' Missing the Boat on Broadband | MTTLR

Missing the Boat on Broadband

Comcast is making the news again for negative reasons. Consumers have taken to the FCC’s still-relatively-new complaint submission process to detail their headaches with the telecom giant. Comcast has piloted “data usage plans” that place data caps on broadband internet in select cities, and recently introduced a surcharge consumers can pay to remove the metering. To generalize, consumers are continually befuddled as to why Comcast can get away with what they view as unfair and unreasonable business practices.

Regulators and policy makers would be wise to pay closer attention to data on broadband availability. Broadbandmap.gov, a project of the FCC and NTIA, provides data on broadband availability throughout the United States in the form of maps and mini-reports on states, cities, and other geographic areas. While it’s possible to download the entire dataset powering the site to make one’s own reports and maps, the government should do a better job of how it reports and uses these data. The same can be said of similar map products from the FCC.

The problem with how these data are used is that they fundamentally misconstrue the market in which Comcast and other internet service providers operate. The government reports the number of wired providers in a region. It also reports the speeds of internet service. When talking about broadband coverage and competition, the focus appears to be on the percentage of a given population that has access to high-speed internet. (This does not include wireless, DSL, and other alternative internet access services.)

I argue this focus is incorrect. What truly matters is the proportion of the population that has multiple options for high-speed internet access. Having lived in three major metropolitan areas, and a few minor ones, I personally have never had more than two options for cable internet, and more than half the time the choice was one. I suspect the story is similar nationwide. It makes no difference that an ISP might have as many as five or six “competitors” in a given area, or that overall, an area has excellent broadband coverage. What matters is whether individual consumers have multiple options at their specific address. This aspect of competitive markets is lost when data is aggregated and relied on without this nuance. The fact that there are localized monopolies might help explain why Comcast can—from the consumer’s perspective—“get away” with the aggravating behavior that causes it to frequently make the news.

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Jared Konczal is an editor on the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, and a member of the University  Michigan Law School class of 2017.