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Craig Settles: The Role of Telehealth in States’ Broadband Plans

Communities need a strong human element for telehealth to succeed, so digital navigators are key to the team.

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The author of this Expert Opinion is Craig Settles, who unites community broadband teams and healthcare stakeholders through telehealth.

Telehealth visits were estimated to account for fewer than 1 percent of all outpatient visits before 2020. Then COVID hit. Telehealth use was off the chain!

U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey data revealed 22% of the U.S. population used telehealth services in 2022. As the 60s ad said, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” Much of the general public is now familiar with the basic virtual doctor visit.

But are state and local broadband teams on board with using telehealth to drive broadband adoption? Here are three pilot programs that address urban social determinants of health (Chattanooga Tenn.), family mental health delivery (Kansas City, Missouri), and a developing digital equity ecosystem that includes telehealth (Torrington, Wyomin). These pilots offer valuable lessons in driving ACP enrollments.

Much of digital health requires broadband infrastructure and computing devices. “When one looks at healthcare and technologies in the App Store today, there are over 400,000 healthcare-related apps, not to mention content items available on the Web” said Equiva CEO and Co-Founder Nir Altman.

Accepting that telehealth is one logical path to broadband adoption, pilot projects are one method for verify the impact on broadband adoption.

Chattanooga pushes the envelope – again

Chattanooga and their urban broadband network are a booming success story, and they are moving to the next level by distributing 1,000 free telehealth accounts in a pilot to impact the social determinants of health one of most economically blighted area in the city.

Digital equity meeting at the Enterprise Center in Chattanooga

“Our pilot project is bringing a variety of resources to a beautiful but under-resourced neighborhood called Orchard Knob,” said Deb Socia, president and CEO of the Enterprise Center, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of technology and inequality. “The neighborhood has high levels of diabetes, stroke, heart disease, asthma. We’re providing home Internet access, digital skills training, and devices.” Some homes are getting energy upgrades and smart thermostats.”

Many Orchard Knob residents work but not at jobs that offer medical insurance, and they earn too much to qualify for the state’s health programs. It will be difficult for residents to mitigate the negative effects of the without telehealth.

The city-owned electric power board, EPB, is critical to success. EPB was part of planning from the beginning, they contributed funding, they will power the telehealth accounts, and EPB is building out free WiFi in public spaces.

The Enterprise Center received a Tennessee Valley Authority award, and their healthcare partner is the Parkridge Medical System.

Eight steps to the pilot

Essential Families is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that conducted a telehealth pilot in one of the poorest communities in Kansas City, MO with stellar results. They delivered mental healthcare for families and also virtual parent education that enhanced parenting skills.

Their pilot has eight steps, starting with:

Step 1. Developing a database of residents who could potentially use telehealth and broadband. 69 homes participated in the pilot.

Steps 2 and 3. Their Chief of Digital Marketing, Kenneth Yancy, said, “We had to go directly to the people to educate them about FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). Our partners such as the school district and childcare providers were part of the needs analysis process.”

Step 4 When residents registered for the pilot and completed their forms, Essential Families gave them free laptops. The incentive motivated residents to provide data that is difficult for government agencies to collect.

Step 5. Each participant was assigned a digital navigator who walked the family through the processes leading to telehealth services, including enrolling with ACP and training for the video streaming platform, computer, and Internet.

Step 6. A minimum of 15 virtual parental education sessions and six mental healthcare services.

Step 7. An extensive follow up by the additional navigator.

Step 8 The pilot evaluation report that is helped significantly by the electronic and manual tools that execute various real-time assessments, impacts, and cost/benefits analysis.

Rural telehealth

Wireless ISP Vistabeam launched their first Empowerment Center in Torrington, Wyoming. The Center offers ACP enrollment help, digital skills training, video conferencing, and Microsoft delivers digital skill programs.

Matt Larson, owner of Vistabeam

“A fulltime digital navigator is on-site, and we are working with a telehealth company to pilot a home test suite that includes an oximeter, blood pressure monitor, and blood testing,” says Matt Larson, owner of Vistabeam. “The device will be part of the Center’s telehealth capabilities, along with remote doctor visits.”

