Almost All of FCC’s New Advisory Panel Works for Telecoms
The question is: what problems does this advisory panel need to help solve? The prevailing view on HN seems to be that the system is broken top-down. That's just factually untrue. The U.S. just moved into the top 10 in Akamai's testing in terms of average broadband speeds: <a href="https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q1-2017-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-t...</a> (Figure 6). It ranks 8 in connections above 15 mbps (Figure 10). As much as it pains anti-deregulation folks to admit, the status quo under the 1996 Telecom Act has worked pretty well.<p>Instead, the problem in broadband right now is state and local governments. Why does Silicon Valley have such limited broadband options while Austin, Atlanta, even exurban Maryland have multiple fiber options? The answer is that the same NIMBY local governments that stand in the way of transit development and new housing development also stand in the way of broadband deployment. See, <i>e.g.</i> San Francisco's opposition to fiber deployment: <a href="https://sf.curbed.com/2011/4/25/10470790/at-t-you-want-to-put-that-box-where" rel="nofollow">https://sf.curbed.com/2011/4/25/10470790/at-t-you-want-to-pu...</a>.<p>Obviously, the FCC needs to prevent abuse. I think it could do a lot more in terms of preempting state/local laws against municipal broadband, or things like the West Virginia law that makes pole attachments harder. But for better or worse, U.S. policy at almost all levels is to have broadband infrastructure built with private rather than public capital. As long as that's true, pushing for increased antagonism from the regulator might feel good, but it's probably going to hurt, not help.