An early copy of Hillary Clinton's technology policy promises leaked to Politico states the candidate will be making a number of broadband-related promises -- including the delivery of broadband to all Americans by 2020. The 14-page draft of Clinton’s technology platform suggests the candidate will strongly support the FCC's current net neutrality rules, and she pledges to "defend these rules in court and continue to enforce them” if elected president. That's notable given AT&T's top lobbyist's support of Clinton's campaign.
While the broadband industry has
threatened to appeal their
recent court loss, most legal experts doubt they'll see much legal traction given the scale of the FCC's victory. Their best bet remains a President who'll stock the FCC with revolving-door regulators who'll fail to enforce the rules.
But Politico also points out how Clinton intends to promise broadband to all Americans by 2020:
quote:
The Democratic candidate also sets an ambitious goal to bring affordable, high-speed internet service to all U.S. households by the end of her first term, citing the success of the White House’s efforts on this front over the past seven years, and pledges to back internet freedom efforts worldwide.
Note however these kind of promises historically aren't "ambitious," and don't mean much. While Republicans seem to favor pretending the uncompetitive broadband industry is perfectly healthy, Democrats often like to make promises they know can be accomplished without them lifting a finger, providing them with easy political brownie points for doing little to nothing -- without upsetting deep-pocketed campaign contributors. Two different strategies with the same end result: some of the most expensive, least competitive broadband in the developed world.
Obama for example made a promise to obtain 98% wireless coverage, ignoring the fact that carriers claimed we'd already met that goal (with 2G and 3G) at the time the promise was made. A few years later former FCC boss Julius Genachowski issued a gigabit city challenge, with the goal of bringing at least one gigabit network to every state by 2015. Again, this was a goal that was happening whether government lifted a finger or not, predominately thanks to communities forced into building their own broadband networks because existing service was so abysmal. Obama's school broadband goals have been similarly hollow.
Clinton's camp likely thinks the advent of 5G will nudge us close enough to 100%, again without her camp really having to do much of anything (outside of the FCC continuing to make spectrum available). Granted "100% broadband coverage" doesn't mean the broadband you'll be getting is good or cheap. That would require the kind of pro-competition policies that Clinton's new ally Jim Cicconi wouldn't approve of, and if we've learned anything in fifteen years, it's that neither party really wants to anger the holy campaign contribution trinity that is AT&T, Comcast and Verizon (Tom Wheeler has been a surprise exception, not the rule).
Clinton's tech policy plan also makes it clear that she plans to continue one of her least popular tech policies among techies, her continued war on encryption:
quote:
And her platform supports the creation of a special commission to study whether law enforcement should have greater access to encrypted devices and communications — a frequent tension point between the FBI and tech giants like Apple. Previously, Clinton has called for a “Manhattan-like Project” to review the issue.
As we've long noted, encryption isn't the enemy -- it's a tool. Like all tools it can be abused, but Clinton's plan to effectively put special backdoors in consumer hardware and communications gear actually makes all of us less secure, something the anti-encryption crowd doesn't appear willing to understand.
One question that hasn't been answered is whether current FCC boss Tom Wheeler would remain on board throughout a Clinton term. Historically the current FCC boss steps down when a new administration emerges, but Wheeler has offered some cryptic hints that may not be the case this time. It seems likely that Clinton would -- at least initially -- continue the FCC's sudden and uncharacteristically pro-consumer policies of the last few years, but you'd find few willing to bet on such an outcome.
Update: The Clinton campaign issued her full
technology policy agenda shortly after Politico's story was posted.