Rural communities need a strong human element for telehealth to succeed, so digital navigators are key elements of the team. The Center draws people in by emphasizing familiarity, knowledge, no pressure, and exploration.

Larson believes digital equity is just one component of a giant ecosystem of social services to help take care of people. However, there can be a lack of coordination between many of these resources. Effectively coordinating these resources is the way to get maximum collective impact from the ecosystem. The Center staff connects people with complementary social services and other resources.

The quality of broadband infrastructure is key to telehealth success – it cannot fail customers! “The soul of a broadband deployment is in that relationship between an ISP and the customer,” says Larson.

Piloting innovation

Communities need to understand that telehealth is not connections just between doctors and patients. “It’s not up to the patient alone, but also loved ones and care providers in a collaboration that occurs in the care process,” said Altman. “There are many supports groups such as the Cancer Support Community  that supports hundreds of thousands of patients and loved ones.”

The broadband infrastructure supporting telehealth should pilot test these many-to-many connections and resources to be sure they are supported. Pilots should include tools that enables patients, urban and rural activists, and communities to do their own healthcare needs assessment as well.

Jason Welch, Infiniti Mobile president said, “By expanding the ecosystem beyond broadband and telehealth providers to include healthcare organizations themselves, there’s a unique opportunity to educate the patient. ‘Here’s your device and software, and here’s how you maximize the value of their use.’”

If a city’s telehealth pilot is driven by the creation orientation, a community builds or invents things that didn’t exist before. With the creation orientation, you reduce tunnel vision because you’re always pushing the envelope of innovation.

Craig Settles conducts needs analyses, planning, and grant assessments with community stakeholders who want broadband networks and telehealth to improve economic development, healthcare, education and local government. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

Craig Settles conducts needs analyses with community stakeholders who want broadband networks to improve economic development, healthcare, education and local government. He hosts the radio talk show Gigabit Nation, and is Director of Communities United for Broadband, a national grass roots effort to assist communities launching their networks. He recently created a guide to help librarians uncover patrons’ healthcare needs, create community health milestones and effectively market telehealth.

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Digital Inclusion

Emma Gautier: Addressing Digital Discrimination Will Take More Than Policing ISPs

It is crucial to prioritize community solutions where service is offered in partnership with trusted community institutions.

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The author of this Expert Opinion is Emma Gautier, Researcher with ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative.

This is a walk and chew gum moment for broadband-for-all advocates. On the one hand, the Federal Communication Commission new digital discrimination rules have the potential to reign in egregious examples of digital discrimination. On the other hand, the new rules still fall short of putting forward the kinds of structural solutions necessary to address underinvestment in communities where federal infrastructure dollars may never reach.

Last week, the FCC published its final digital discrimination rules, giving the agency the authority to penalize Internet Service Providers whose policies have a “disparate impact” on historically marginalized communities. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed by President Biden in 2021, included a mandate directing the FCC to develop “rules to facilitate equal access to broadband internet access service, taking into account the issues of technical and economic feasibility presented by that objective, including—preventing digital discrimination of access based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin.”

FCC logo

After hosting listening sessions and inviting public comment, the final ruling ultimately defined digital discrimination as “policies or practices, not justified by genuine issues of technical or economic feasibility, that (1) differentially impact consumers’ access to broadband internet access service […], or (2) are intended to have such differential impact.” Such an approach authorizes the FCC to penalize providers even if it can’t identify instances of intentional discrimination.

Initial Responses to the Ruling

As expected, the big monopoly incumbents all but exploded over the FCC’s decision to measure discrimination based on disparate impact, arguing that the new rules go beyond what the IIJA intended when it granted the agency authority to prevent digital discrimination and facilitate digital equity. A secondary argument they make is that the disparate impact approach micromanages business and will discourage providers from investing in certain areas for fear that they will be penalized for profit-seeking behavior.

Meanwhile, public interest groups and members of Congress have lauded the ruling for its focus on disparate impact, a standard advanced by the disability community. In comments filed with the FCC, the American Association of People with Disabilities emphasized how people who are discriminated against experience the effects of discrimination whether or not it was the result of conscious bias:

  • “For decades, the disability community has noted that discrimination occurs unintentionally and often results from seemingly neutral policies. Too often, disabled people experience discrimination not because of malicious intent or explicit exclusion within programs or policies but because the disabled people were simply not considered in the first place.”

