Competitive Carriers Association: bringing fiber to rural doesn't bring mobile

Steven Berry, CEO of the Competitive Carriers Association, said smaller carriers are happy, along with everyone else, that billions of dollars of government funding will be poured into closing the digital divide. But he stressed that bringing fiber to rural areas is not the same as bringing mobile. “Fiber to the home is not mobile,” said Berry. “The Biden administration is going to spend $42.5 billion on fiber to the home. Great. But putting fiber to the farmhouse does not give coverage to the back 40 or the feedlot. If you’re running a tractor on the back 40 and want to control it autonomously, you don’t have enough throughput to do that if you’re not on a robust 5G network.” Berry and the CCA are big proponents of taking some of the government funds for broadband and putting them toward 5G. CCA commissioned a study by CostQuest, that was released in December 2021, to determine the initial investment needed to deploy ubiquitous 5G service to structures, roads and land currently unserved nationwide by 5G. CostQuest determine it would cost about $36 billion to do ubiquitous 5G around the US.