#119: FCC Loses on Government Broadband

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2016

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When government-run broadband networks in Chattanooga, TN and Wilson, NC sought to expand beyond their cities’ boundaries, they ran into state restrictions. The cities asked the FCC to intervene, but can a federal regulator overturn state laws on broadband? The agency thought so, but the Court disagreed. This month, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the FCC’s 2015 order preempting state laws and dictating how municipalities make decisions with regard to government-run broadband networks. What does this mean for the future of state broadband policy? Should critics of the FCC be encouraged by the Court’s rebuke. Evan and Berin discuss. For more, see our blog post.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the tech policy podcast. I'm Evan Schwarzenbacher. On today's show, Tech Freedom won something kind of finally, like a tech policy battle. Joining me to discuss this is Baron Soca, who has not been on the show for a while because he's been traveling. And I think we've gotten a lot of feedback from people
0:21.5	that they super miss you. So are you glad to be back? If by back you mean sitting here in Aspen
0:29.2	with you, then yes. Well, I was going to do a really fun game where we let the listeners guess
0:33.7	where we were based on listening to the episode, but you've now ruined what would have
0:38.0	obviously been a really entertaining thing that might have actually gotten some people to
0:41.4	listen to our show for once. We could re-record. I mean, most people don't realize that we
0:45.4	record these shows at least five times before we get it right. Five times. Speak for yourself.
0:50.0	Yeah, that's why they're so funny. Maybe that's when you try to do it by yourself. It takes five times if I'm not around.
0:54.7	Which is why that doesn't happen.
0:57.1	All right.
0:57.6	So I'm going to recap this issue that we kind of won on because if I let you do it, it would take a really long time.
1:02.8	All right.
1:03.0	So in February of 20th.
1:05.4	Yeah, that's fine.
1:06.3	I mean, whatever.
1:07.3	It's not like anyone's checking. So in February of 2015, the FCC voted to preempt state laws restricting municipal broadband networks. So when I say a municipal broadband network, I mean government-run broadband. The local utilities of Chattanooga and Wilson and Tennessee and North Carolina, respectively, have broadband networks that are government owned and government run. And they wanted to
1:28.3	expand beyond restrictions that the state governments place on those networks. State governments said no,
1:33.5	so they asked the FCC to overturn these laws. You might be asking, how the hell is the FCC overturning
1:38.9	state laws? Well, a small section of the 1996 telecom act says that the FCC should promote broadband deployment.
1:47.8	Now, while most critics of the agency would say that is a deregulatory mandate, they're asking the agency,
1:52.0	or Congress is asking the agency to find ways to simplify broadband deployment by deregulating,
1:56.9	this FCC thinks that is an independent grant of authority to do things like overturned state laws.
	...

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