As ridiculous as the headline may sound coming from anyone’s mouth, it’s certainly feasible under a bill introduced yesterday by Rep. Eric Massa (D.-NY). Under his proposed Broadband Internet Fair Act, any internet provider with more than 2 million subscribers would be required to submit any usage-based billing plans for approval to the Federal Trade Commission. Apparently not content with owning auto manufacturers, Massa now would like to get the feds into the business planning process for ISPs. Perhaps they can decide what color the raised floor tiles should be in data centers next.
Massa has moved front and center in the “outrage” over plans by Time Warner to test metered bandwidth service in Rochester.
As we’ve said in previous posts and Yankee Group reports, metered bandwidth is not inherently evil and likely inevitable for most service providers. Our argument rests on the idea that operators would set very high caps that truly would only impact those top 2% consuming the most bandwidth.
This bill comes just one day after I had a conversation with John Badal, former president of Qwest New Mexico who’s moved on become CEO of Sacred Wind Communications. Sacred Wind is using WiMax to bring broadband and basic phone to 27,000 square miles of the Navajo Nation. Though just starting to launch, Sacred Wind is starting “broadband” at 128 kbps and isn’t exactly encouraging users to move to multi-Megabit service soon because middle mile costs could cripple the operator. Despite what many in the anti-cap community would like to believe, there is an operational cost to providing high speed service.
Under Massa’s bill, ISPs’ proposed billing change also would require public hearings and impose fines for those that ignore. As expected operators and their associations including the American Cable Association have cried foul, claiming it would deny those who use only a little bit of bandwidth from paying lower rates.
That’s debatable. More concerning should be the idea that any government entity should have say over a process that belongs in the business planning department.