CTC congratulates Dr. Robert Wack on his reelection victory to the Westminster, Maryland City Council. Dr. Wack is strongly identified with the Westminster fiber initiative, on which he has been one of the key decision makers along with his peers. This election was a strong affirmation by his constituents of the fiber effort and the public—private broadband model in Westminster. Dr. Wack was elected for a four-year term, and he will serve as Council President for the next two years.
The following is a guest post by Jim Baller.
Chris Mitchell from the Institute of Local Self Reliance recently interviewed Jim Baller, counsel to both Chattanooga EPB and Wilson, NC on their now successful petitions at the FCC. We encourage our readers to listen to the full half-hour interview here, and bring you just a few of the highlights below (slightly edited):
Chris: How did it go? We just had this great vote at the FCC and we’re going to dig into it, but tell us what the FCC said in brief?
Jim: “The FCC agreed with us and preempted the state laws in question, so there are now no more constraints on EPB and other municipal utilities in Tennessee and on Wilson and other municipalities in North Carolina. Communities can now evaluate their opportunities and decide what to do without the artificial constraints imposed on th[em].”
Chris: And when you say now, you mean now, we are not waiting on anything.
Jim: “The orders were effective on issuance, so, as of last Thursday (March 12), the laws at issue in North Carolina and Tennessee are preempted. Now there may well be appeals of these decisions, but at the moment, the orders are in effect and the state laws are preempted….”
Chris: One of the big questions people have been asking is why does the FCC have the authority to do this?
Jim: “Well, in the opinion, the FCC confirmed that Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 authorizes it to remove barriers to broadband investment. In fact, Section 706 requires the FCC to remove barriers to broadband investment and competition. It says that the FCC must be proactive in identifying where such barriers exist, and if it finds that there are impediments to the reasonable and timely deployment of advanced telecommunications capabilities to all Americans, it must remove those barriers. The FCC found that this was clear authority for it to remove the Tennessee and North Carolina laws in question….”
Chris: [in respect to the FCC’s discussion on North Carolina’s law]…the word thicket came up…?”
Jim: “….the [NC] law enacted in 2011 was described as advancing fair competition and a level playing field for the private sector. Significantly, the FCC took a hard look at every line and word of the law and found that the law was in fact prohibitive. Certainly, all the provisions working together created a massive wall that no public entity could get over. The FCC repeatedly found that the constraints that were in this law operated in a one-way fashion and created an asymmetrically heavy burden on municipalities that the private sector did not have to meet.”
Chris: One of the things that I found interesting, was that the FCC seems to provide a road map for other states …
Jim: “… the FCC specifically in one of its paragraphs invited entities in other states that believed that they were constrained by state laws to petition the FCC for a review of those laws. The FCC is very much interested in looking at other state laws that may be posing similar constraints……..”
Chris: The opinion is very readable. It details why each individual aspect of the NC law failed with regard to the FCC….
Jim: “…This was a conversation, so to speak, in which hundreds of comments were filed by all sorts of interested parties, including those who focused on the constitutional issues, those who criticized municipalities for philosophical reasons, those who alleged that municipalities have unfair advantages, that who said that either do too good a job or too bad a job…all of this was aired in this proceeding…. And the FCC looked at each and every one of those claims and found that they were not supported by substantial evidence or were irrelevant in some respects. ….This record in and of itself is the most comprehensive statement on the state of municipal broadband that I have ever seen written …”
Chris: You have been working in this field for more than 20 years, would this have happened without the individual personalities at the Commission right now?
Jim: “Well, in the two decades that I have been involved in this area, we have seen many good Commissioners on the FCC. But we’ve never seen a Chairman of the FCC who is more active and committed to creating competition and in building a strong base of broadband connectivity to the Internet as Chairman Tom Wheeler…. It is very much the Chairman’s drive that put these issues squarely in front of us, to deal them in a way that he believes will serve our country well. I am very thankful to him for doing that.”
Chris: You helped organize the Coalition for Local Internet Choice (CLIC). That is not over. People should still be joining, right?
