Troubling Questions Concerning Broadband

Several questions remain unanswered concerning the fate of broadband internet service in Jefferson County, Tennessee, namely the time and date at which the citizenry will have full access to affordable, reliable, and competitive internet services. Will the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) award grants to expand internet in Jefferson County as a whole or to certain unserved geographic areas? Will the current slate of political candidates take the time to gain an understanding of the complex issues surrounding internet service expansion? Will the Tennessee General Assembly lift the artificial barriers imposed on internet-capable municipal utilities? Will the recent effort by Jefferson County Commission and city governments, within the county, to achieve “broadband ready” status under TNEDC rules be enough to qualify local ISP’s, including utilities, for grant funding? Most importantly, will the expansion of wireless internet service render certain geographic areas of Jefferson County ineligible for fiber-to-the-premises internet service grant funding?

Utility vs Private Internet Service Providers (ISP’s)

The bottom line is that private ISP’s want utility status, tax incentives, and government grants; but they don’t want the responsibility of a utility in providing universal service. To counter this problem, the Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017 (BAA) gave the green light for Tennessee’s 23 electric cooperative utilities to provide internet services. However, cooperative utilities are inexperienced with providing broadband, and understandability averse to financial risk, rendering most of them to be of little competition to the private legacy providers. Consumers need market competition in order to experience competitive pricing and service. BAA established a state grant program for both private entities and public utilities to expand internet service to underserved areas, and to award tax incentives to certain ISP businesses, all under the requirement that grant recipients expand internet services to areas having less than 10 Mb/s download and 1Mb/s upload, speeds. Herein lies the rub between consumers and ISP’s. Consumers want universal fiber optic service to the premises for reliability, speed, and affordability. Eleven Tennessee cities, including Chattanooga’s EPB, provide gigabit fiber optic service for a fraction of the price charged by private legacy carriers. So why can’t the rest of Tennessee have access to internet services provided by internet capable city utilities? It is because city utilities fall into the category of “municipals”. Municipals, with their competitive rates and gigabit speeds, strike fear in the hearts of private legacy carriers. As a result, legacy carriers hire lobbyists to influence state law to artificially restrain municipal carriers. For the record, the 23 electric cooperatives in Tennessee were officially neutral on the proposed bills that would have lifted regulations on municipal utilities. So when will the iron curtain of restraint be lifted on municipal ISP’s and a more competitive internet environment emerge? That will depend on you. Your legislators hold the key. As they like to say, “We are a nation of laws.”

Broadband Definition

To be clear, the FCC defines broadband service as 25 Mb/s download speed and 3 Mb/s upload speed. Tennessee law, by design, does not define broadband at all; lawmakers in Nashville have had numerous opportunities to match the definition of broadband to the FCC level, but have elected not to in the face of heavy opposition by the well-entrenched telecommunications lobby. Consumers beware. At the present time, about 800,000 Tennessee residents are without minimum internet service; another million or so face data limits and unaffordable rates; and the remainder have access to internet, but in an environment of relatively limited competition. The telecommunications industry enjoys the lack of consumer choices and low transmission speeds across the state. In fact, some of the poorest nations on earth have internet speeds higher than the minimum requirements of the Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act, Kenya at 12.2 Mb/s and Ukraine at 11Mb/s to mention just a couple.

The following articles are offered to support the information in this article. Of great interest would be the broadband article from Sweetwater-Broadband written by Lindsey Chestnut, first on the list.

David Seal

Dandridge, Tennessee

https://www.sweetwater-broadband.com/index.php/2018/08/10/the-att-death-star-strikes-rural-sweetwater/

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-want-to-be-utilities-but-only-to-get-more-money-from-the-government/

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/24/17882842/us-internet-broadband-map-isp-fcc-wireless-competition

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/politics/state/story/2018/sep/28/broadening-broadbandcandidates-want-better-in/480088/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Top%20Stories%20-%20Morning%202018-09-29&utm_content=Top%20Stories%20-%20Morning%202018-09-29+CID_d147c4ba38fa2304a1191526c300708b&utm_source=Email%20Marketing%20Platform&utm_term=Governor%20candidates%20want%20better%20internet%20in%20rural%20areas

Source: David Seal