San Francisco Proposal Aims At Giving Multi-Tenants Access Choice Of ISPs
If San Francisco Board of Supervisor Mark Farrell gets his way, tenants in multiple-occupancy buildings will have a greater opportunity to choose their Internet Service Providers.
In October, Farrell introduced a proposed ordinance that would require owners of multi-tenant residential and commercial properties to give building access to all state-licensed ISPs.
Choice Effectively Denied
Farrell’s proposal comes amidst reports of tenants denied access to ISPs of their choice.
According to a legislative digest of the proposed ordinance, property owners are not legally allowed to force tenants to sign up with one provider, but by limiting access their building to install fiber or antennas, they prevent their renters from choosing the provider they want:
"[M]any occupants of residential and commercial multiple occupancy buildings are unable to choose between service providers because their buildings property owners allow only one provider to install the facilities and equipment necessary to provide services to occupants..."
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
“The reality in San Francisco is that tens of thousands of residents have been denied access to different Internet service providers,” Farrell said. “I fundamentally believe competition is a good thing that will ultimately drive prices down and improve Internet access across all of San Francisco.”
Charles Barr, founder of up and coming fixed wireless provider Webpass, said owners block their access to approximately 400 large apartment buildings in the city. Google Fiber recently acquired Webpass.
The Proposed Ordinance
Farrell’s proposed ordinance would guarantee:
The promotional sheet claims CenturyLink will offer speeds "up to" 1 Gig for $79.95/month for 12 months. 100 Mbps runs $49.95 and 40 Mbps is $29.95 - each for 12 months. No mention of upload speeds but CenturyLink has demonstrated a real aversion to symmetry so users can expect far slower upstream than what modern municipal networks and Google fiber deliver.
The standard operating procedure in apartment buildings will be for CenturyLink to try to lock up the internal wiring to buildings and deny it to competitors. FCC rules make exclusive agreements with landlords unenforceable, but there are a host of tricks that incumbents use to prevent any competition and landlords getting a kickback often have little reason to encourage competition.
The CenturyLink copy notes that its fiber optic GPON option is "up to" more than 92 percent energy efficient than cable modem Internet access. I have to wonder how it compares to DSL energy efficiency and whether that number holds up better than the "up to" 12 Mbps claims they make on DSL circuits that seldom peak at 5 Mbps.
At any rate, it is more than we can expect in the many communities CenturyLink is serving where there the local government have done nothing to spur competition by investing in publicly owned assets that could form a municipal network or be used to entice independent service providers to enter the market. In particular, I would be curious where else CenturyLink is rolling out fiber to buildings without any upfront charges.
But Verizon immediately goes crying to the state regulators: "The landlords aren't playing nice, force them to let us into their buildings!"
Anyone who still believes competitive or free markets are synonymous with unregulated markets is fooling themselves. Big firms use deregulation or regulation in their attempts to corner and monopolize markets.