Jim: “Not only is it not over, but I think our challenges are increasing along with our successes. This is not a time when we can sit back and clap ourselves on the back. Across the country there are members of legislatures that are for political reasons opposed to anything the current White House supports. We have seen battles in the states every year for the last 20 years. It is important for us to target the right issue. The right issue is local choice and the ability of communities to participate significantly in the decisions that effect their economic well-being, their educational opportunities, their public safety, their access to health care, transportation, energy, environmental protection, and much more. That’s what at stake here. These are traditional interests of local governments. They always have been, and they will always be. We are talking about creating platforms and drivers that can foster success simultaneously in all of those areas. We have to enable local governments to contribute to the well-being of our communities. That is what we are doing at the Coalition for Local Internet Choice. That’s what other organizations, like Next Century Cities, are also trying to advance. We need an activist country. This is such an important issue, and the stakes are so high for every one of us.”
Today was an extraordinary achievement for the future of broadband and the Internet in the U.S. All of us at CTC applaud Chairman Wheeler and Commissioners Clyburn and Rosenworcel for their visionary votes in support of local community choice in broadband and net neutrality. We are proud to have worked on both these issues over the years.
Read the official news release about granting the Wilson, NC and Chattanooga, TN petitions here and about net neutrality here.
The Washington Post is reporting this morning that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is circulating among his colleagues a draft order that will free localities in the states of North Carolina and Tennessee from anti-competition state statutes that prevent towns and cities from building or enabling new, state-of-the-art broadband networks.
In our view and experience, these statutes are frequently written or lobbied by incumbent phone and cable companies, and amount to pure protectionism for monopolists and duopolists who prefer not to face competition.
CTC commends Chairman Wheeler for his insight that local broadband initiatives are essential to enable the deployment of advanced communications capabilities to all Americans. And we commend the City of Wilson, North Carolina and the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, TN for their courage and perseverance in bringing these issues before the FCC.
View the Washington Post story here.
Better Communities through Better Broadband
A Coalition of Public and Private Interests Affirms the Need for Local Internet Choice
This post originally appeared on the Benton Foundation’s Digital Beat Blog.
For true believers in the power of broadband, it has been quite a week in Washington. Consider that the President came out in favor of local decision-making on broadband. Or that Sen. Cory Booker and some of his Senate colleagues have just introduced a strong bill (the Community Broadband Act) affirming the right of local governments to undertake broadband projects. Or that the FCC has the issue of local Internet choice on its agenda—and is poised to take a significant stand in February.
In ways that we have not seen in the past, policy makers in Washington now seem to understand that we live in the age of the gigabit. And it increasingly appears that those policy makers understand that the engagement of local communities in our collective broadband future is essential in this gigabit era.
Applications in just about every field that communities consider critically important—including economic development, education, public safety, healthcare, energy, environmental protection, transportation, and many others—require at least gigabit network capacity to achieve their full potential. In short, gigabit connections have become the electricity of the 21st century.
Unfortunately, as was true a century ago when America was electrifying itself, the private sector alone cannot meet burgeoning demand everywhere at the same time. Back then, more than 3,000 communities across America formed their own electric utilities to fill gaps left by the private sector. Now, hundreds of communities from coast to coast—in states where they are not hampered by incumbent-promoted legal barriers—are developing innovative approaches to ensuring that they and their businesses, institutions, and residents will not be left behind in acquiring affordable access to this age’s critical infrastructure.
Local leaders and national policy makers alike are recognizing legitimate concerns exist about American communities’ ability to compete in the national and global economic spheres without this infrastructure. Indeed, there is more recognition than ever in the U.S. about how essential fiber is for our local, regional, and national economic competitiveness, healthcare delivery, and educational system.
Local leaders recognize, too, that there are no simple off-the-shelf solutions that will work everywhere—that every community has its own particular resources, needs, and priorities, and that aggressive, proactive leadership is essential to getting the best solution for their constituents.
In some communities, collaborating with willing incumbents may work well. In other communities, a public-private partnership with a new entrant may be preferable. In still others, the community may find that it has to develop a network of its own.
Buoyed by the efforts of Google and approximately 100 rural towns and cities that have deployed gigabit networks, local governments—particularly in rural areas—are concluding that they must take charge of their own futures, and that with so much at stake, they can no longer wait for unwilling or incapable incumbents to get around to them.
