FCC gets conflicting advice on whether to keep fixed, mobile distinctions in 706 inquiry
Parties differed on whether the FCC should distinguish between fixed and mobile services in its latest Telecom Act Section 706 inquiry into the state of advanced telecom capability deployment. Comments were due Monday in docket 18-238 on a notice of inquiry (see 1808100040). “By looking separately at fixed and mobile broadband, the Commission’s approach lacks technological neutrality, thus perpetuating the outdated, siloed version of the communications industry that has bedeviled the Commission’s work in recent decades,” said the R Street Institute.
The group said the agency should evaluate broadband deployment by “looking only at the objective metrics of consumers’ broadband service — such as throughput, latency, price and data caps — rather than at the technologies used to deliver such service.”
