Friday, October 29, 2021
Headlines Daily Digest
FCC Announces November Open Meeting Agenda
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Emergency Connectivity Fund: The Case for Flexibility and More Money
Phoenix Center Report Assesses FCC Form 477 Broadband Availability Data
Broadband Infrastructure
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Broadband Infrastructure
Last week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that on November 24, USDA will begin accepting applications for up to $1.15 billion in loans and grants to expand the availability of broadband in rural areas. USDA's Rural Utilities Service is making the funding available through the ReConnect Program and plans to make available up to $200 million in ReConnect Program loans, up to $250 million in loan/grant combinations, up to $350 million in grants with a 25 percent matching requirement, and up to $350 million in grants with no matching requirement for projects in tribal and socially vulnerable communities. RUS encourages applicants to consider projects that will advance the following key priorities:
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Assisting rural communities recovering economically from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly disadvantaged communities,
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Ensuring all rural residents have equitable access to Rural Development programs and benefits from Rural Development funded projects, and
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Reducing climate pollution and increasing resilience to the impacts of climate change through economic support to rural communities.
USDA’s new ReConnect broadband grant rules dramatically expand eligible areas and effectively redefine broadband
With the release of a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) has made important changes for Round 3 of its ReConnect Program. RUS has included a preference for local governments, non-profits, and cooperatives as applicants and added additional points to those applications. Further, RUS is expanding eligible areas beyond the FCC’s 25/3 definition of broadband. The RUS’ definition of an eligible Proposed Funded Service Area (PFSA) is now one that is not currently receiving speeds of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload, a considerable and welcome change from its previous definition of 10/1. And after being shut out of Round 2 due to the need to coordinate with the FCC’s auction, RDOF areas will be included in PFSAs for Round 3. The NOFA explains that this is because “RDOF funds both operational expenses and capital expenses, while ReConnect funds only capital expenses.” Another rationale given is that the six-year timeline for RDOF funds is not sufficiently fast enough to respond to the needs created by the pandemic. New to the program is a separate funding option in which applicants can seek up to $35 million for Tribal and socially vulnerable areas. Ultimately, communities seeking funding need to know that they’re not excluded from consideration just because FCC Form 477 data indicates connectivity. But they still need to show that they are under the 100/20 threshold. Applicants should focus their narratives on not only the need for broadband, but the need for broadband in light of lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic. Be sure to include discussion and reference to the need to “build back better.”
[Heather Mills is Vice President for Grant and Funding Strategies at CTC Technology & Energy.]
When Hurricane Ida made landfall this summer, mobile and internet networks were among the first pieces of infrastructure to fail. More than 1,400 cell sites, representing more than half of all sites in the state, went down after Ida made landfall in Louisiana. While experts say that bolstering network resiliency is critical as natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires intensify due to climate change, putting increasing strain on telecommunications networks, the issue is rarely a high priority for service providers and governments. However, it appears the outages from Hurricane Ida have raised the level of urgency, given the Federal Communications Commission’s recent decision to revisit its rules on how companies are required to deal with disruptions to communications. Having backup power sources, especially on-site generators, would be crucial to helping networks stay up, but there is also a desire for better coordination between power utility companies and telecommunications operators to prevent outages. As pressure mounts on telecommunications companies to improve resiliency, Morning Consult data shows that about a third of the public thinks service providers and government entities can do more to ensure uninterrupted service during natural disasters.
Congress took a significant step toward solving the digital divide when it created the Emergency Connectivity Fund in the spring of 2021, appropriating over $7 billion for schools and libraries to connect learners to broadband off campus. Interviews with nearly a dozen Emergency Connectivity Fund applicants reveal that, while there is room for improvement, the program as a whole seems to be working. The FCC has approved applications both large and small in almost every state in the country. Yet despite the Emergency Connectivity Fund’s apparent success, the FCC still needs to iron out some wrinkles. Only about a quarter of current E-rate participants applied for this funding, even though the program is open to most E-rate recipients. Unfortunately, many libraries and some schools were also discouraged from applying because of the FCC’s onerous record retention requirements. The fear of future audits chilled enthusiasm as well. Curiously, some of the most innovative Emergency Connectivity Fund applications have not yet been funded, or have been denied. Congress and the FCC have the potential to multiply the impact of the Emergency Connectivity Fund in the upcoming Build Back Better legislation. First and foremost, Congress should provide additional funding to sustain the program beyond the current school year, because remote learning won’t leave us any time soon. And just as importantly, the FCC should eliminate barriers to Emergency Connectivity Fund participation, as these challenges have prevented participation from the schools and libraries whose communities would benefit the most from support. Finally, we urge Congress and the FCC to allow schools and libraries to execute innovative connectivity solutions to connect the maximum number of school children and library patrons at the lowest possible cost.
[John Windhausen Jr. is the executive director of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition. Alicja Johnson is the communications manager for the SHLB Coalition.]
Broadband Data
Phoenix Center Releases Study Assessing the Accuracy of FCC Form 477 Broadband Availability Data
In a new analysis entitled A Quality Check on Form 477 Data: Errors, Subsidies, and Econometrics, Phoenix Center Chief Economist Dr. George Ford compares Federal Communications Commission Form 477 data to the State of Georgia's broadband availability survey data to make several interesting findings:
- Dr. Ford finds that the availability rate from Form 477 is highly correlated with actual availability, yet at the Census Block level the Form 477 Data can mislead policymakers about availability.
- The errors in the Form 477 Data might be expected to be related to the size of the Census Block. In small urban blocks, the one-served-all-served nature of the Form 477 data presumably leads to small errors, while in larger rural blocks the errors may be large.