What are the options? Business cases today are frequently pointing toward different models than the one supporting the municipal- or utility-operated fiber networks that emerged over the past 10 years in rural areas and small towns. A new generation of public–private partnerships is now emerging along with innovative new public options.
Indeed, at every level of project planning—from communities just beginning to explore the possibilities, to those actively designing infrastructure—many of the new state-of-the-art networks represent collaboration between the public and private sectors.
Localities seek private partners to invest in the infrastructure of the future; private companies seek the support and facilitation of local governments to tilt the balance on their risk/reward calculations. In these partnerships, both sides share the risk and both share the reward.
The reward for the private investors is primarily financial and is relatively easy to measure. The reward for local communities has both direct and indirect financial components, as well as many other kinds of benefits. For example, a gigabit network that helps a community attract and retain employers, improve health care, enhance public safety, and make transportation more intelligent is valuable to the community in multiple ways that are difficult to quantify but are very tangible in their overall economic impact.
Not surprisingly, incumbent service providers are not sitting quietly by. But rather than expanding their infrastructures—rather than competing—some incumbents are taking anti-competitive steps to stop these challenges to their businesses. Distressingly, these monopolists and duopolists have seen some success convincing well-intentioned state legislatures that more broadband is not for the best.
What a sad outcome for the national interest and the local interest—particularly because these incumbent-promoted laws, which purport to be about stopping wasteful public expenditures, have the actual effect of precluding local innovation and preventing not just responsible public investment, but (in the case of public-private partnerships) private investment as well.
We see the effects of such laws in states like Tennessee and North Carolina, which precluded successful local broadband initiatives from expanding into unserved rural areas. And we see the effects in states such as Colorado, where impediments have been put in the way of public–private initiatives that would have brought private investment in next-generation broadband to local communities.
We saw similar but unsuccessful initiatives in other states’ 2014 legislative sessions. In Indiana, a measure would have precluded localities from using traditional economic development incentives to attract private broadband providers to their communities. In Kansas, a cable industry-drafted bill would have made illegal future public–private partnerships modeled on the one between Google and Kansas City.
While pro-competition coalitions in both states were successful at turning back these destructive bills, we have reason to believe that bills to restrict local efforts may be introduced in the legislative sessions that have just begun in both states—and potentially in others. Indeed, in early January, a significant barrier to entry was proposed in the Missouri legislature—a barrier that would put Missouri communities at a disadvantage relative to their peers in states that do not tie the hands of their own localities.
As local interest in gigabit networks has grown—and as incumbent efforts to stop the emergence of new gigabit networks has also grown—it became clear to us that the battle for so-called municipal broadband has been both misnamed and misunderstood. This battle is not for municipal broadband—it is for better communities through better broadband, in whatever way works best for communities.
By extension, the battle is for the right and authority of any local community to develop this important infrastructure in whatever way it sees fit. This includes all the ways we noted earlier and any other approach that may work for the community.
To be clear, the battle over local choice in Internet is not a battle between public and private interests. To the contrary, a broad and diverse coalition of public and private interests stands united behind the principle that local communities should be free to contribute, innovate, and invest as necessary to secure their broadband futures.
To give voice to that broad public–private coalition, we co-founded the Coalition for Local Internet Choice (CLIC) in 2014. Our membership of more than 200 entities includes communities throughout America; competitive Internet service providers such as Ting Internet, iTV-3, and Metronet; public and private utilities (represented by the Utilities Telecom Council and the American Public Power Association); associations representing private companies (such as Engine and the Telecommunications Information Association); and a broad array of Silicon Valley companies, including Google and Netflix.
CLIC works at the federal level—and supports similar efforts at the local, regional, and state levels—to demonstrate the importance of local authority for the expansion of broadband in America.
The positive results of local Internet choice and local authority are abundantly clear. Where localities are unrestrained by anti-competition state laws, we have seen tremendous innovation and creativity as local communities seek to attract private broadband investment.
For more examples, we invite you to read our recent paper, “Economic Development: The Killer App for Local Fiber Networks.”
