FCC Teases About Free Broadband

By Jason Lee Miller


Would you like free wireless broadband? Sure you would. As you might guess, though, free broadband is bad for the broadband provider business. In a weird twist of logic, broadband providers argue free broadband is bad for consumers, too.

In a move that turned out to be as self-serving as it was beneficial to US citizens – hey, the citizens will take what they can get these days – FCC Chairman Kevin Martin appeared, for about five minutes, to do something on behalf of the people rather than the phone companies by proposing the 2155-2175 MHz-band of spectrum be allocated for 768 kbps wireless access. In terms of capabilities, that's kind of slow, but matches the slowest options of incumbent providers.

It also matched the speed offered up by M2Z Networks, a broadband startup headed by former FCC official John Muleta, whose ad-supported and content-filtered broadband proposal was rejected by the FCC last year. Martin's proposal – if history is any indication – would likely also come with content filtering. Because the FCC was slow to even review M2Z's proposal, Muleta sued the FCC to make a decision, likely not garnering any good will from Martin in the process. Muleta once suggested the FCC was blocking wireless competition, or at least free services--wouldn't it be interesting if this was why?

Why did Martin change his mind about free wireless broadband? Om Malik suggests it wasn't a patriotic, altruistic decision. Martin, after years of lobbying for the telecommunications companies and in many ways continuing his service in that capacity as chairman of the FCC, is ready to begin an elected political career. So, he's suddenly very populist. Martin was to bring the issue to a vote next week.

But his old masters told him to cool it. Malik presents two letters to federal regulators, one from T-Mobile, and one from M2Z, which tell the whole story. T-Mobile, along with Verizon, argued that the spectrum needed to be tested more before launch for fear of interference with blocks of spectrum bought through the federal auction system.

Such interference would "ultimately disserve consumers." Malik was right to translate that as "Let’s delay this sucker for as long as possible." M2Z's letter expressed a similar view of T-Mobile and Verizon's objection, and laid out more detail.

The most telling tidbit: Both companies saved money by purchasing equipment made for foreign markets, which do not block interference within the spectrum, picking up signals from as far away from South America. Bottom line: Because they cut corners (and other reasons), you can't have free wireless broadband.

M2Z called this type of maneuvering "competitive gamesmanship" and an attempt to "squat on spectrum they never won at auction."

Despite M2Z's objections to T-Mobile's objections, telco-puppet Martin called off next week's meeting. Once a shill, always a shill it seems.