"Here in reality, U.S. broadband is […] a failed market, dominated by a handful of politically powerful regional mono/duopolies, who hoover up untold billions in taxpayer subsidies for networks they routinely fail to fully deploy. All protected by layers upon layers of state and federal corruption policymakers like to pretend doesn’t exist."

That's right, but that's not what the rule says. The rule says that if your business decision, totally unbeknownst to you, has a disparate impact on a particular racial/ethnic/religious/income group, then you're in violation.

If you have enough data to reliably identify your most profitable neighborhoods, I guarantee that data tells you something about their demographics. Any ignorance of disparate impacts, whether on racial lines or wealth or anything else, is willful.

> The rules define “digital discrimination of access” as “Policies or practices, not justified by genuine issues of technical or economic feasibility, that (1) differentially impact consumers’ access to broadband internet access service based on their income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion or national origin, or (2) are intended to have such differential impact.” As the law requires, the FCC will consider arguments that legitimate business impediments preclude equal access to broadband service in particular communities.

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-398477A1.txt

I doubt people would have the same reaction if they realized it was primarily about income and not race. But everyone loves to talk about race.

I think your claim that this is a path to rebuilding systemic racism and not a means to end it is a misunderstanding of the "systemic" aspect of systemic racism. Because it is systemic, the system itself will naturally reinforce the impact of the racism unless significant counter forces are applied against it.

The fact that a business making decisions to deploy resources geographically to maximize revenue (for services that ought to have nothing to do with race) might reasonably worry that they might unintentionally lead to an impact that has a discernible racial bias, is a demonstration of exactly this phenomena.

So no, you're not going to end it by making decisions ignoring systemic disenfranchisement. To end it, you are definitely going to have to be mindful of how the system might have impacts that reflect (and thereby amplify) the bias of the system, not the decision.

That's not a "paper", it's the final rule that the FCC adopted. And it applies to race, ethnicity, religion, and income level equally.

Racial discrimination and redlining correlating with poor access to broadband was a factor in the analysis, but they also looked at rural/urban access splits and income disparity related lack of access too.

I haven't read through the whole thing yet, it's very long, but the emphasis seems to be on forcing telecoms to build out access in areas that are historically underserved when the reason is they would make less money (different than 'at a loss') rather than serving an area with existing access that might present better margins.

The linked article starts by drawing comparisons to redlining in the very first paragraph.

There is a long history of telecoms getting subsidies under terms like what you say, failing to do what they are supposed to, not being punished for it (I suspect corruption from regulatory capture), and then pushing for more subsidies for the problem. Admittedly this comes with a certain amount of showy punishments and appropriate prostration of telecom execs. However that amounts to a slap on the wrist, and then business as usual.

Given that this cycle has been going on for decades, there is every reason to believe that this is just another round.

What if you make a decision solely on the number of households, not their income? That wouldn't require taking race into consideration at all.

We don't need to play silly "affirmative action" games to keep them accountable.

The issue is that FCC is, correctly, treating broadband as a utility at a level comparable to electricity/sewer/drinkable water. And as such, ensuring that underserved people get access to the service is more important than punishing contractors for failing to deliver it.

I do agree that the discrimination hand-wringing is unnecessary, and a good "Deliver the service to everyone, assholes" should be plenty in theory. But if leaning on those laws is what it takes to get them to comply, then whatever. Results are what matters.

There is no valid reason to turn this into yet another performative piece of race-bait.

This would be a bizarre and circuitous way to attempt the recover from that mistake.

There weren't? How do you figure that?

Go find the bills and find me some consequences for the companies that failed to do what they were asked.

There aren't any.

I don't understand why people constantly vilify companies acting like companies instead of the corrupt government that's lying to our faces.

I agree but I also think it's not very practical to expect selfish parties to take advantage of a free lunch (frog and scorpion situation).

The companies are supposed to act in their own interest and they did. The Government is supposed to act in our interest and they didn't. Plus, they're the ones that we can hold accountable.

I'm still against this particular rule because it sets a very problematic precedent.

There are other non-problematic ways to hold them accountable. Like fining ISPs for the taxpayer dollars they were given, plus interest.

1. ISPs have been given various money to roll out to those communities in many if not most cases. Currently, noncompliance is cheaper than doing what they said they'd do and were paid to do; and

2. The "rational" thing you point to allows racism by proxy. I mean, look up redlining. Systemic discrimination (of various kinds, not just race) gets more abstract but the end goals remain the same.