In states that restrict or preclude local Internet initiatives, partnerships such as these might not be possible and local communities would be left with few or no tools to work toward the next generation of communications networks.
And for that reason—because the promise of gigabit networks is so great—issues of local Internet choice in broadband have prominence in Washington and the state capitals at a level we have never before seen.
As we look toward the states’ legislative sessions, we are hopeful that our elected officials will recognize the value of enabling, rather than impairing, their localities—and that local Internet choice can serve as the key to innovation and next-generation networking.
– Joanne Hovis and Jim Baller
Kudos to the State of New York on the announcement of an incredible initiative to ensure that every resident has access to broadband within five years. Gov. Cuomo’s $500 million “New NY Broadband Program” will offer 1:1 matches (meaning the program will pump $1 billion or more into broadband development) to private sector providers who deliver at least 100 Mbps service.
New York is setting a fantastic precedent for how states can work with localities and the private sector to enable new partnerships and develop needed broadband infrastructure. Gov. Cuomo’s well-designed program will give funding priority to providers who deliver the highest speeds at the lowest prices, and will look to the state’s Regional Economic Development Councils for local input on maximizing the program’s benefits.
This new program makes a bold commitment to the idea that no community and no residents should be left behind. Everyone deserves big bandwidth—not just modest connections, but true next-generation broadband.
We at CTC have been true believers for 15 years in the potential of locally-owned fiber, for government use, to serve anchor institutions, and to enable residents and businesses to compete in the national and global economies. And the track record of communities is unparalleled: hundreds of community-based fiber projects around the country serve public safety, schools, libraries, community centers, and the public at lower per-megabit prices than most carrier networks.
So given this tremendous track record and the compelling economics of locally-owned fiber, is it any surprise that President Obama selects locations served by municipal and County fiber networks to make announcements regarding next generation broadband initiatives?
First, the President announced the goals of the ConnectED program at Mooresville Middle School in North Carolina—a school served by MI-Connection, the broadband network owned by the towns of Mooresville and Davidson. Years ago, the towns and the school district worked together to get high-speed wireless Internet access into every classroom and a laptop in the hands of every student beyond the 2nd grade. (CTC was proud to help the cities evaluate the network before they acquired it.) Graduation rates went up—and while the district ranked in the bottom 10 in the state in terms of the amount of money it spent per student, it ranked number two in terms of student achievement.
Then, last February, the President visited Buck Lodge Middle School in Prince George’s County, Maryland to announce that the FCC would set aside $2 billion to bring the kind of high-speed access available to students at that innovative school to schools in the rest of the country. Buck Lodge is served by an advanced fiber network that is owned and operated by Prince George’s County and that delivers some of the fastest speeds to educational institutions of any network in the country.
CTC was proud to be part of planning and designing the Prince George’s County network, which has expanded over more than 15 years from a modest initial footprint to hundreds of schools, libraries, government buildings, and other community anchors.
And today, President Obama is visiting the Gigabit City of Cedar Falls, Iowa to promote his idea of expanding Internet access. Cedar Falls Utilities (CFU) is responsible for deploying the only Gigabit network in the state. The city-owned utility is renowned for its prescient, early entry into the broadband arena and credits its municipal fiber network for catalyzing significant economic development in the community.
For us, the President’s broadband travel schedule just confirms something we’ve known all along: local communities have been at the center of broadband innovation for nearly two decades, and their efforts have been to the great benefit of their school children, residents, and businesses.
Is city-owned fiber with private sector service delivery the magic formula for building fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP)? At minimum, it’s a tremendous innovation in local broadband—and CTC is proud to be part of the pioneering team that developed this model.
Last night, the Westminster, Maryland City Council voted to approve a groundbreaking FTTP partnership with a formidable private partner, Ting Internet. Ting is the same company that delivers great mobile broadband service along with excellent customer service that Consumer Reports calls the best in the industry.
Although Westminster is located only an hour from Washington, D.C. and 45 minutes from Baltimore, it is still largely cut off from those job centers because no major highways reach into the City. Years ago, the City identified fiber optics as the next-generation superhighway that would connect it to the world—for education, health care, commerce, and innovation.
