Hillary Clinton Won't Be the Broadband Savior You're Looking For

Speaking this week at a rally in Warren, Michigan, Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton re-iterated that she wants to connect every American household to broadband internet by the year 2020. The goal was first revealed in the Clinton campaign's technology platform, which states that the plan "commits that by 2020, 100 percent of households in America will have the option of affordable broadband that delivers speeds sufficient to meet families’ needs." In Michigan Clinton repeated that promise.

"You know, I happen to think we should be ambitious: while we’re at it, let’s connect every household in America to broadband by the year 2020," said Clinton.

"It’s astonishing to me how many places in America, not way, way far away from cities, but in cities and near cities that don’t have access to broadband," she added. "And that disadvantages kids who are asked to do homework using the internet. 5 million of them live in homes without access to the internet."

According to the FCC's 2016 Broadband Progress Report, one in ten Americans lack access to affordable broadband, defined by the FCC as 25 Mbps down, 4 Mbps up. In rural areas those numbers get unsurprisingly worse with roughly 39 percent of rural Americans -- or 23 million people -- lacking access to broadband.

Then of course there's the problem that about three fourths of Americans lack the choice of more than one ISP at speeds of 25 Mbps or greater. Countless consumers remain stuck on DSL, delivered by phone companies with absolutely no competitive incentive to try harder. Many of these telcos, like AT&T and Verizon, are backing away from DSL customers they don't want to upgrade, resulting in cable providers seeing 99% of all net broadband additions last quarter.

As the remaining cable providers consolidate thanks to a rotating crop of approved mega-mergers, cable broadband is set to enjoy a stronger broadband monopoly than any other time in its history. The result will be higher prices, usage caps, and continued abysmal customer service for all.

As the remaining cable providers consolidate thanks to a rotating crop of approved mega-mergers, cable broadband is set to enjoy a stronger broadband monopoly than any other time in its history. The result will be higher prices, usage caps, and continued abysmal customer service for all.



There's numerous reasons for these problems, top of which being state and federal level corruption that reaches deep into the country's bone marrow. Incumbent ISPs like AT&T and Comcast all but own many state legislatures, which let them quite literally write state telecom law protecting them from competition . When ideas do take root in Congress to try and fix the problem or encourage competition, they're immediately killed by a politicians from both parties, absolutely soaked in telecom campaign contributions.

Fixing these problems and deploying 25 Mbps to the entire population in just three and a half years isn't possible, even with next-gen wireless (which isn't expected to even begin real deployment until 2020). But there's also no historical evidence to suggest that Hillary Clinton is the type of politician to even try. She's received notable affection from both Comcast and AT&T, and only her most stalwart supporters would dare classify her as the kind of "buck the status quo" candidate broadband consumers desperately need.

Ambiguous broadband goals are trotted out in most elections, then quickly forgotten as politicians get to work focusing on more pressing issues (like making campaign contributors and intelligence partners like AT&T happy with fat new government contracts). But the parties do have some slight superficial differences when we talk about broadband.

Republicans enjoy pretending there's no problem with the US broadband market. Full stop. Democrats are more likely to admit a problem, but their solutions are usually hollow and theatrical, the party consistently setting meaningless milestones or spending money on politically timid national broadband plans or national broadband maps that go out of their way to avoid even mentioning high prices or why there's a lack of competition. These are plans that give the illusion of progress, but go out of their way, again, to avoid upsetting AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, or Charter.

These are simply two sides of the same dysfunctional coin. And while former lobbyist Tom Wheeler was a surprise in his support for broadband privacy, net neutrality, and set top box competition, he has been a very rare exception to the rule. His term will end with the appointment of a new President, though he's hinted he may break with tradition and linger to finish what he started. Whether Clinton finds a way to keep Wheeler on board will speak volumes about which direction we're headed.

If Clinton or Trump want to break the mold and actually deliver better, cheaper broadband, they'll need to do more than encourage deployment of expensive fifth generation (5G) wireless, an idea that will receive the lion's share of hype this election season. Real change will require working tirelessly to shake off incumbent lobbyist influence, working to stop state protectionist law, stopping giant mergers that only hurt consumers, ensuring fair spectrum access to smaller competitors, supporting an FCC under constant threat of defunding and defanging, and throwing full support behind local, grass-roots initiatives aimed at shoring up broadband coverage gaps.

Trump being Trump, it's impossible to predict if any of this is even on his radar once he gets done banning the 1.6 billion members of the world's second largest religion from entering the United States. But Clinton, having already received full-throated support from AT&T's top lobbyist , doesn't seem poised to rattle the cages of the telecom status quo, either. With neither candidate having a particularly solid reputation on technology (from encryption to broadband), broadband consumers may soon be looking at one giant step backward either way.