Tuesday, March 22, 2022
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Broadband Funding
House Democrats Outline Priorities on Implementation of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Broadband Investments
Seventeen Democratic members of the House Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee wrote to Alan Davidson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), outlining their recommendations and priorities as the agency implements the broadband programs in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Congress entrusted NTIA to administer several of the programs funded by the Infrastructure Act’s $65 billion investment in broadband access, affordability, and adoption, which is a historic opportunity to make significant progress to bridge the digital divide. The Members of Congress believe the success of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s broadband programs will require an emphasis on affordability, digital inclusion, high-capacity networks, competition, and community engagement. The representatives noted affordability as a major barrier to broadband access and urged NTIA to provide the most possible help to those struggling to afford broadband service by making low-cost offering requirements as widely available as feasible. They also stressed funding should prioritize projects that implement fiber networks and other technologies that can be scalable to meet the speeds that consumers will demand in the future. Additionally, the representatives wrote that NTIA should ensure engagement with stakeholders at the federal and state level is ongoing as the law is implemented and should reflect the needs of the communities lacking meaningful access and adoption of high-speed broadband service.
Vice President Harris, Commerce Deputy Secretary Graves Travel to Louisiana to Highlight Historic Broadband Investments
Vice President Kamala Harris and Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves traveled to Sunset (LA) to hear directly from Louisianans about the struggles they face due to the stark digital divide and lack of access to fast, affordable, and reliable broadband. In an effort to reach President Biden’s ambitious goal and ensure that all Americans, including those living in Louisiana, have access to broadband, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced in February 2022 that it has awarded $29.9 million to expand broadband in the Acadiana region, including Acadia Parish, Evangeline Parish, and St Landry Parish (LA). The award will be used to fund the Acadiana Regional Public/Private Partnership project, which will fund last-mile broadband deployment to the Acadiana region of Louisiana and serve 22,196 households. Including the grants provided to Louisiana, the Department of Commerce previously awarded a total of 13 grants as part of the Broadband Infrastructure Program. These grants, totaling more than $277 million, will be used to connect more than 133,000 unserved households in Georgia, Guam, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and West Virginia.
It’s taken more than a year for the Federal Communications Commission to authorize all of the nearly $523 million Windstream won in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction, but it hasn’t been resting on its laurels in the interim. During the auction, Windstream won a total of $522.9 million to cover 192,567 locations across 18 states with fiber. Jeff Small, president of Windstream’s Kinetic business, said construction on about 10 percent of its build is already underway. The company said work is spread across 16 of the 18 states where it won support. Small added it’s working through a detailed engineering process for another 20 percent, which includes field surveys of planned routes. Small acknowledged Windstream did default on winning RDOF bids for 29 census blocks across 7 states, but said these contributed to only a “nominal” reduction in its total funding amount and coverage commitment. It expects around 20,000 of the 400,000 locations it plans to cover with fiber in 2022 will come from RDOF, with a similar number of subsidized locations set to be covered in 2023. Small said it is deploying XGS-PON technology for all of its RDOF builds.
AT&T announced that it has plans to cut its copper network footprint in half by 2025. However, Jeff McElfish, the CEO of AST&T’s Communications division, said the company isn’t planning to forcibly move customers off copper as they decommission copper. According to McElfish, customers are naturally migrating off copper. I find that hard to believe. CCG Consulting is still seeing DSL penetration rates in cities between 10 percent and 40 percent. Our surveys indicate that the people who are staying with DSL are doing so because of price – they largely hate DSL performance, but it’s what they can afford. McElfish said AT&T plans to have 75 percent of its footprint covered by fiber or fixed cellular wireless by 2025. With today’s 4G LTE technology that’s been branded as 5G, AT&T is not prepared to deliver fixed cellular broadband to huge numbers of people in cities. Even when AT&T finally implements real 5G (estimated to be 5 – 7 years in the future), the company would have to install a huge number of small cell sites to have enough broadband capacity to migrate DSL customers to fixed cellular broadband. And that means building more fiber deep into neighborhoods to serve the small cell sites. None of that is happening by 2025, so AT&T must be planning on turning down rural copper markets first. AT&T is ultimately going to have to force people off DSL. I don’t see millions of people voluntarily abandoning the product so that AT&T can tear down the copper without a public stir.
[Doug Dawson is President of CCG Consulting.]