Last year, the Council funded two FTTP pilots—one connecting midrise, high-rise, and single-family residences in a large senior community, the other connecting businesses in an under-served business park. The next phases of the project will systematically extend that fiber, with the goal of passing every home and business within a few years.
While Westminster intends to enable Gigabit service to any residence or business that wants it, the City won’t be an Internet service provider: That’s where the partnership with Ting comes in.
The City will fund, own, and maintain the fiber; Ting will lease the fiber and provide all equipment and services. Ting will pay the City to use the fiber—reducing the City’s risk while enabling Ting to offer Gigabit Internet in Westminster without having to build a fiber network from scratch.
To the City, fiber is essential infrastructure and, like roads and bridges, is fundamental to Westminster’s future growth and prosperity. Building and maintaining the fiber will play to the City’s infrastructure expertise—while Ting will focus on its core strengths of network operations and customer service.
Last night’s announcement represents an important example of the tremendous innovation we are seeing in broadband public-private partnerships nationwide. Westminster’s model is less risky to the City than the traditional municipal broadband model in which the locality builds, owns, and operates a triple-play network and holds all financial and other risks. It also differs from a project where the entire investment is private, such as the Google Fiber projects, in which the City has less risk but also limited influence.
Instead, Westminster’s model lets it split the risk with Ting, yet still realize all the benefits of FTTP. The Urbana/Champaign, Illinois partnership with iTV-3, another CTC project I’ve written about in the past, is a variation of the shared-risk model. These kinds of innovative new models can enable localities to develop Gigabit fiber networks by sharing costs and risks, while maximizing both public and private benefits.
This partnership also demonstrates the power of local vision. Every successful project has great leadership, and that’s true for Westminster. City Council President Robert Wack and City Administrator Marge Wolf led a capable City staff through a multi-year process that will result in Maryland’s first Gigabit fiber network. Ting CEO Elliot Noss and Director of Networks Adam Eisner showed the same level of vision through their willingness to closely collaborate with the City, understand the City’s needs and concerns, and work toward a win-win scenario.
I should note, also, that this project is made possible by Westminster’s redundant and robust fiber connections to the Baltimore Internet POP—connections that came from efforts by the surrounding counties in the region (through the Carroll County Fiber Network and Inter-County Broadband Network) to build open access, middle-mile fiber—enabling Westminster to focus on last-mile fiber deployment.
I’m really proud to have been part of developing this partnership. The CTC team has worked with the City since the project first took shape and through all its phases, including market research, financial modeling, feasibility analysis, and engineering.
So here’s to Westminster and Ting—and the many projects we think are likely to build on their innovative model for a big broadband future.
– Joanne S. Hovis, President, CTC Technology & Energy
Spend enough time within the world of broadband technologies and you’re afforded some excellent opportunities to help shape the future of our industry.
Yesterday, Public Knowledge released a CTC report examining how cable compares with other broadband technologies. The report was also filed with the FCC in the Comcast-Time Warner merger docket. Our technical analysis shows that DSL, mobile broadband, and other less robust broadband mediums cannot technically keep up with or compete with cable networks in terms of performance and upgrade paths. To read the report in its entirety you can click here: https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/the-state-of-the-art-and-evolution-of-cable-television-and-broadband-technology
Additionally yesterday, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute released CTC’s report showing a path forward to achieve wireless net neutrality within the framework of LTE (4G) technology. That report was filed with the FCC in the net neutrality docket. You can read the report here: http://www.newamerica.org/oti/mobile-broadband-networks-can-manage-congestion-while-abiding-by-open-internet-principles/
These reports feature rigorous, focused analysis – the same focus and attention to detail that we bring to each and every project we work on, no matter what size the project or the client. I’m proud to be part of this amazing team of engineers and analysts as they bring their deep understanding of the broadband market and broadband technologies to our nation’s decision makers.
– Joanne S. Hovis, President, CTC Technology & Energy
On November 12, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute released CTC’s report on wireless net neutrality and how it can be achieved within the framework of LTE (4G) technology. That report was filed with the FCC in the net neutrality docket, and CTC CEO and Director of Engineering Andrew Afflerbach briefed FCC staff and commissioners over a two-day period.
Read OTI’s introduction here and access the full report here.