Pickering Says Online Shopping Fueled by FCC-Backed Broadband Competition

Broadband competition pushed by the FCC is spurring consumer online shopping, including over Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, said Incompas President Chip Pickering in a Medium post. More than 300 businesses have written the FCC “calling for more choice in broadband service by preserving and protecting common sense competition policy  -- both in the tech transitions and the special access proceeding,” he said. “Industry associations representing 150,000 gas stations and convenience stores and 70% of all the electricity providers powering homes and businesses also wrote to the FCC to ask that competition be enshrined for future networks.” Pickering said the FCC tech transitions order would “unleash investment and new ideas” from nonincumbent providers, "but challenges remain as lobbyists and lawyers from the largest incumbent providers threaten to pick that deal apart.” He also credited the FCC for moving ahead with the special-access rulemaking and an investigation “into egregious terms and conditions that lock up customers and lock out competition.”