WASHINGTON – The chairman of the FCC says that high-speed Internet access should be available to all residents even if that means providing it free of charge.
Kevin Martin says the government has a social obligation to make sure everybody can participate in the next generation of broadband services, USA Today reported Wednesday.
In an interview with the newspaper, Martin said he planned to turn his vision into reality by using a section of wireless airwaves set to be auctioned next year.
"More and more people expect and demand to have access to the Internet and new wireless technologies," Martin says. "It is important that the (FCC) try to find new ways to address" those needs.
By attaching a "free broadband" condition to the sale of the spectrum, known as AWS-3 (for advanced wireless services-3), Martin thinks he can help drive broadband adoption in rural areas in particular. Only 25% of network capacity would have to be reserved for free broadband. The rest could be used to provide premium broadband services.
But the idea is not gaining support among cell phone providers like T-Mobile. It paid $4 billion two years ago to buy AWS-1 spectrum, which abuts the AWS-3 spectrum.
While the FCC’s goal of providing broadband alternatives for rural customers is "noble," the approach would cause service disruptions for T-Mobile’s data customers, says Cole Brodman, T-Mobile’s chief technology officer.
"The FCC has an obligation to make sure that their spectrum policy allows for people who bought spectrum to be protected," he says.
In another interview, Martin turned to the cable industry and commented how he doesn’t have the power to solve the "single biggest problem" facing media consumers and isn’t counting on Congress to act any time soon. While prices of other communications services – such as wireless access or international calling – have fallen in the past decade, he says cable is an exception. In that time, cable channels have doubled, but the average number of channels that subscribers watch has increased only from 13 to 15, he says, pointing to Nielsen Media Research statistics.
"Today, consumers pay double what they paid less than a decade ago and they have fewer choices, not more, and they have to buy a bigger and bigger bundle of services if they want to get anything," Martin told editors and reporters at The Washington Times on Tuesday. "If you want to buy the Discovery Channel for your children, you have to buy a package that includes a whole bunch of channels that you don’t want."
“One of the things that’s most disturbing, I think, and should send a red flag to any government official and to anybody when they’re looking at industries is when people are trying to hide information from customers," Martin said about the cable industry’s lack of disclosing per-channel prices. "For a market to be efficiently working, people have to be making knowing choices and those choices have to have real economic consequences."
