This article incorrectly states that the Chairman said that 75% of households have only one carrier while the correct number is 2 carriers. Also what the Chairman said is an oxymoron, you cannot keep something “open” when you allow a commission influenced by large media corporations that will define what can be said and done on the Internet. Finally more regulations increase costs that discourage, not encourage, investment. This doublespeak is typical from what we have been hearing from this administration, but it is shocking that it is coming from the FCC that is supposed to be an independent agency.
by Dallas Heltzell on
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler on Monday forcefully defended the agency’s intent to regulate the Internet as a utility, stating that the agency’s goal is to keep the ‘Net “fast, fair and open for all Americans” while encouraging incentives for investment.
Speaking at a two-day seminar on broadband policy at the University of Colorado Boulder, Wheeler noted that “today’s Internet is the product of broadband connectivity” but that 17 percent of U.S. households – disproportionately in rural and tribal areas – don’t have access to what’s now defined as fast online speeds: 25 megabits per second for downloads and three mb/s for uploads. And for those households that do have high-speed connections, he added, “75 percent can only choose from one carrier.”
“There’s a lack of meaningful competition,” Wheeler said. “Where there is no choice, the market can’t work.”
Often, Wheeler said, connectivity issues aren’t as much about speed as about bandwidth sucked dry by simultaneous connections. “A typical American family of four has seven broadband-connected devices,” he said. “The FCC should establish a standard that makes sure innovation isn’t held back by network capacity.”
