Dec
10
Written by:
12/10/2010 4:20 AM
Today’s cogitation begins with two incidents:
The proposal to open the TV spectrum up for wireless broadband use; and the
decision to abandon a Title II redesignation for broadband service. Title II
would have tightened broadband regulation and feasibly reduced the bids on
spectrum that broadcasters are expected to hand over in return for a chunk of
auction proceeds.
Thus the question is begged--was backing off of Title II a compromise with the big
wireless providers most likely to bid on spectrum? I posed that question to
several folks in Washington, D.C., asking if I was in the ball park. I got two
off-the-record “home runs,” a “speculation but nothing confirmed,” and a
variety of other responses, including dead silence from the chairman’s office.
The non-response was to be expected. If ditching Title II was a compromise, it
implies that the “looming spectrum crisis” repeatedly cited by the chairman’s
office as justification for taking broadcast channels is slightly overblown.
It’s more of a “potential annoyance.”
To frame this thing, the FCC is charged with rounding up 500 MHz of spectrum
for wireless broadband. From the get-go, it put a bead on 120 of the 300 MHz
dedicated to television. The current plan is to motivate broadcasters to give
up spectrum in return for a piece of the auction proceeds. Tighter rules would
seem logically to curtail bids.
The 500 MHz chunk is deemed necessary to avert the aforementioned “looming
spectrum crisis,” said to be driven by exploding mobile data usage. “Looming,”
which means “to appear indistinctly,” seems the pivotal term, as no such crisis
exists today. Verizon is flush with spectrum and not currently shopping.
Qualcomm is now trying to get rid of Ch. 55, a 6 MHz swath in the UHF band that
covers the United States. AT&T was reported in mid-November to be sniffing
at it, but nothing further has developed since then.
“There is no shortage of spectrum today,” said John Hane of Pillsbury,
Winthrop, Shaw and Pittman in Washington, D.C. “There is an infrastructure
shortage, arguably. There is more available spectrum than there is capital
available to exploit it. We have a substantial surplus of spectrum today that
is chasing money.”
While mobile data usage
is rapidly
increasing. But by how much is anyone’s guess. Spending projections from the
Telecommunications Industry Association suggest a 23 percent growth rate over
five years. An FCC white paper--factoring in unlimited data-use packages--puts
the usage growth rate between 480 and 980 percent over the same period. If the
two are concomitant, wireless data service would have to be dirt cheap by 2015.
Opinions abound on what’s going on in the commission, but no one is predicting
dirt-cheap mobile data service in 2015. Particularly not if providers are
allowed to charge by the bit, something the FCC is considering.
“I don’t think anybody knows what will be needed in five years,” Hane said, but
that “if they wait until they need it, they’re behind the curve.”
To that end, this week’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to open TV channels up
for broadband is one way for the FCC to get more spectrum into the market down
the road. Or to eliminate free television, depending on one’s perspective. That
the FCC went straight for the TV spectrum before doing an inventory is suspect.
The Commerce Department has since identified 2,200 MHz of “candidate” spectrum
that could be redesignated for broadband.
Several D.C. sources said the TV spectrum NPRM and the retreat from Title II
likely were coincidental. The NPRM was late. It was supposed to be issued in
the third quarter of this year. As for the Title II retreat, it was tied to FCC
Chairman Julius Genachowski’s network neutrality draft proposal. The draft had
to be circulated this week in order to meet the deadline for a commission vote
at the Dec. 21 meeting.
Genachowski has been under pressure to establish net neutrality rules in
conjunction with the Obama Administration’s National Broadband Plan. Network
neutrality was a hot potato on Capital Hill long before the NBP was unveiled
last March. Net neutrality regulations would prohibit Internet Service
Providers from throttling bit rates on high-traffic users. Proponents contend
such rules are necessary to prevent big multimedia ISPs like Comcast from
throttling competitors out of existence.
The FCC popped Comcast in ’07 for throttling, but a federal court this year
said the commission had no such jurisdiction under broadband’s current Title I
classification. Title I provides the FCC with “ancillary” authority over wired
and wireless services. Soon after the court ruling, Genachowski floated the
notion of reclassifying broadband under Title II, which provides more explicit
authority.
He opted instead for rules said to reflect voluntary open Internet principles
established by the FCC five years ago. Basically, broadband providers would
have to allow subscriber access to all legal content, applications and services
available over high-speed networks. Additionally, Genachowski’s draft makes
allowances for usage-based pricing, and managing congestion and spam, so long
as providers disclose how they do it.
“The proposal is grounded in a variety of provisions of the communications
laws, but would not reclassify broadband as a Title II telecommunications
service,” Genachowski said in remarks delivered Wednesday morning.
Marci Ryvicker of Wells Fargo said the retreat from Title II was “a positive
for telecom and cable providers.” She said that less regulation on wireless
networks would be “a significant positive for the sector as the concern was
[that] the FCC was going to significantly regulate these networks, which
carriers have spent literally billions on in terms of both spectrum and build-out.”
The typical anti-regulatory position in Washington is that tighter rules
inhibit further investment. By extension, Title II would have inhibited further
investment in broadband architectures.
“Stricter regulations on broadband service would likely drive down investment
in all areas of deployment, wired and wireless,” one media attorney said.
Or not, in Hane’s perspective.
“If you have unfettered flexibility to manage traffic on your network--in
theory, you can manage your network in the most efficient possible way. You can
operate the network with less spectrum and capital,” he said.
“If you’re subject to Title I or Title II, you have somewhat less flexibility
to manage your network, which translates to less efficiency,” Hane said. “To
maintain a given level of efficiency, you need more spectrum or more capital if
you get new regulations that impair efficiency. Network neutrality would be
more likely to bid up the value of spectrum because. . . it would make
operation less efficient.”
Hane was the only one among six D.C. attorneys who thought tighter Title II
regulation would increase demand for spectrum. Two were neutral, one said the
impact on demand was a stretch, one demurred comment and two said tighter regs
would have a devaluing effect.
One of the few certainties related to network neutrality and TV spectrum
auctions is that neither are on the fast track. Republicans oppose network
neutrality, though providers may be willing to jump through a few hoops in
return for usage-based pricing. Either way, someone will sue. And Congress has to
pass a law before the commission can pay broadcasters to give up spectrum.
The games have just begun.
-- Deborah D. McAdams