 26 meeting (see 1501140048). Concern that the higher speeds will be used to justify other steps was also reflected in a letter from NCTA to the commission, also posted in the docket Friday. The commission “should make it clear,” as it has in previous Broadband Progress Reports, that the speed benchmark “has no regulatory significance," NCTA said. Attempting "to graft this reporting benchmark onto other contexts -- e.g., determining support levels under the Connect America Fund ... or deciding which entities should be subject to open Internet rules -- would present inevitable tensions given the divergent legal standards and regulatory objectives at play,” NCTA said. Increasing the benchmark from 4 Mbps download/1 Mbps isn't legally or factually supportable, the letter said, and there's "no basis in the record" to justify using that standard to evaluate whether broadband is being deployed in a "'reasonable and timely'" fashion. The agency didn't comment.