The coming surge of broadband spending fueled by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is already creating headaches for the Commerce Department — particularly around the law’s Buy America provisions. The issue put National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson in a tough position at his first oversight hearing. Lawmakers on a House Energy and Commerce subpanel, responding to arguments made by the telecommunications industry, asked Davidson whether the administration will seek to waive the law’s Buy America requirements when it comes to communications equipment, or if it plans to water down a prohibition on purchasing fiber optic cable and optical transmission equipment built in China. “There has to be a high bar, and we have to be very smart and very tailored about any waivers that we give,” Davidson told Congress. That’s not a ‘no’; the administration can grant waivers to the Buy American requirement, albeit through a complex process coordinated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). According to the Congressional Research Service, the infrastructure bill requires that “manufactured goods must contain greater than 55 percent domestic content and be manufactured in the United States” to count as “American” for the purposes of Buy America rules.

I’ve been wondering lately if some of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) reverse auction winners are having second thoughts about accepting the RDOF awards. It’s amazing how much the broadband world has changed since the end of that auction in December 2020. It's gotten more expensive to build fiber projects over the last year. The cost of labor is an even bigger concern. New grants and new requirements, that did not exist at the time of the auction, also complicate the situation. Yet another issue to consider is that RDOF winners might have missed out on the opportunity for matching state grants. While some states might make matching grants to go along with RDOF awards, many will not. That means the RDOF funding is all such winners will see. Ultimately, these issues and many others mean it's not hard to imagine that some RDOF winners are having second thoughts. There are penalties for walking away from RDOF, but those penalties might be a lot smaller than the downside of being forced to build a rural network that will never generate enough revenue to cover the cost of construction. I was mystified by some of the winning RDOF bids in 2020 – and those bids make a lot less sense when viewed from 2022.

[Doug Dawson is President at CCG Consulting.]

INCOMPAS is pressing the Federal Communications Commission to make the smart, transparent and expedient choice to save the Universal Service Fund. By evolving USF to include contributions from broadband internet access service providers, which the FCC could do immediately without an act of Congress, INCOMPAS says low-income families, schools and rural hospitals would all benefit from this renewed commitment to ongoing affordability solutions. INCOMPAS warns that the USF program is spiraling toward disaster, with contribution levels set to rise to nearly 40%. To save USF, INCOMPAS offers detailed suggestions that would promote four key elements: competition, coordination, affordability and transparency. INCOMPAS also lays out steps the FCC should include in its Report to Congress on the Future of USF. INCOMPAS emphasized the need to assess each USF program and to work with states and other agencies on long-term solutions to better track the program and ensure quality service remains available at reasonable and affordable rates. INCOMPAS also blasted attempts by critics of internet and streaming innovators who are seeking to delay and derail USF reform by placing new taxes and fees on competitive alternatives to expensive big cable bundles.

Every American should have access to affordable broadband internet services at home, school, and work. That's the topline recommendation in The Future of Tech: A Blueprint for Action. Americans appreciate the importance of broadband that is reliable, safe, modern, trustworthy, and affordable. A 2021 survey found that 82% of voters agree that "we need universal access to high-speed internet to ensure our kids get the education they need to compete and win in a global economy;" and 73% agree that "access to high-speed internet is as critical to families today as running water and electricity." Now that Congress has allocated the needed funds, the Future of Tech Commission recommends that the Biden Administration should commit to closing the digital divide and making broadband universal within five years through timely, accountable implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at the federal, state, and local levels; accurate, up-to-date mapping; and robust oversight. Through effective policy implementation—ensuring that high-speed internet access is available, affordable, and adopted in every urban, suburban, rural, and remote community, in every home, and in every workplace— technology can be a great equalizer of access, education, and opportunity for all.

Resolution on Ensuring that Federal and State Entities Collaborate, Share Data, and Track Progress on Closing the Digital Divide Utilizing Various Federal Programs including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Resolved that the Board of Directors of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, convened at its 2022 Winter Policy Summit in Washington, DC, urges the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and other federal agencies awarding broadband funding to work with states and community stakeholders to ensure that broadband grant awards are uniform; and be it further Resolved that NARUC urges the FCC, NTIA, other federal agencies and states that are awarding broadband funding to use the FCC’s guidance on broadband mapping and the collection and sharing of program performance data, so that states can consistently determine and design programs to reach remaining unserved and underserved locations based on national guidelines for defining such locations; and be it further Resolved that NARUC urges the FCC, NTIA and other federal agencies awarding broadband funding to adopt US Government Accountability Office’s guidance regarding data collection, tracking expenditures of federal dollars, and monitoring the progress and overall performance of federally-funded broadband projects

With a 4-0 vote, the Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules banning revenue-sharing agreements for internet service providers (ISPs) and multi-tenant environments (MTEs), requiring disclosure of exclusive marketing arrangements and closing loopholes around indoor cable wiring regulations. The FCC has banned revenue-sharing agreements that it says inhibit competition. Those include exclusive agreements, whereby one provider has a revenue-sharing deal with the building, and incremental revenue-sharing agreements, which is when an ISP increases rev-share with a landlord as more tenants sign up. The new rules also require broadband providers to disclose to tenants "in plain language" if they have an exclusive marketing agreement with the landlord, in order to make tenants aware of their choices. The other change is a clarification to an existing ruling to prohibit sale-and-leaseback arrangements. This closes a loophole that has allowed some companies to gain exclusive access to building cables.

[Nicole Ferraro is Site Editor at Broadband World News and Senior Editor of global broadband coverage at Light Reading.]

Altice USA laid out a plan to deploy fiber to 6.5 million locations, or two-thirds of its entire footprint, by the end of 2025, planning to focus heavily on areas where it competes with Verizon’s Fios service and Frontier Communications. In 2022, it is targeting 1.1 million fiber passings in its Optimum footprint and 200,000 passings in its Suddenlink territory, for a total of 1.3 million new locations in 2022. It expects to add another 1 million fiber passings in its Optimum footprint in 2023 and 700,000 in 2024. For Suddenlink it will deploy to 600,000 locations in 2023, 900,000 in 2024 and 800,000 in 2025. Altice expects to spend between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion to fund its build in 2022, up from around $1.2 billion in 2021. The company previously said it planned to add 1 million fiber passings in 2022, primarily in areas where its footprint overlaps with Verizon’s Fios service, and another 1 million to 1.5 million in 2023. It ended 2021 with 1.2 million fiber to the home passings.

Nathan Simington is the newest commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, but just one year into his role, the former National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) official is bringing his all to the table. The Republican commissioner recently spoke about his reaction to the FCC and NTIA's newly announced Spectrum Coordination Initiative, as well as his views on inter-agency collaboration and social media regulation. Simington said the lines that used to divide tech companies, communications companies and commerce entities have become blurred, presenting a regulatory challenge for Congress. A new FCC-NTIA spectrum initiative is "exactly the right thing at the right time," the commissioner also said as the agencies look back on the C-band deployment dispute. Furthermore, the commissioner believes the FCC has the authority to issue regulations relating to Section 230, a prized liability shield for online platforms.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, in consultation with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, has appointed Working Group members to serve on the Task Force for Reviewing the Connectivity and Technology Needs of Precision Agriculture in the United States. The following working groups will assist the Task Force in carrying out its work: (1) Mapping and Analyzing Connectivity on Agricultural Lands; (2) Examining Current and Future Connectivity Demand for Precision Agriculture; (3) Encouraging Adoption of Precision Agriculture and Availability of High-Quality Jobs on Connected Farms; and (4) Accelerating Broadband Deployment on Unserved Agricultural Lands. [See a full list of working group members]