As part of a growing interest in expanding fast, affordable, reliable Internet access for low-income families at home, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has proposed a new regulation requiring high-speed Internet infrastructure to be installed in HUD-funded multi-family rental housing during new construction or substantial rehabilitation. While the proposed rule doesn’t require developers to pay for Internet service subscriptions, it is a step in eliminating barriers that low-income families face in obtaining quality, consistent Internet access. Public comments are due July 18, 2016.

The proposed rule covers HUD’s rental assistance and grant programs, including its Section 8 housing assistance program, Supportive Housing for the Elderly and Disabled program, Community Development Block Grant program, and Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant program. Families living in multi-family housing can then choose to purchase full-priced Internet access from local providers or utilize other resources in their community, which include federal subsidy programs in addition to other state, local, and charitable programs.

Getting Wired Up

As for the actual infrastructure, several types of Internet access technologies satisfy the requirement. Developers can install either wireless (Wi-Fi, fixed and mobile wireless, satellite) or wired (digital subscriber lines also known as DSL, power lines or BPL, cable lines, or fiber) infrastructure. HUD expects most builders will elect to install wired access because of the rapidly changing nature of wireless technologies.

Additionally, wired access is more likely to provide meaningful competition between several Internet Service Providers (ISPs), lowering costs and improving service quality for multi-family housing residents. In an open access network, ISPs typically lease space on infrastructure owned by another entity rather than owning the physical infrastructure themselves. If HUD's new rule called for an open access model, multiple ISPs could utilize a building’s wired infrastructure to offer services to residents. According to HUD’s estimates, which are detailed in the proposed rule, the average construction costs for wired broadband access in its multi-family housing is approximately $200 per unit.

The Coalition for Local Internet Choice (CLIC) has announced that Christopher Libertelli of Netflix has joined the Board of Advisors. Libertelli joins a group of policy leaders, including ILSR's Chris Mitchell, to advance the rights of local communities to have authority over their own broadband decisions.

From the CLIC announcement:

Mr. Libertelli has been Vice President of Global Public Policy at Netflix since December 2011. During his time at Netflix, he has been a champion for a variety of internet policy issues including efforts to increase competition among internet providers. Prior to joining Netflix, Mr. Libertelli managed Skype’s government relations programs in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America.

Netflix has been a strong and consistent supporter of local internet choice. 

Netflix has been very helpful in advocating for the right of communities to build their own networks if they so choose. They filed comments [pdf] in the Wilson and Chattanooga petitions and have been listing some of the larger municipal networks in their monthly speed rankings. We are very grateful for their assistance in these important matters.

The Institute for Local Self Reliance has joined with Public Knowledge, Common Cause, and the Open Technology Institute, in submitting reply comments to the FCC last week as the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (PISC). The issue at hand is the FCC’s proposal of new rules for how to govern the 3.5 GHz band, a range of the electromagnetic spectrum useful for many different types of communication. 

The PISC comment focused on the importance of getting away from the long-standing FCC policy of simply auctioning off big slices of spectrum for telecom companies to use exclusively, which inhibits innovation and enables a monopolization of the communications marketplace. Verizon and AT&T, who hold licenses to large swathes of the spectrum already, are lobbying to FCC to keep the status quo in place. PISC (and ILSR) support a more open arrangement, allowing multiple users to share the same underutilized spectrum segment, while still avoiding interference. The full text of the comment is available here. 

The language and policy of spectrum management can seem arcane to people unaccustomed to it, but how we regulate and use the electromagnetic spectrum has wide ranging consequences for almost all the technology we use in our daily lives. For a general primer on the importance and possibilities of a more open spectrum licensing policy, see the wireless commons articles we published earlier this summer.

You can view the full text of the PISC comment through the link below.

Section 702 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to report annually on whether "advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion." The FCC kicked off its tenth such report on Tuesday by releasing a "Notice of Inquiry," (NOI) in effect asking individuals and groups around the country to offer relevant data and comments. 

This process amounts to a kind of crowdsourced "State of the Union" on broadband issues. In addition to determining how many people in what areas have broadband access, this NOI also asks the critical question of how exactly the FCC should define broadband. The current definition of 4mbps download capacity and 1mbps upload may have been sufficient in the past, but isn't adequate for even recreational household use by many Americans today, let alone the demands of running a business and conducting commerce online.

This NOI also asks some arcane but important questions about other aspects of broadband definitions, including latency (the speed of data moving within a network, a different measure than bandwidth) and the widespread use of data caps and other policies in the telecom industry. 

Obviously the answers to all these questions have significant implications for municipal networks. Inadequate or overly-loose definitions of broadband allow incumbents to claim that they are providing excellent service to just about everyone in a given area, when that is often far from the truth. Many restrictive state laws limiting municipal networks, as well as federal grant programs that may support such networks, are based on whether an area is defined as already served or underserved, which may be dependent on FCC benchmarks. As is often the case in regulatory issues, the devil is in the details.  

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler introduced the NOI with the following statement:

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance recently submitted comments to the FCC as part of its Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet proceeding. ILSR focused on the issue of paid prioritization, reclassification, and regulation of content. We also provided some examples of municipal networks that provide fast, reliable, affordable service and do not rely on paid prioritization to serve customers.

From the ILSR comments:

The FCC should be extremely wary of any arguments that claim paid prioritization or other discriminatory practices are necessary to increase investment in next-generation networks. These networks are already being built and paying for themselves in both public and private approaches (as well as partnerships mixing the two). ILSR sees no reason to believe any additional revenues gained by discriminatory pricing would be reinvested in improving DSL and cable networks as the largest firms operating these networks generally face little competitive pressure to upgrade. That is the problem, not a lack of revenue in the current model.

Our reading of the various court decisions suggest the only option for the FCC to preserve the open Internet and prevent big cable and telephone companies from tinkering with the established principle of non-discriminatory carriage is reclassification and urge the FCC to take this step. However, we also urge the FCC to take actions to prevent any regulation of content. The FCC should concern itself with the transmission of information, regardless of what that information is, consistent with long-held Internet principles.

The Open Internet proceeding has inspired an estimated 1 million+ comments. The outpouring strained the FCC's system and as a result, the FCC extended the comment period to July 18th.

The full document is available below for download and available on the FCC's electronic filing system.

a. Governments have engaged in various initiatives to increase broadband deployment and adoption in certain geographic areas. With regard to specific examples of federal, state, tribal, or local broadband initiatives, how did the initiatives come to fruition from start to finish? Please describe cost information, including planning, equipment, training, labor, and conclusion of the initiatives, as well as barriers that were overcome. What elements of the initiation, planning, or implementation were most critical to the success of the project? What factors impacted the technological choices made in the planning and implementation of the project? Were the projects sustainable, and have the projects continued beyond their initially conceived timeframes? What were the costs and the resulting empirically demonstrable benefits or harms of the implementation? How did costs and benefits differ from the original plan and why? b. What conclusions should be drawn from any particular experiences (e.g., what efforts or practices should be replicated or avoided)? c. Please provide examples of governments aggregating demand to encourage broadband deployment. Are such programs sustainable? Do these programs cause the deployment of network infrastructure that otherwise would not have occurred? Please provide data when possible. d. How can successful broadband solutions be more widely shared or publicized to enable other governments to benefit? What should be the role for the federal government (and specifically, this Commission) in fostering the widespread adoption of ideas and initiatives that have worked? e.