How Much Practical Impact Will The Rules Have?

Despite industry pushback, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that the rules have limitations that raise questions about the practical effect they will have. It is unclear, for example, what exactly the FCC will allow on the basis of “economic feasibility.” The rules don’t outline how the Commission will distinguish between “economic feasibility” versus profit-maximization or whether such a distinction will be used to adjudicate rulings. All we know is that the Commission will evaluate each instance of alleged discrimination on a case-by-case basis, relying on precedent set by other ISPs to determine what is technically and economically feasible and what is not.

A detail that has been largely overlooked is that to find an ISP responsible for digital discrimination, the rules say, disparate impact must be traced back to a “specific policy or practice that is causing the disparity.” Policies and practices adopted prior to when the rule became active are not subject to repercussion.

FCC entrance

Another reason to question the rules potential impact is that historically the FCC doesn’t have a strong track record holding big cable and telecom companies accountable. While large providers have been found to neglect infrastructure upgrades and charge higher prices for lower speeds in low-income neighborhoods, it would be uncharacteristic of the agency to crack down on these massive companies. There is very little information from the FCC about what enforcement will really look like; the ruling only notes that “possible violations will be investigated by Commission staff using our standard investigative toolkit, and all penalties and remedies will be available when we determine that our rules have been violated.”

Concerns have also been raised around the transparency of the complaint process the FCC will use to help it identify discrimination. As The Markup points out, “complaints [filed by the public] won’t necessarily begin a formal adjudication process against the ISP, but they can be used as a basis for the FCC to begin its own investigation into the provider’s conduct.” There are no transparency mechanisms laid out in the ruling, which will no doubt make it easier for the FCC to sweep complaints under the rug.

Another wildcard that could come into play is how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a case now before it that, while focused on the SEC, has implications for federal agencies ability to enforce administrative judgements.

A Surface-Level Response to a Deeply Structural Issue    

As other public interest groups argue, it is more important to advocate for the needs of communities than it is to try and untangle the intentions of ISPs. And truly centering communities begins with an honest recognition that digital discrimination is deeply structural – something the FCC and federal lawmakers have been reluctant to acknowledge.

Digital C install on rooftop

It’s a challenge that merits a ground-up solution that goes beyond giving the FCC theoretical authority to penalize providers. Instead, it would be more productive to focus on facilitating community investment that will meet the varying needs of households that aren’t yet connected.

The ruling implicitly assumes the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) will lead to investment in areas traditional providers have not found economically attractive, and that together, the digital discrimination ruling and BEAD work to make Internet access available for all.

Unfortunately, many of the communities that have been impacted by digital discrimination are urban areas that are unlikely to see BEAD dollars, as the infrastructure law was designed to funnel funds to mostly rural communities. Add to that the flawed FCC maps, which vastly overstate coverage, speeds, and competition, and it will be extremely difficult if not impossible for BEAD funding to reach most urban areas deemed “served” by monopoly providers.

The reality is that it can be profitable to discriminate, as the big monopoly ISPs are set up to first and foremost serve their shareholders, not the communities from which they derive their profits.

Digital Equity LA pricing discrimination

These companies are structured to offer service in areas where they will see a quick return on investment, which often means the parts of town that most need to be connected are left unserved or grossly underserved.

Imposing penalties on discriminatory ISPs could potentially scare some into upgrading parts of networks or eliminate glaring price disparities in historically marginalized neighborhoods. But without actual policies in place that encourage competition and universal access to high-quality Internet, the impact of the new digital discrimination rules will likely be limited.

It should also be noted that monopoly ISPs wield tremendous power over markets in a multitude of ways, not the least of which is their well-documented assault on competition. These companies fight tooth and nail to block new ISPs from entering the market, leveraging their considerable influence to convince lawmakers that there is no urban broadband problem that merits public funding. This has worked to persuade Congress that new infrastructure funding should target rural communities and leave the larger urban markets to the big incumbents, even if the service they offer is expensive and of poor quality. Their influence can also be seen in the federal government’s failure to take competition into account, which is indisputably linked to the quality of broadband service and price offered in a particular area.

