The Expected Consumer Effects of the FCC’s New National Broadband Plan
One of the current plans from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), among the dozens of their policy recommendations, would generate a federal mandate which would require installation of thousands of miles of new fiber-optic cable. What this would do is create a national broadband plan.
The consumer impact is going to vary and some of the following will help to answer some of the main questions that are brought up as to how this broadband manifesto would affect individuals.
Questions and Answers
Q: What is the meaning of the proposal for me today?
The really short answer to that would be, not much. It might not even mean anything for quite a few years. The plan itself is a long-ranging one of the goal to connect what will be the over 100 million users that aren’t still getting broadband service currently by the year 2020.
The plan is something that will target the rural, urban and low-income areas which are left off the current broadband grid. Through the plan there will be billions going into wireless connections and fat fiber to those communities as well as at least a billion for subsidies in terms of training and other adoption efforts. This is assuming that the proposals turn into policy.
Q: I live in the suburbs so this isn’t going to do much of anything for me, will it impact my monthly billing?
Should the proposal go through and the federal government succeeds with introducing additional competition into your area it is the belief that you’re going to be able to get faster speeds and that it’s likely that prices will go down. If they don’t go down they should at least not be raised.
Currently there are only about two choices for a broadband service for around 78% of United States homes. One good example is that in New York there are three companies (Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision) competing very fiercely for customers so they are getting some of the fastest broadband speeds in the entire nation.
Q: When it comes to the adoption of broadband, which group is getting left behind?
Right now it is the lowest-income groups that are lagging. This is according to an analyst at the Consumers Union named Joel Kelsey. There are some studies that have shown that people aren’t currently adopting broadband service due to the fact that they either don’t have access or they simply feel that they don’t actually need broadband service. Joel Kelsey talked about the fact that the biggest possible barrier is the cost.
Q: Will the reformation of the USF (Universal Service Fund) end up leaving rural customers without phone service?
The answer to this is no, the USF will also continue to support voice services while supporting the broadband deployment.
Q: How much are people paying currently and can we expect a rise in prices?
In 2009 the average cost for a fixed wired broadband service was $45 per month. Right now the average subscriber for a mobile phone is spending approximately $500 per year.
Right now there is some evidence that prices are increasing. There are broadband rises from Comcast in their low service tier by $2 per month in the New Jersey as well as certain parts of Pennsylvania. It also looks like AT&T will be raising its DSL broadband service by $3 per month.
Q: Will the FCC tackle pricing at all through any measures, one being caps?
No, since the agency is only setting an affordability goal of the 100 million users at 100 megabits by the year 2020.
Q: How is the FCC going to define what is affordable? Also is the target of 100 megabits a second by 2020 actually go-getting enough?
One of the proposals talks about gathering data in small areas with the prices that people are currently paying for broadband and the speeds for those broadband services. Right now that FCC doesn’t gather any of that information which is actually surprising. Right now companies have been reluctant to give out any information from what the consumer groups are saying.
Having that information is something that will give the regulators a much better sense of competition in a market by market basis. The only question that remains is what they are actually going to do with that data once they have it and if the companies are going to be resistant to a possible price cap.
Related posts:
- The FCC Spectrum Task Force Announcing Plans To Release More Spectrum for Mobile Broadband
- LightSquared Has Been Cleared To Offer Wireless Broadband
- T-Mobile to Offer a Tethering and Wi-Fi Sharing Plan: Low Cost Data Plan
- Google Looking To Provide 1GB per Second Fiber-Optic Broadband To Over 50k Homes
- Wireless Broadband FAQ, the Verizon LTE
- T-Mobile United States Expanding Their Mobile Broadband Network
- New FCC Oversight Proposal For Wireless and Broadband Carriers Due For Vote December 21st
- Hard Data Caps, Why Mobile Broadband Companies Are Reverting to Such
- The United States Market for Mobile Broadband About To Pick Up
- Consumer Reports Recent Release Shows AT&T Still Considered the Worst Mobile Carrier
Tags: Cell Phones