But really the FCC is trying to put a bandaid on a gaping wound: national ISPs shouldn't exist. The only good broadband is municipal broadband. Any "good" broadband we have now just isn't terrible yet and/or the provider has cherrypicked coverage in much the way you suggest, leaving many under-served communities.

Thats what they are doing though.

- Housing discrimination through the Fair Housing Act [1]; and

- Racial discrimination in redistricting, affirmed by even this current Supreme Court [2].

[1]: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/f...

[2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court...

2. The result being the same does not mean the goal is the same. I doubt ISPs are rubbing their hands and laughing at the struggle of minorities. It's simply not their job to care about them. See 1.

Further, there is nothing wrong with national ISPs as long as we don't put up road blocks for municipal ISPs.

In this reality, ISPs have put up road blocks for municipal ISPs.

In North Carolina it's especially shady-- any ISP can challenge by offering their own plan to wire up the municipality that wants to do their own wireless. Doing so can end up halting the municipal plan, but that ISP doesn't have to actually deliver said plan.

Redlining was just short of being explicit. But the racial covenants on home deeds were very explicit:

https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants.htm

There's even crazier shit than that in US history which has led to where we are at now.

What we're talking about here is much simpler, basic economic stuff like "poor people can't afford expensive stuff" which doesn't demand any racial assumptions.

EDIT: I don't usually ask about down-votes, but for the people who are down-voting this comment, please explain why I'm wrong. The whole basis of the discussion here is that the 'disparate impact' standard is being used to criticize business decisions that are not based on racial inputs.

If you put yourself in position of gatekeeper of an essential service then it's reasonable to put a burden on you to do due diligence to make sure that service is equally accessible.

Not to mention record profits, so it's not like these giants are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

As for your [1] comment, you leave important context before and after your outtake. Let me add them here for you:

Before your outtake: > As further support for the Congressional purpose that drives our actions today, the record in this proceeding contains substantial evidence of gaps in access among persons in some low-income, rural, Tribal and minority communities.

After your outtake: > Rather, we must conclude that such impediments are more likely driven by neutral policies or practices (i.e., business decisions) that have discriminatory effects.

This entire action isn't about direct effects of intentional discrimination. It's about the indirect effects of unintentional discrimination. Which is a much ignored impact on our society.

So I ask you: what utility should be delayed just for profits sake? Which houses shouldn't get electricity because their poor credit score risks profits because they struggle to pay their bills? These questions are ridiculous asks in today's society because we see electricity as such crucial requirements to life.

The fact these companies have received significant subsidies and have such little to show for it gives more reason to have regulations in place such as this. No regulations only work if companies aren't greedy profit-first motivated entities. Regulations are important for shaping and limiting the inherit greed that humanity as a collective has.

>The fact these companies have received significant subsidies and have such little to show for it gives more reason to have regulations in place such as this. No regulations only work if companies aren't greedy profit-first motivated entities. Regulations are important for shaping and limiting the inherit greed that humanity as a collective has.

This is a really broad near-truism that doesn't engage with any of the particulars. The point is that the FCC is requiring you to practice discrimination/affirmative action with regards to your build-out (and other) decisions. You have to figure out where the minorities are and make a point of building out to them, and make less money as a result (how much less? they won't tell you. better hope you guess right). Let's say this law didn't exist and you were doing just that, but in favor of white people, contrary your profit interests. That would be a slam dunk racial discrimination case. But that's exactly what the FCC is requiring here, just with good feelings attached because it's in favor of minorities. This is affirmative action, which the Supreme Court has recently said is no longer legal in the United States.

As for the subsidies, the way they work is, roughly, the government offers you a certain amount of money to build an area, and if you don't, they either give you an extension or fine you or take the money back or some mixture of the three. There's also been reverse auction type approaches, where the government takes bids for people to build out to an area and awards the subsidy to the lowest bidder. It's not like the government just cuts AT&T a $10 billion check and says go forth and build broadband where you see fit. If you have a problem with how the subsidies work, then redesign them.

From the first paragraph of the linked article to this post:

> Groups like the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) have released studies on cities like Cleveland and Detroit, documenting how this discrimination lines up with 30s “redlining” efforts.

I am quite curious as to why TechDirt was able to find these, but a commission wasn't.

> Perhaps you're not familiar with the concept of disparate impact. And please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38304973 for how this is not like other disparate impact standards in American law.