- About 9.1 million locations are without broadband at the 25 Mbps up/3 Mbps down level, once accounting for the roughly 5 million locations addressed by the recent Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction.
- According to Dr. Ford’s calculations, if the average subsidy is $2,000 (the average of the RDOF auction), then the additional subsidy required to reach unserved households is $18.2 billion. If the average subsidy level is $3,000, then $22.8 billion is needed. And at a very high average subsidy of $5,000, getting broadband to every location requires approximately $45.5 billion.
Spectrum/Wireless
Industry Group Looks to Prompt More Midband Spectrum Sharing from Department of Defense
The National Spectrum Consortium, made up of hundreds of companies with a vested interest in freeing up more wireless spectrum, has launched an effort to work with the government to do just that. The consortium has launched the “Partnering to Advance Trusted and Holistic Spectrum Solutions (PATHSS) Task Group,” whose goal is to collaborate with the Department of Defense to find more midband to share. The Federal Communications Commission is currently auctioning 100 MHz of midband spectrum the Defense Department (DOD) identified in the 3.45 GHz band as bandwidth it could free up or share, provided there were sufficient interference protections. The new task force is looking for similar help in the 3.1-3.45 GHz band in particular. The task force is open to any consortium member, a laundry list that includes universities, tech companies, consultants and many more — as well as any government officials. A subset of the group to be established will have access to classified information so they can get a sense of the DOD's needs. NSC task forces generally come up with recommended practices, studies and reports and other input for standards bodies or regulators.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would change its name to Meta to reflect growth opportunities beyond its namesake social-media platform in online digital realms known as the metaverse. “Over time I hope our company will be seen as a metaverse company,” Zuckerberg said. “We’ve gone from desktop to web to phones, from text to photos to video, but this isn’t the end of the line. The next platform and medium will be even more immersive—an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it, and we call this the metaverse.” Facebook is already investing heavily in creating that new reality of shared online spaces inhabited by digital avatars, with projects ranging from virtual-reality glasses to an e-commerce platform. The company is adapting its structure as well; Facebook Reality Labs, which encompasses augmented-reality and virtual-reality products and services, is becoming a separate reporting unit and spending for it would reduce 2021’s total operating profit by $10 billion. “We expect to spend many billions of dollars for years to come,” said the CEO. Zuckerberg has said it would take time before the metaverse becomes lucrative for his company, saying, “Building the foundational platforms for the metaverse will be a long road. Later in this decade is when we would sort of expect this to be more of a real business story.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the November 2021 Open Commission Meeting:
- Enabling Text-to-988 – The FCC will consider a Second Report and Order that would require covered text providers to support text messaging to 988 by routing certain text messages sent to 988 to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by July 16, 2022.
- Enhanced Competition Incentive Program for Wireless Radio Services – The FCC will consider a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing an Enhanced Competition Incentive Program and other rule changes intended to promote competition, access to spectrum by small carriers and Tribal Nations, and expanded rural wireless coverage.
- Updating FM Radio Directional Antenna Verification – The FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to allow applicants proposing directional FM antennas the option of verifying the directional antenna pattern through computer modeling.
- Kinéis Low-Earth Orbit Satellites Market Access – The FCC will consider an Order and Declaratory Ruling on Kinéis’ petition to access the US market using a low-earth orbit satellite system to provide connectivity for Internet of Things devices, as well as enhancements to maritime domain awareness through monitoring of maritime communications.
President Joe Biden is ready to fill some key vacancies at the Federal Communications Commission. The White House has nominated current Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel for permanent chair of the agency and Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to sit as the third Democratic commissioner on the FCC. The nominations are not a surprise in the telecom world according to Blair Levin of New Street Research. Senate confirmations for the picks are still needed. Vice President of Policy and General Counsel at Free Press, Matt Wood, said he would not be surprised if Rosenworcel had a solo, fast-tracked hearing, given that her current term expired June 30, 2020. Levin said the confirmation process for the FCC picks is likely to be "untidy," but ultimately he expects both to get through. Biden has encouraged the FCC to reinstate net neutrality protections that prohibit broadband service providers from blocking or throttling legal internet traffic or prioritizing certain traffic for payment. To reinstate those protections, the FCC may seek to once again reclassify broadband as a Title II telecommunications service, giving the agency more regulatory authority over broadband service providers. The Title II classification is controversial and unpopular among many in the broadband industry because it not only gives the FCC the regulatory authority to impose net neutrality rules, but it also technically enables the agency to regulate broadband rates. "We expect the issue to be brought up during the confirmation hearings and believe ... that either nominee saying that they think price regulation should be on the table could lead to significant problems in obtaining confirmation," Levin said.
Comcast raked in 300,000 broadband net additions in Q3 2021, a figure that was less than half the number it added in 2020 and lower than the pre-pandemic gain it posted in the comparable period of 2019. The operator added 633,000 subscribers during the pandemic in Q3 2020 and 379,000 broadband customers in Q3 2019. Comcast CFO Michael Cavanagh previously warned that the operator expected net additions to slow in Q3. Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson pointed to a reduction in growth from the lower-income segment, noting traditional wireless carriers have been “very active” in the Federal Communications Commission’s Emergency Broadband Benefit subsidy program recently. However, Watson insisted “our broadband net adds are still very healthy and our churn remains at record lows, certainly for Q3,” though did not provide a figure for the latter metric. He added full year 2021 net additions are expected to come in around 2019 levels. Comcast reeled in 1.4 million broadband net additions in 2019 and thus far in 2021 has added 1.115 million, meaning it would need to add 285,000 broadband subscribers in Q4 to hit its target. The operator’s Q3 broadband net additions included 281,000 residential customers and 19,000 business customers. It lost 408,000 video customers and 158,000 voice customers but added a record 285,000 wireless lines.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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