Real Solutions Will Be Community-Rooted

After such major outcry among major ISPs responding to the digital discrimination ruling and its “disparate impact” approach, it’s difficult to imagine these companies bringing quality, affordable broadband service – as well as digital equity support – to communities that need it. It’s not just cynicism to point that out, as these very same companies argue that the ruling will “chill” investment, which doesn’t exactly instill confidence that they intend to invest in communities most in need of service.

Pulse Fiber construction

There are approaches, however, that do aim to connect the unconnected in ways that are not squarely focused on a quick return on investment. Municipal broadband, partnerships with small community-minded ISPs and other forms of publicly-owned, locally-controlled networks have demonstrated a way to provide universal, affordable service across an entire community, as well as the programs to address other barriers to broadband adoption such as providing devices and digital skills training.

In a letter to the FCC regarding the digital discrimination proposed rulemaking, a group of digital equity initiatives and public interest organizations including ILSR elevated an approach to closing the digital divide that focuses on “building trusted relationships, allowing communities to own infrastructure, build capacity, and experiment with solutions, and allowing for community-driven decision-making and knowledge-building.”

It is crucial to prioritize community solutions where service is offered by trusted entities or providers operating in partnership with trusted community institutions. The public comment goes on to emphasize that “challenging digital discrimination cannot be solely concerned with giving more Black, Brown, tribal, and people in rural areas broadband run by large corporations just to increase their upload and download speeds. In fact, this approach simply exposes our people to more data surveillance and dependency.”

Continuing to Push for Community Control

U.S. Capitol Building

Biden’s original broadband vision did call for “support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and co-operatives—providers with less pressure to turn profits and with a commitment to serving entire communities.”

The Biden administration also intended to promote “competition among internet providers, including by lifting barriers that prevent municipally-owned or affiliated providers and rural electric co-ops from competing on an even playing field with private providers.”

Such an approach recognized that where community broadband providers have been established, subscribers get fast, reliable service at competitive rates. While this approach offered some hope that Biden’s broadband plan would invest in boosting competition among providers, the plan was substantially watered down before it passed in Congress.

Digital C kids outside at picnic table

As a result, few municipal broadband projects outside of rural America are likely to receive funding under BEAD, IIJA’s largest bucket of broadband infrastructure money. The failure of Congress to prioritize community broadband is evidence of the political tradeoff made by Democrats to get the law passed. And while it’s better to penalize providers for egregious discrimination than to continue allowing them to exploit communities in an unfettered pursuit of quick profits, it’s important to keep pushing for more structural solutions.

Now that federal law and policy-makers have set the parameters, it seems wise to direct our attention towards the local level.

The digital discrimination ruling could, for example, give cities leverage in combating digital discrimination at the local level, or at least provide an opportunity to offer up better data that illustrates where and in what contexts discrimination is occurring.

We hope to see cities, public interest groups, and broadband-for-all advocates use the new FCC rules to highlight why certain communities face chronic underinvestment while making the case that community-minded ISPs and non-traditional providers can offer high-quality, affordable broadband to the communities who most need it.

Emma Gautier is a Researcher with ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative. She supports data collection and analysis within the broadband initiative. Emma recently received a BA in Women’s and Gender Studies from Carleton College, and since graduation has been working in research, advocacy, and political organizing for social and environmental justice. She is interested in the synthesis of research and on-the-ground action in communities. This piece was originally published on communitynets.org on November 30, 2023, and is reprinted with permission.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

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Cloud

John English: Isolating Last-Mile Service Disruptions in Evolved Cable Networks

The adoption of new technologies presents operators with a plethora of new variables to manage on the user control plane.

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The author of this Expert Opinion is John English, Director of Service Provider Marketing and Business Development for Netscout

Cable operators are increasingly investing in next-generation network infrastructure, including upgrades to support distributed access architecture and fiber to the home.

By bringing this infrastructure closer to subscribers, cable operators are evolving their networks, adopting greater virtualization  and redistributing key elements toward the edges. They expect these changes to increase their network’s interoperability and, ultimately, improve the speed and uptime available to subscribers. In turn, cable operators expect these new capabilities will help redefine what services they can offer.

