Should the FCC price-cap business broadband?

26 Aug 2017

Should the FCC price-cap business broadband?

2017-08-26
Aleks Yankelevich
Blog

Last month, prolific telecomm researcher Susan Crawford wrote about the multi-billion dollar market for business data services (BDS). This market consists of “middle mile” networks used to connect consumers and businesses across cities and neighborhoods. As I explained in a 2016 Quello Center presentation concerning this market (previously referred to as “special access”), these connections, which are owned by “local exchange carriers,” are used, for example, by large businesses to facilitate intranet communication, by cell-phone providers to funnel voice and data traffic between towers, and by banks to connect to their ATMs. Incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) also wholesale business […]

16 Apr 2016

Exploring the Value of Public Investment in “Generative” Fiber Infrastructure

In an earlier post I described the BTOP Comprehensive Community Infrastructure (CCI) program as a “very good investment of public funds.” My reasons were twofold, the first one being that it expanded the availability of high-speed connectivity in underserved areas, including more than 42,000 miles of new and 24,000 miles of upgraded fiber infrastructure. The second was that research by ASR Analytics suggests that the CCI program accomplished this expansion in a way that addresses both forms of economic harm claimed by advocates on both sides of the special access regulation debate. As a result, I suggested “that the federal […]

15 Apr 2016

A “Public Infrastructure” Perspective on Special Access

As I discussed in an earlier post, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) recently released a paper by its Director of Research, Mark Cooper, which made the case that the FCC’s decision to deregulate special access in 1999 was premature and has resulted in large-scale economic harm, including an estimated $150 billion over the past five years. Cooper’s analysis focused on two elements of harm: 1) the direct cost associated with non-competitive excess-profit-extracting pricing and; 2) the indirect economic costs associated with this pricing regime. As it turns out, a few days after Cooper presented an overview of his analysis at […]

07 Apr 2016

BTOP’s Fiber Investment, Social Value & the Special Access Market

During the past few days I’ve been: 1) reviewing the BTOP program evaluation study’s final report prepared in 2014 by ASR Analytics and; 2) doing some homework aimed at better understanding issues related to the FCC’s pending special access study and proceeding. The former relates to a pending Quello Center research project, while the latter was prompted by release of a paper written by Mark Cooper, Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America (CFA). Cooper presented the paper, entitled “The Special Problem of Special Access: Consumer Overcharges and Telephone Company Excess Profits,” at an April 5 event sponsored by […]

special access