Big Telecom Again Begs Trump Supreme Court To Kill State Laws Requiring They (Gasp) Provide Affordable Broadband To Poor People
During peak COVID lockdowns in 2021, New York State passed a law requiring that big ISPs (with over 20k users) offer low-income residents 25 Mbps broadband for $15. It wasn’t a huge ask; it costs major ISPs little to nothing to provide that speed over modern fiber networks, but the broadband industry sued anyway. Without success: the Supreme Court recently refused to hear their complaint.
So the law took effect, even though there’s no actual evidence that New York state is actually bothering to enforce it. Still, big ISPs like AT&T and Comcast are terrified that other states might follow suit and start forcing them to make broadband affordable. So they’ve put on a little performance in a last gasp legal attempt to have the law (and others like it) killed by Trump’s Supreme Court.
It began a few weeks ago when AT&T pretended it was “pulling its broadband business out of New York State” because the requirement somehow made doing business in the state “impossible.” What you weren’t supposed to notice was that AT&T doesn’t really do much business in New York State. Their home 5G service, the one being “shuttered,” was available to something like less than 5% of state residents.
As it turns out, the ploy was part of a gambit to try to get the Supreme Court to rehear the case. Big Telecom’s lobbying orgs are now lobbying the Supreme Court to reconsider their refusal, claiming they have “new evidence” of the harms being caused by a law NY state isn’t even bothering to enforce:
“As we noted in our petition for rehearing, that [N.Y. state enforcement] created a serious risk that… some providers will cease offering broadband service in New York rather than sell at a loss. That risk has come to pass,” the petitioners’ brief stated. The coalition includes the New York State Telecommunications Association, CTIA – The Wireless Association, NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association, ACA Connects, and USTelecom – The Broadband Association.”
Except this is pure performance. Again, AT&T barely operates in NY State. AT&T saw $32.3 billion in revenues last quarter alone. Providing a 25 Mbps tier to folks on food stamps is a pittance. It’s also important to remember that U.S. broadband prices are so high in the first place because companies like AT&T have spent the last 40 years successfully lobbying for less competition and even less oversight.
New York State is dominated by Charter (Spectrum) and Verizon (FiOS). The former almost got kicked out of the state in 2018 for being shitty and lying to regulators. The latter has had numerous skirmishes with different cities for failing to upgrade its fiber network despite billions in subsidies. The duopoly in the state results in high prices, slow speeds, spotty coverage, and awful customer service.
Yet thanks to Trumpism, AT&T, Charter, Verizon and friends are about to genuinely deliver the killing blow to whatever’s left of any sort of coherent federal broadband consumer protection oversight. I don’t say that with any hyperbole; they’re literally a few rulings away from the federal government no longer being able to stop them from ripping off captive, monopolized markets without any repercussions.
States are inevitably going to fill the void with proposals of their own. ISPs like to get really mad about these state-based proposals, ignoring that their assault on federal governance caused this splintered response by states in the first place. Keep in mind: for every state like NY that actually tries to do anything about shitty broadband, there’s five states whose legislatures are too corrupt to even try.
If the Supreme Court doesn’t hear telecom’s complaint, other marginally-progressive states like Washington and California might also start requiring ISPs provide a piddly cheap tier to poor people, and god knows that might tear a hole in the time space continuum, unleashing all manner of unfathomable horrors.