However, these new advanced networks are much more complex than previous generations. By virtualizing or cloudifying functions at the edge, operators risk losing the sort of visibility that is essential to rapidly pinpointing the source of service disruptions – and ensuring their networks are meeting desired performance thresholds for next-gen applications.

The challenge of complexity in virtualized networks

As cable networks evolve, so does their complexity. The adoption of technologies like virtualized Cable Modem Termination Systems (vCMTS) and distributed access architecture presents operators with a plethora of new variables to manage, particularly on the user control plane.

Always-on applications and those applications that are most sensitive to network performance changes, such as video games, AR/VR, and remotely-piloted drones, to name just a few examples, require continuous measurement and monitoring for reliability. But ensuring consistent quality of service under all conditions the network may face is no small feat.

To illustrate, let’s consider how cable operators will manage disruptions in a virtualized environment. When issues inevitably pop up, will they be able to isolate the problem virtually, or will they need to dispatch a technician to investigate? Additionally, once a technician is onsite, will they have advanced intelligence to determine if the source of the problem is hardware or software-related?

Or will they need to update or replace multiple systems (e.g., consumer premesis equipment, optical network terminals, router, modem, etc.) to try to resolve the problem? Finally, will they need to also investigate additional network termination points if that doesn’t do the trick?

Indeed, each time a truck or technician is dispatched represents a significant outpouring of resources, and adopting a trial-and-error, process-of-elimination approach to resolution is a costly means of restoring service that cable operators cannot afford at scale. Likewise, the customers that depend the most on constant network availability and performance for various uses, such as content distribution networks, transportation services, and industrial manufacturers, won’t tolerate significant disruptions for long.

Packet monitoring for rapid resolution of last-mile disruptions

In the evolving landscape of cable networks, where downtime can lead to customer dissatisfaction, churn, and revenue loss, rapid resolution of last-mile service disruptions is paramount. Cable operators need more advanced network telemetry to understand where – and why – disruptions are occurring. In short, evolved networks require evolved monitoring. This starts with deep packet inspection at scale.

Packets don’t lie, so they offer an excellent barometer into the health of both the control and user planes. Additionally, they can help determine last-mile & core latency per subscriber, as well as by dimension, so operators can test how different configurations affect performance.

Additionally, in the event of a major service disruption, packet monitoring at the edge enables operators to accurately measure how many subscribers are out of service – regardless of whatever hardware or software they’re using – and determine if there’s a common reason for mass outages to help technicians resolve any problems faster. Finally, proactive monitoring, especially when combined with artificial intelligence, empowers operators to detect and address potential issues before they impact subscribers.≠

All in all, cable operators are navigating a challenging yet exciting era of network evolution. The transition to advanced infrastructure and the demand for high-quality, low-latency services necessitate sophisticated monitoring and diagnostic tools. Deep packet inspection technology will continue to play a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth operation of evolved cable networks.

Additionally, in the quest to maintain the quality of service expected by subscribers, operators must abandon the costly process-of-elimination approach and adopt rapid resolution techniques. By doing so, they will not only reduce service disruption but also make more efficient use of resources, ultimately benefiting both their bottom line and the end user’s experience. Evolved cable networks require evolved strategies, and rapid issue isolation through advanced monitoring must be at the forefront of this transformation.

John English is Director of Service Provider Marketing and Business Development at Netscout’s Service Provider unit. He has an extensive background in telecom, including a decade at a major communications service provider and numerous OEMs and ecosystem partners. English is an expert on how communications service providers can successfully implement new technologies like 5G and virtualization/cloudification while continually assuring the performance of their networks and services. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

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Expert Opinion

Ted Hearn: Is a Ban on Cable and Satellite ‘Junk Fees’ Rate Regulation?

The Federal Communications Commission says no.

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The author of this Expert Opinion is Ted Hearn, editor of Policyband

The Federal Communications Commission could have a legal problem on its hands, but agency lawyers seem to have crafted what appears to be an acceptable workaround: Don’t call a ban on certain cable and satellite TV billing fees rate regulation – call it consumer protection.

