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Boomtown or Ghost Town: The Role of Community Leadership in Rural Telecommunications Policy By B. R. Forbes The following was developed from remarks at the closing session of the "Reaching Out: Connections for Community Challenges, Telecommunications in Rural Nevada" conference on July 27, 1999, in Carson City, Nevada. The Rural telecommunications Task Force and the State of Nevada Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection Division of the Nevada Commission on Economic Development sponsored the conference. I love public access television. So every time I travel, I check out the public access channel. Last night, I watched a public access program on the unveiling of a new plaque commemorating the sesquicentennial of the discovery of gold in Dayton -- which led to the 1849 gold rush. I was struck by the similarity with today's rush for telecommunications access. The Nevada gold rush 150 years ago created boomtowns and ghost towns. This is the same challenge with the telecom "gold rush:" some communities will benefit and some will be left far behind. Only community leaders such as yourselves can determine which will be boomtowns and which will be ghost towns. The first question you may ask, is why community leadership should be involved at all...? Why can't the telecommunications industry develop access for everyone? I suggest there are three important reasons that communities must be involved in telecommunications public policy. First, communications over long distances depends on the use of public property -- public rights of way and spectrum. We, as the public, own that property -- and the government only manages it on our behalf. And we must make sure the government is getting the best possible rate of return. Second, managing this public property involves redistribution of funds. Government agencies decide what to do with the fees they collect, whether they are franchise fees at the local level, access charges at the state and federal levels, or auction funds at the federal level. Governments also decide which companies receive corporate welfare in the form of free use of public property or forgiven taxes. Communities have an important role to play in deciding how funds are to be spent and which companies get special consideration - if any. Third, our American democracy on an educated and informed public -- and telecommunications is the most pervasive way to provide this education and information. So as citizens, we have a vested interest in determining who has access, who controls that access, and who controls the content provided through that access. These are three good reasons why your government representatives need your involvement to make informed decisions. These decisions will determine whether your community will be a boomtown in the telecom gold rush -- or a ghost town. Let me share with you some of the disturbing trends in the policy decisions that are now being decided - and need your involvement. 1. Telephone rates: Telephone companies and their lobbyists are currently working on changing phone rates - what they call "rate re-balancing." They're determined to "level" the residential and business rates. This means that the business rates will be cheaper and - guess what - the residential rates will go way up. 2. Broadband deployment: Just last week [footnote 1], FCC Chairman Bill Kennard stated that the future of the Internet is broadband, or high-speed data lines. Yet currently, both traditional telephone and cable television companies are deploying broadband primarily in high density, high wealth areas. This means that rural, poor, and minority communities will be effectively shut out of the Internet for lack of high-speed access. 3. Local determination: Local communities are having less and less to say about the telecommunications services that use local rights-of-way. Last week, the FCC touted its "hands-off unregulation" internet policy [footnote 2] and FCC Chairman chastised local franchising authorities for "imposing their own local open access provisions." [footnote 3] The Chairman is now calling for a "national broadband policy" of "unregulation" -- basically forcing a "no-policy policy" on local governments. 4. Universal Service: The FCC has already established policies for not charging access fees for high speed data lines - and is just now approving inter-LATA "regulatory relief" for Bell data lines. With the rise of "internet telephony," this is paving the way for eliminating the access charges that support the Universal Service Fund for connecting low income families, high-cost communities, schools and libraries, and rural health-care facilities. Yet traditional telephone services and "internet telephony" both use digital packet switching - and differ only in the use of protocols. According to Albert Halprin, "Other long distance carriers, seeking also to avoid access charges, will claim to be Internet telephony providers... Since the only real difference between the traditional carriers and the Internet telephony providers is what they call themselves, this shift would take place virtually overnight." [footnote 4] The result, he warns, will be "the rapid erosion of telephone companies' access or interconnection revenues" - the source of universal service funds. 5. Schools & Library Division: The Schools and Libraries Division of the Universal Service Fund, or the "e-rate," has always had its conservative detractors. But now even progressive institutions such as the Benton Foundation doubt its effectiveness. The problem is its emphasis on technology rather than on training -- and we need both. Yet schools and libraries may lose out altogether if we don't somehow match hardware with people-ware. 6. Public interest obligations of digital broadcasters: In exchange for the use of the public spectrum, television broadcasters are required to provide some public services, such as three hours of children's programming a week. Yet these broadcasters were given an additional $70 billion-worth of prime public spectrum to develop digital broadcasting - without any additional public obligations. They can now broadcast up to six times the number of channels - and up to six times the amount of profit - without any additional obligation to the public who owns that spectrum. A new coalition called People for Better TV [footnote 5] is trying to change that - but they need your help. On the other hand I am encouraged by some positive trends in telecommunications policy. For example: 1. Community Technology Centers are increasingly closing the "digital divide" by providing training, equipment, and access to technology and the Internet to rural, poor, and minority communities. Even more encouraging is the fact that more funders are helping them: the U.S. Department of Education, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, AOL Foundation, and the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, among others. 2. The Bell companies are at least talking about supporting universal service. I've had discussions with representatives of Bell Atlantic and other telephone companies that at least voice their support of promoting the Lifeline and Link Up programs which help subsidize basic telephone service for poor families. Only time will tell if they walk the talk - and actually fund new ways to bridge the digital divide in basic telephone service. 3. The FCC is currently considering offering micro-radio licenses. This would be a tremendous boon to rural areas that are over-run by national and urban media. For a couple of thousand dollars, communities could operate their own low-power radio stations at 10, 100, or 1,000 watts. 4.Citizen groups such as this are engaging the public in telecommunications policy. The Civil Rights Forum and CTCNet are proud to support the Rural Telecommunications Task Force through the Kellogg Foundation MIRA re-granting program. I have been truly awed by the innovative and entrepreneurial ways rural Nevada has tackled the problems of telecommunications. The RTTF is clearly playing a critical role in demystifying technology and politics. You are truly the advocates for the new millenium. Believe it or not, Washington DC does not have the answers to telecommunications policy. The industry spends tens of millions of dollars to provide their answers - which, as you may guess, are not always in the public interest. Nevada is the perfect testing ground for cutting edge policy to deal with challenges and opportunities. You have a relatively small population with wide range of density; you have what I would call a challenging topography; and you have the special considerations of the Native American Nations. Back in Washington DC, I will be looking to you for practical solutions -- and you can look to the Civil Rights Forum as your tireless advocate at the federal level. Together we can determine whether the rural communities of Nevada and other states will be boomtowns or ghost towns in the telecommunications gold rush. I truly believe that the future is in our own hands. Footnotes: 1 Remarks by FCC Chairman William E. Kennard before the Federal Communications Bar, Northern California Chapter, San Francisco, CA; July 20, 1999; see full text as prepared for delivery 2 See the FCC press release, "Internet Prospers With 'Hands-Off Unregulation;' FCC Paper Rejects Need For Precipitous Action," released on July 19, 1999 and or the complete text of the report 3 Remarks by FCC Chairman William E. Kennard before the Federal Communications Bar, Northern California Chapter, San Francisco, CA; July 20, 1999; see full text as prepared for delivery 4 Albert Halprin; Halprin, Temple, Goodman & Sugue; "The Internet, A Latter-Day Emperor with No Clothes," Telecommunications Reports International Journal, Summer 1998, Volume 2, Issue Number 3 5 The coalition includes American Academy of Pediatrics, Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, Communications Workers of America, Consumer Federation of America, NAACP, National Council of Churches, National Organization for Women, and others. For more information, see the People for Better TV website, send e-mail to info@bettertv.org or call 1-888-374-PBTV (7288).

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