The Unpredictable Certainty White Papers (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Cutting the Gordian Knot: Providing the American Public with Advanced Universal Access in a Fully Competitive Marketplace at the Lowest Possible Cost
Cutting the Gordian Knot: Providing the American Public with Advanced Universal Access in a Fully Competitive Marketplace at the Lowest Possible Cost
Pages 18-25
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From page 18... ...
The first is to have the advanced infrastn~cture deployed as widely and rapidly as possible, with particular emphasis on early access by education and health care providers and users.3 There is also the second, broader social concern about preventing the potential disparity between C`information haves,' and C`information have-nots,, for critical advanced access to the NH at reasonable and affordable rates. The current Senate proposal is to provide subsidies to designated carriers of last resort a continuation of the existing narrowband mechanisms and an extension of those mechanisms into the realm of new and as yet unknown serv~ces.4 This public vision of the Nit is not just internally inconsistent.
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From page 19... ...
Although complaints about pricing and customer service led to the reregulation of cable television, cable companies are not monopoly suppliers of broadband services. A residential customer in search of broadband services has the technical capability to receive broadcast television, cable, multichannel multipoint distribution service, low-power satellite, and direct broadcast satellite signals.
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From page 20... ...
ADVANCED UNIVERSAL ACCESS DEPLOYMENT PLAN Phasel: FCC-State Joint Board "Advanced Access Interface (AAl) Recognition Rulemaking Proceeding" The marketplace success of various types of advanced network access interfaces wall, as noted above, create a de facto definition of what it means to be an "information have" in American society.
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From page 21... ...
Any proprietary rights in the AAI identified by the rulemaking proceeding become subject to strict public policy limitations, in Hat way, no provider of technology can hold hostage to its licensing fee or product purchase demands those customers for whom a highly competitive marketplace is unavailable.~8 Phase 2: Joint Board "Inverse Auction" Proceeding Once He AAls have been officially recognized, He joint Board undertakes to implement universal access Trough a proceeding with He following elements: · By public notice He Board divides the country into geographic market areas, much as the FCC has done for cellular and personal communication service (PCS) licensing, in which parties may compete for He right to be the subsidy recipient.
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From page 22... ...
Although the competitive marketplace debate has centered on visions of "last mile" competition among local exchange carriers, cable systems, and ~nterexchange carriers, advances in technology, auctioning of spectrum, and the lessening of regulation will open the door to many potential participants, especially consortia using combinations of diverse technologies. Among possible providers: · Direct broadcast satellite systems with broadband downstream capabilities may find synergies with cellular companies that ivy]
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From page 23... ...
Nevertheless, although these mechanisms will have enabled the initial deployment of advanced access, there may be some markets where there is a continuing need to assure the availability of service out into the future or to allow for circu~r~nces where competition may not be adequate to ensure affordable rates. If such circumstances were to occur, the state PSC could petition the FCC to provide for subsequent rounds of UAS bidding for a designated market in time blocks, i.e., bidding to be the provider of AAl access at no more Man the Top Rate to all requesting parties on a lastresort basis for a designated number of years.
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From page 24... ...
Rather, it is limited to the issue of how best to make access to advanced broadband services universally available to the general public. Nevertheless, certain principles that further the overall goal of advanced universal access do apply: in a competitively neutral marketplace, public support, whether targeted recipients are poor individuals or distressed education, heals, and public institutions, must provide the recipients
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From page 25... ...
Although based on recent prices paid for PCS spectrum, an auction of unused UHF and VHF spectrum could well provide all of the funds necessary to finance advanced universal access; for the purposes of this paper, it is assumed that the funds must be raised from market participants.
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