Wednesday, April 28, 2021
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Public Support for Municipal Broadband Networks
Can local governments compete with Comcast and Verizon?
Land O’Lakes is rallying young people to return to their hometowns to build better broadband
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About Half the Public Thinks Local Governments Should Be Able to Pursue Their Own Broadband Network Build-Outs
As the pandemic continues to underscore the importance of reliable, at-home internet service, debate rages over whether local governments should be permitted to build out and run their own broadband networks, either on their own or with the help of a private partner. The White House, in its infrastructure proposal released earlier this month, has thrown its support behind allowing municipalities to explore such options. And a new Morning Consult poll suggests many adults agree with that stance: 53 percent of US adults said local governments should be able to explore having their own internet services — but they tend to trust local governments less than private internet companies to carry out the job on their own.
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54% said they had either “a lot” or “some” trust in local governments to give them the best at-home internet service, compared to 75% who said the same about private internet providers.
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Eighteen states currently make it prohibitively difficult for towns to consider local internet service options.
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Just 14% of adults said local governments should not be allowed to consider municipal broadband options.
President Biden wants local governments to provide broadband internet. Could they compete with Comcast and Verizon?
President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan has renewed debate over whether municipal broadband makes the internet more affordable and accessible. Advocates, including Democrats in Washington, argue that public networks give internet titans like Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. much needed competition. That would drive down prices and create more options. But critics, including Republican lawmakers and the cable industry, say the taxpayer-funded networks are unfair competition, discourage private investment, and are ill-equipped to keep pace with technology. A University of Pennsylvania study found the public projects can be money-losing operations. And Philadelphia offers a cautionary tale about how municipal internet projects can fail.
Residents in Michigan's rural areas face challenges with remote learning and work due to poor broadband access
Thousands of rural Michigan residents don't have access to high-speed internet which has been a challenge as they try to work and continue their education remotely during the pandemic. House Bill 4210 would have expanded broadband access in rural areas and made the equipment used for this service tax exempt. Gov Gretchen Whitmer (D) rejected the bill partially because the broadband speeds it called for aren’t high enough. The bill sets the connection speed at 25 megabits per second, but Gov Whitmer said in a letter to the State House explains that speed just doesn’t fit the needs of modern living.
In a filing at the Federal Communications Commission, Charter defended itself against a group of bidders in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction that have questioned Charter’s winning bid in the auction. Charter had the top bid in the auction and is poised to gain $1.22 billion to cover some of the costs of deploying broadband to unserved rural areas. Charter made its filing in reply comments in connection with the company’s request to obtain eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) status for Alabama, New Hampshire, and Tennessee. Winning bidders in the RDOF auction are required to obtain ETC status before undertaking their deployments. Status is awarded on a state-by-state basis, and while some states take responsibility for ETC approvals, others – including those three states — give that authority to the FCC. The group that questioned Charter’s ETC petition is the Ensuring RDOF Integrity Coalition (ERIC). ERIC’s petition against Charter “prognosticates without any evidence about Charter’s intentions” and “should be dismissed as irrelevant, speculative and, with respect to some issues, untimely,” Charter said in its filing. Charter argues that it is well qualified to undertake its RDOF buildout, noting that the company is the second largest broadband connectivity company in the country with over 31 million customers and with 99.9% network reliability. Charter also cited the FCC’s most recent Measuring Broadband Report, which noted that the company exceeds 100% of its advertised speeds during peak times.
Land O'Lakes started taking on the challenge of the rural digital divide over the last year with its American Connection Project, through which it’s increased access to free wifi by working with partners to make 3,000 local network spots public in 49 states. But, the co-op is now taking further action to build digital infrastructure in rural corners around the country—by recruiting college graduates, in a national service-style program, to go back to their hometowns and work with local institutions to roll out broadband, and familiarize local residents with the tech. Because broadband is a “major stabilizer,” CEO Beth Ford says the initiative also has the ability to “lead to a more vibrant and robust, rural economy.” To do that, Land O’Lakes, with 19 other partners, is launching the American Connection Corps, which’ll comprise an initial class of 50 recruits aged 21 to 30. The program is starting in 12 largely rural states around the country, including MN, KS, OH, KY, AL, and OR, chosen for their rurality and underserved populations. In joining the service, fellows will commit to two years, plus another two staying on in that community after completion, to help see out the projects.
AT&T Fiber is giving its customers a free bump in speeds, boosting its 100 Mbps customers to 300 Mbps, and its 300 Mbps customers to 500 Mbps. AT&T will still offer its 1 gig plan as well, and these customers get HBO Max included. For a number of years fiber has been regarded as too expensive to deploy in most places. But the Covid-19 pandemic is causing a renewed interest. With so many people working and learning from home, they’re clamoring for faster broadband. And they’d like it to provide symmetrical downstream and upstream speeds. The broadband industry, as well as the US government, have heard the cries, and they’re responding. In AT&T’s case, its top executives touted their fiber plans in the company’s first-quarter 2021 earnings call. AT&T CEO John Stankey said the company was on track to build out fiber to 3 million more consumer and business locations in 2021.
Cox has agreed to purchase the commercial enterprise and carrier business of fiber company Segra from private equity company EQT Infrastructure. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although some published reports put the value of the deal at around $3 billion. Segra, based in Charlotte (NC), is one of the largest privately-held infrastructure providers in the country. As part of the deal, EQT will retain Segra’s residential and small-to-medium sized business segment in Virginia and North Carolina. Cox will acquire Segra’s commercial services segment, which serves commercial enterprise and carrier customers in nine states in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. Once the deal is closed, the enterprise and carrier unit will retain the Segra name and its existing management team, operating as a standalone business within the Cox family of companies.
SpaceX was granted permission to use a lower orbit for Starlink satellites, as regulators agreed with SpaceX that the change will improve broadband speed and latency while making it easier to minimize orbital debris. In granting SpaceX's request, the Federal Communications Commission dismissed opposition from Viasat, Hughes, Dish Network, OneWeb, the Amazon subsidiary known as Kuiper, and other satellite companies that claimed the change would cause too much interference with other systems. The FCC order said that SpaceX's license change "does not create significant interference problems," rejecting allegations made by Dish Network and other companies.
Even though AT&T reported a strong first quarter for wireless subscribers, some analysts think the operator may be stepping off the 5G playing field as it focuses on other parts of its business. “It appears that management has chosen to focus its limited resources on HBO Max and on fiber deployments rather than try to keep pace with the network investments Verizon and T-Mobile are making in wireless,” wrote New Street Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin. New Street has pointed out before that AT&T’s plan for mid-band 5G, including C-band deployment timelines and capital spending, trails behind that of T-Mobile and Verizon. AT&T continues to flex subscriber results from its customer retention and promotional strategy, with 595,000 net wireless phone additions in Q1. Still, the amount of money it’s pulling in per user (average revenue per user or ARPU) declined almost 3%. And Wells Fargo analysts question how long it can last.
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union took note of AT&T’s report that showed “robust first quarter earnings,” with net profit up 60% year over year. But the company continues to cut jobs and reduce retail operations, which does not sit well with the union. AT&T has closed 549 corporate retail stores over the past year, and even though it has converted many stores into dealer stores, that shrinking corporate retail footprint results in lower wages for wireless retail workers, according to CWA. The union acknowledged that many retail workers represented by CWA were able to transfer into a virtual sales job because of a negotiated job guarantee under their union contract. However, it remains concerned about what the changes are doing to decent-paying jobs.
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 Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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