Obama’s Broadband Opportunity Report Undercuts FCC Regulation of the Internet

This week, the Obama administration released its long-awaited report on broadband adoption, produced by a presidential “Broadband Opportunity Council” representing 26 federal agencies.

Among other things, the council was charged by President Obama with identifying regulatory barriers that impede broadband adoption.

The final report recommends a number of largely inoffensive changes in federal policy. Among these are streamlining permitting processes and improving data collection on broadband.

The report, however, missed more opportunities than it identified.

Most of the largest government barriers to broadband were ignored. The pressing need to allocate more spectrum to the private sector was specifically excluded from the council’s remit.

An even larger elephant missing from the room was the Federal Communications Commission’s February decision – made under pressure from the White House — to impose common carrier, or public utility-style, regulation on Internet service providers.

In the wake of that decision, private sector investment in the Internet has already slowed.

Ignoring the FCC decision is like asking the captain of the Titanic if there were any improvements he would suggest for the ship besides fixing the giant hole made by that iceberg.

Nevertheless, the authors of the report did – if inadvertently – uncut one of the justifications for the FCC’s imposition of public utility regulation on the Internet.

In its opinion, the FCC was careful to portray broadband service as “not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”

This allowed the FCC to invoke a provision of federal law (section 706 of the Telecommunications Act) that empowers the agency to take steps to remedy the situation.

The Broadband Opportunity Council, however, didn’t get the memo.

Instead, it declared that over the past six years, “the United States has experienced unprecedented growth and innovation in broadband networks and services,” citing phenomenal increases in broadband usage, speed and mobility.

All very true, but completely at odds with the FCC’s claim that federal intervention to save broadband is required.

The authors of the broadband opportunity report should be congratulated for this refreshing candor in what was otherwise a missed opportunity.