> OK, fine. The number is a sham.
Yet it has somehow become conventional wisdom, parroted in every thread on this subject.
> Were provisions for a particular level of broadband penetration and performance included in the 1996 Telecom Act? If so, was the inclusion of these provisions tied in any way to the more provider-friendly regulatory posture granted as a result of the Act?
No. The purpose of the act was deregulation of the industry, not giving regulatory concessions in return for particular performance outcomes. Whether deregulation is "provider-friendly" depends on who you ask. In theory, deregulation is consumer-friendly. E.g. whenever Uber or AirBnB come up, people on HN champion deregulation of those markets, on the theory that deregulation is good for consumers. That was the operative theory underlying the 1996 Telecom Act.
Now as for whether the pitch back then lived up to the results, the answer is of course "kinda." The state of U.S. internet is really much better than people say. Read my post about what Akamai has to say about actual connection speeds in the U.S. versus Europe (that we're ahead of the big European countries like the UK, Germany, and France): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709948.
What people fixate on is the lack of fiber in major cities, and that has much more to do with dysfunctional municipal politics than national telecom regulation. In Chicago, for example, many folks have a choice between Comcast and RCN (which has a mostly fiber network). This is not because Comcast didn't bribe enough alderman, but simply because the city tends to have a pretty functional and hands-off approach to regulation, which reduces the roadblocks to market entrants. The city also has never instituted rent controls, and unsurprisingly has pretty affordable housing for city of its size and density.
> What I don't think: doubling down on deregulation at this point - which is what this fast-lane stuff seems like to me - will be a long-term benefit for consumers, which (as a consumer) is what I currently care most about.
The problem with "pro-consumer" regulation is that it's often short-sighted. Throughout the U.S. in the 1970's and 1980's and 1990's, and in Europe in the 1980's, 1990's, and 2000's, industries were deregulated, and it was largely a positive thing. The biggest problem with "pro-consumer" regulation in telecom is that it makes investment in regulated telecom unattractive, which causes investment dollars to flow into areas that are more attractive.
When I say "1970's style regulation is discredited" I absolutely mean it. Governments across the political spectrum have backed away from that style of regulation and embraced ones better-rooted in economic reality. But utility and telecom regulation is rooted in that same failed ideology. It's the ideology where regulators think it's a good idea to set prices instead of letting the market do so, or tell companies that they can only achieve a 10% return instead of whatever the market will bear. This style of regulation ignores the basic fact that the economy is inter-connected. If you tell companies in an industry that they can't raise prices, all the capital will flow to an industry where they can.
That's exactly what happened with telecom. Post-1996, the most heavily regulated communications infrastructure was the telephone system. Cable was less regulated, and so was wireless. And what happened? All the capital flowed to upgrading cable and wireless networks, and DSL was essentially killed as a potential competitor because there was not sufficient profit motive in DSL.
Now, I'm not saying network neutrality is 1970's-style regulation, it's not. It's not rate setting, or regulated rates of return, or anything like that. But when people say "the telcos took $200 billion and didn't give us fiber" well that's absolutely a contention that only makes sense if you buy into the 1970's ideology: that the public would've saved $200 billion had the industry continued to be regulated the way it was pre-1996, but that despite these regulations we'd still have the level of infrastructure investment we do today.