At its Dec. 13 open meeting, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel is planning to launch a rulemaking designed to bar cable and satellite TV providers from collecting early termination fees and billing cycle fees – even though the agency receives just hundreds of informal complaints about these fees annually. The U.S. has 53.3 million cable and satellite TV subscribers combined, down 15.7 million since January 2021.

Although the FCC says a ban on these fees has nothing to do with rate regulation, the agency is likely to face strong rebuttal on this point – if not from NCTAitv, the trade association for large cable TV operators, then at least from Charter Communications.  Charter invoked impermissible rate regulation in its court fight against a billing cycle fee ban adopted by the state of Maine in 2020 that remains in effect.

In seeking U.S. Supreme Court review of its loss below, Charter was emphatic that Maine’s billing cycle fee statute embraced prohibited price regulation by requiring partial-month refunds.

“Maine’s law … caps Charter’s rates during the final month of service and precludes Charter from charging either for the full month, or a daily rate higher than its standard monthly rate. That is rate regulation, pure and simple,” Charter said last year in a brief with the high court. The Supreme Court declined to take the case, handing victory to Maine.

An early termination fee is collected when a customer cancels service prior to the expiration of an existing service contract, which can run as long as 24 months. A billing cycle fee involves denial of pro rata refunds when customers cancel before the end of the month. Echoing President Biden, Rosenworcel blasted ETFs and BCFs as “junk fees” that penalize consumers and impede competition.

If all goes according to plan, the FCC will adopt new junk fees rules in 2024. The FCC has floated an exemption for small or rural cable TV operators, but it put the onus on these entities to justify any special treatment.

The FCC’s crackdown on ETFs and BCFs would run counter to the agency’s bipartisan light-touch approach to cable TV regulation that began more than two decades ago. By law, the FCC in 1999 had to cease regulating the price of cable’s expanded basic tier, a service level which typically includes ESPN, C-SPAN, CNBC, and Fox News. 

In 2015, the FCC stripped away the last layer of cable rate regulation. The agency, led at that time by Chairman Tom Wheeler, an Obama appointee, held that every cable operator in the country was subject to “effective competition.” That prevented local governments from continuing to regulate cable’s basic tier – the traditional home of local TV stations and public access channels. Rosenworcel, then an FCC Commissioner, voted against the Wheeler plan as going too far.

Rosenworcel is evidently not planning on letting the agency’s long legacy of cable deregulation to prevent her from pivoting in the opposite direction.

Sprinkled throughout the FCC’s junk fees ban proposal are references to recent court cases holding that BCFs are not rate regulation preempted by federal law, but rather consumer protection measures that states are permitted to adopt and enforce. The FCC said the logic used by the courts in upholding state BCFs applies just as well to a would-be ETF ban.

The FCC said its authority to ban ETFs and BCFs on cable is contained in the 1992 Cable Act, saying it provides for the agency to protect “consumers against … poor customer service” and “establish standards by which cable operators may fulfill their customer service requirements.”

Whether past FCC cable deregulation steps would prevent a junk fees ban, the FCC concluded: “The applicability of ETF and BCF regulations are not affected by the existence of effective competition in a community.”

DBS providers Dish and DirecTV will probably have an easier time than cable in getting a junk fees ban struck down in court.

Since their arrival in the mid-1990s, Dish and DirectTV have never been price regulated at the state or federal level or subject to any form of cable-like specific customer service obligations adopted by the FCC. 

Still, the FCC is confident regarding its power to act, asserting that it retains “exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the provision of direct-to-home satellite services” and authority to impose “public interest or other requirements for providing video programming” on DBS.

In a final rationale left undeveloped, the FCC said a junk fees ban exemption for Dish and DirecTV would be inappropriate because it would allow the DBS providers to gain “a competitive advantage over their competitors through the use of ETFs and BCFs.”

The FCC failed to explain how DBS reliance on junk fees deemed unlawful for cable could be an effective tool at keeping customers or attracting new ones while Dish and DirecTV bled nearly 700,000 subscribers in the most recent quarter.

Maybe FCC lawyers don’t have it all figured out after all.

Ted Hearn is the Editor of Policyband, a new website dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the broadband communications market. A former communications executive and reporter for newsletters and trade journals, Hearn has decades of experience with traditional video and broadband industry trends, regulatory developments, technology advancements, and market dynamics. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

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