I am no legal scholar, but I have a vague idea of disparate impact. As far as I'm aware, you're correct. There really isn't a disparate impact standard for any private business. It's mostly for government entities (the one I'm mostly familiar with the is the Civil Rights Act and government election rules).

> The point is that the FCC is requiring you to practice discrimination/affirmative action with regards to your build out decisions. You have to figure out where the minorities are and build out to them, and make less money as a result (how much less? they won't tell you. better hope you guess right).

It's quite easy to find where the minorities are. The Census data is quite accessible. It like is not wholly complete given many minorities lack of trust of government officials, but it will give one a strong idea of where they reside.

I do agree with you that the FCC is reaching a bit here. I would be perfectly fine with strong requirements to any of the $56 billion subsidy dollars allocated have strong requirements about disparate impacts and affirmative action. And that applying it to ALL business decisions is almost certainly an overreach. But I do think that something needs to be done about the unintended consequences of profit-before-all-else behavior. And this likely is not it. I have a strong feeling given this current Supreme Courts hate of stare decisis, this decision may not live much longer.

I used to work for a mortgage company, disparate impact applied to us, and we had systems in place to help us study it.

Nothing I said implies it's hard. The problem is that the FCC is requiring you to base your decisions on race, ethnicity, and religion.

Pretending otherwise is tilting at windmills.

The FCC already operates the Affordability Connectivity Program, which subsidizes internet access for poorer households: if they want those households to have gigabit FTTH, they just need to open the taps further on that program.

The truth is probably more likely that households below 200% of the poverty wage won't choose to spend money on upgrading from 50Mb/s to 1Gb/s when they can spend that on food or improved housing or whatever.

I think telecom got 100 billion from Biden’s stimulus package. I agree it’s too much but shouldn’t the answer be to just not give billions to the telecom industry?

But there should have been strong requirements for the money they received. But the Biden administration was just printing money to keep our society from imploding at the time.

Pay to play has gotten more ubiquitous. I'm curious if you defend it in general.

The horror. The horror.

There's a reason why the USPS is required to deliver more or less everywhere. I admit that their service levels do vary, but I think the aspiration is a good one.

Maybe our broadband infrastructure just shouldn't be owned by for-profit corporations. They've already proven themselves poor stewards of the commons. (Ditto for utility companies, really.)

So "YMMV".

I have literally never experienced anything that even approaches that level of nonsense in the private sector.

No it isn't. You already drive, have a car, and live in the state. What are they acquiring you to? They're just integrating you into their servicing platform. That's customer service.

Eh? The idea of a "natural monopoly" is that even without any meddling or bad behavior there would still only be one company with no competitors. Thety is, it's not granted, it happens on its own.

Phone and internet access should be a public good.

Maybe those two areas should be served by two different ISPs. If an ISP is operating in such a large area that they can't afford to keep all of them reasonably up to date then maybe that's a sign that the ISP is too big.

On the other hand, it's not economically infeasible to extend FTTH to any given area I decide to point out, it's just a question of how many unprofitable areas you'd have to service before your business as a whole failed. Presumably at that point, you'd meet the economic infeasibility standard.

No-one can run a business that way; literally no-one.

No, the NW of Austin doesn't have good internet service because there isn't any competition, and the incumbents are extremely happy to do absolutely nothing and reap $120+ monthly payments for providing service on 15-year-old modulation schemes on cables that are 40 years old. Timewarner/spectrum/charter could roll out high split on docsis 3.1 (released 2013), but then they would have to invest in the network by fixing the pieces of the network that haven't died of old age over the past 10+ years. Or ATT could run fiber, but why when they have 30% market penetration using DSL technologies that are less than 10Mbit down/1Mbit up and old folks like my neighbor will happily continue to pay them $50 a month for it, and when the cable dies they swap it for a 4G modem.

So it's a duoploy where ATT gets the customers that are shopping on absolute price, and Spectrum gets the ones that aren't happy with 100Mbit/sec or data caps. Sub $50 or 100Mbits you get ATT. More than that, you get Specturm. Those of us that want more than 20Mbits up, are SOL, and everyone is getting ripped off because $60/month is what some people are paying for symmetric 1Gbit.

So, those people who live 40 miles W in little towns population 600-2000 can get fiber in town, or those areas with Google fiber can get it an/ord ATT and the rest of us are lining the pockets of some billionares.