There’s no question US consumers are relying more heavily on broadband services in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. But are the costs for those services rising or falling? Well, the answer depends on who you ask and what metric you’re using to measure “cost.” In February 2022, independent research firm BroadbandNow published a report which found broadband prices in the country fell significantly between the first quarter of 2016 and the fourth quarter of 2021. According to the report, the cost of higher-tier services of 500 Mbps or above fell the fastest, dropping 42 percent to an average of $59.22. Meanwhile, the average price for service offering speeds of between 200-499 Mbps decreased 35 percent to $34.39 and the cost of speeds between 100-199 Mbps fell 33 percent to $32.35. Fiber tended to be cheaper than cable offerings across speed tiers. However, a fresh study released by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in March determined fixed broadband prices in both the US and across the world more generally rose in 2021 “after years of steady decline.” It measured cost in terms of the price in US dollars and as a percentage of gross national income (GNI). While the US still met the UN’s GNI target in 2021, the ITU noted “consumers in low-income countries must pay 28 times more, in relative terms, than those in high-income economies” for their fixed broadband service. If prices continue to rise, it warned “the risk is that a significant portion of the world's population will be left behind: those who face a trade-off between purchasing internet access and meeting other basic needs.”
Verizon has entered into agreements with satellite providers for early clearance of additional C-band spectrum the company acquired in 2021, providing an opportunity to deploy America’s most reliable 5G Ultra Wideband service to more customers in more places in 2022. With this early clearance of the second phase of C-band spectrum, originally scheduled to be cleared in December 2023, Verizon expects to deploy 5G Ultra Wideband service on at least 60 MHz of spectrum and up to 100 MHz of spectrum in some areas to at least 30 additional major markets areas including the large population centers Atlanta (GA), Baltimore (MD), Washington (DC), and Denver (CO). In January 2022, Verizon announced it covered 100 million people across 1,700 cities with the nation’s most reliable 5G Ultra Wideband service, more than two months ahead of schedule. Then, in March, Verizon again announced an acceleration of its deployment plans that will see at least 175 million people covered by the end of 2022, a full year ahead of plan.
T-Mobile announced the new Connect by T-Mobile prepaid plans, including a new $10 plan. Connect by T-Mobile provides a low-cost option to help keep millions of families and individuals connected to family, friends, work, school, and information. Connect by T-Mobile is part of the company’s 5G for Good initiative and builds on the T-Mobile Connect plans launched in March 2020 to keep Americans connected during the pandemic. Connect by T-Mobile prepaid plans range from the super affordable $10 plan to a $35 plan for those who want more data. Plans will be available starting March 25, 2022, online, in T-Mobile stores and in multi-carrier retailers across the US.
Meta —the parent company for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — could drag hundreds of competitors into its legal battle, aiming to slow the Federal Trade Commission's prosecution and "bury" its lawyers in paperwork. A federal judge ruled in January 2022 that the FTC could proceed with its revised case accusing Facebook of illegally buying competitors Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Meta's opening salvo in what will be a lengthy discovery process takes aim at the FTC's argument that Snapchat is Facebook's main competitor. Meta told the judge it may subpoena up to 286 firms it has identified as having information relevant to the case — most of which have named Facebook as a competitor in public statements. Meta says the list includes companies that compete with it for user time and attention and advertising dollars, including companies that offer services like messaging, news and other media, streaming video, and gaming. The company has served more than 90 subpoenas so far to third parties. Companies including LinkedIn, Snap and Pinterest are fighting back, accusing Meta in a court filing of "casting an extraordinarily wide net for extremely sensitive materials." Meta previously acknowledged the companies are unlikely to want to hand over details about their businesses, telling the judge the companies "may be resistant" but the information is vital.
In a series of confirmation hearings starting March 21, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will question Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s pick to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court — and while tech policy is not expected to be a major area of focus for either party, two issues in particular could come up. Critics of the tech industry’s treasured liability shield often claim judges have interpreted Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act too broadly. It was a topic of discussion in Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing — which occurred around the same time that Justice Clarence Thomas first urged his colleagues to take up a case that would allow the court to weigh in on Section 230’s reach and scope. Thomas has since pushed twice more for the Supreme Court to probe Section 230. Meanwhile, Democratic senators such as Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who’s pursuing an overhaul of Section 230 via his and Sen Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) EARN IT Act, may also ask Jackson about the limits of Section 230’s liability protections for tech platforms. Barrett was also questioned by lawmakers, including Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), over the reach of the Sherman Act, the bedrock law of American antitrust jurisprudence, as well as her general views on US antitrust law. Klobuchar is working to pass a significant overhaul of antitrust law that would directly affect the tech industry through her American Innovation and Choice Online Act, and may look to see where Jackson stands on the effort.
War & Communications
Elon Musk’s Starlink is keeping Ukrainians online when traditional Internet fails
Internet connectivity became less affordable around the world in 2021, according to the latest statistical analysis by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI). The share of people's incomes spent on fixed broadband and mobile Internet services increased globally in 2021, in parallel with upticks in demand and usage compared to 2020, reveals the ITU-A4AI policy brief The affordability of ICT services 2021. Relative prices of fixed broadband services climbed to 3.5 percent of gross national income (GNI) per capita globally in 2021, up from 2.9 percent in 2020. The relative prices of mobile broadband services around the world also edged up to 2 percent of GNI per capita, from 1.9 percent a year earlier. Yet people have sacrificed other goods and services to maintain reliable Internet access during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those who can have largely stayed connected, even at relatively higher prices.
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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