Doug Dawson

There is a lot of talk about improving the Federal Communications Commission broadband maps. I published a blog a few weeks ago that described a bill passed by the Senate that would require a new review of the FCC broadband maps. The bill is labeled the Modernization, Accountability, and Planning for Broadband Funding Act. I’m all for changes that would create an accurate broadband map.

Since nobody I know will even be using a government spy satellite, you might wonder why I am writing about Starshield, the military-grade network operated by SpaceX. I’ve been wondering lately about Starlink’s claim that it is interested in providing backhaul to cell sites and bigger broadband connections to rural businesses. This has always puzzled me because, at the local network level, a satellite network is no different than any other network.

I can think of only three sources of locations that the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program missed the first time around. One group of locations is those being turned back to State Broadband Offices when BEAD awardees decide not to accept a BEAD grant. The broadband offices have been trying to find other internet service providers to take these locations at the original award price. But I already know of several examples where there are no takers—at least at the dollar level of BEAD that was awarded after the Benefit of the Bargain round.

One of the most common tasks required when building a new fiber network, particularly when burying fiber, is fixing the damage caused during the construction process. In the industry, we refer to this work as remediation, which means, in plain English, putting everything back to the way it was before the start of construction. There is a huge list of things that can go wrong and messes that can be made during the fiber construction process. There can be serious consequences for an internet service provider who bungles remediation.

AT&T and Verizon (and now the newly purchased Frontier) have continued with their big push to shut down copper networks. There are good reasons to finally walk away from this obsolete technology. Copper networks are largely far past the end of economic life and are rotting on the poles. Vandalism is rampant since the price of copper is making it attractive for people to rip down copper for the resale value. A large majority of customers who have a good alternative have fled the copper networks, so there are fewer people each year on the remaining copper networks. 

In its August meeting, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled Maximizing Efficiencies in Universal Service Administration Company that looks at changing the rules governing USAC, the Universal Service Administration. USAC is a non-profit corporation that was formed by the FCC after passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which created the Universal Service Fund.

I recently saw a question on LinkedIn that asked why we don’t use more metal utility poles instead of wooden ones. It’s a good question, and there are a lot of issues to consider when choosing between the two. One issue to consider is useful life. On paper, the useful life of a wooden pole is thirty to forty years. However, there are plenty of poles that have lasted fifty and even sixty years. Another important issue is cost. Wooden poles have gotten a lot more expensive in recent years.

I noticed an article that said that Optimum was in danger of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE automatically issues a warning to any stock when the average share price over thirty days is below $1.00. This warning was given to Optimum on August 13, and the company has until February 13, 2027, to get the 30-day average stock price above $1.00 to remain listed on the exchange. The company’s stock has plummeted over the last year. A year ago, the stock was trading at $2.33 per share. Five years ago, the stock traded at more than $28 per share.

Before the Senate paused for recess, it passed a bill introduced by Senator Deb Fisher of Nebraska that would require the Federal Communications Commission to undertake a major review of its broadband mapping system. The bill is labeled the Modernization, Accountability, and Planning for Broadband Funding Act. It’s not hard to understand why there are folks who lobbied Congress to ask the FCC to pay more attention to the maps.

There has been a lot of talk about how AI is putting stress on broadband networks, and many analysts are claiming that we need faster broadband speeds to accommodate growing AI traffic. I was particularly struck by a comment from NTCA – the Rural Broadband Association in a filing at the Federal Communications Commission in the FCC docket looking at Universal Service Fund reform.