A key provision in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs ACT (IIJA) calls for funding for broadband and other projects to go toward those which use products and materials containing primarily domestic-made components. But a growing number of broadband groups and vendors have told the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that’s just not realistic. Back in January 2022, the NTIA put out a call for comment on how it should implement the broadband grant programs through which more than $48 billion in federal funding will flow. Several prominent broadband groups, including USTelecom, NCTA – The Internet and Television Association, NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association, quickly chimed in and flagged the so called “Buy American” clause as a problem. They pressed the NTIA to waive the requirement. That request has since been seconded by an array of additional parties, including the likes of Cisco, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Samsung, WISPA, the US Chamber of Commerce, INCOMPAS, the Telecommunications Law Professionals and the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition. The IIJA requires products used for broadband deployments to contain at least 55 percent domestic content. But as Cisco noted, though broadband equipment including switching, routing, transport and access gear is “largely developed and designed in the US, it is not manufactured in America by and large.” That means “it will not be possible for NTIA, eligible entities and subgrantees to procure the broadband equipment they need to build the networks envisioned in the IIJA on the timelines that the law requires while meeting the 55 percent domestic content threshold,” Cisco wrote.

Sean McDevitt, a partner at Arthur D. Little, a consulting firm that largely works for the giant ISPs, says cable companies are not likely to universally upgrade broadband networks in the future. In the past, when a cable company migrated from DOCSIS 1.0, to 2.0, and to 3.0 everybody in a community was upgraded to the latest technology. He says going forward that it’s almost certain that there will not be across-the-board upgrades. He says there will be neighborhoods upgraded to fiber, neighborhoods migrated to the next-generation DOCSIS 4.0, and neighborhoods that will see no upgrades at all. I label this as disturbing because it raises the possibility of digital redlining in communities if cable companies start upgrading selectively. The upgrades to fiber or DOCSIS 4.0 will bring faster upload speeds to match fast download speeds. Any neighborhood left on the current DOCSIS 3.1 platform will be stuck with inadequate upload speeds, which was the predominant problem with cable broadband during the pandemic and continues to be a problem for the millions who want to work from home. It will be ironic if a decade from now, we’ll be talking about digital redlining from the cable companies while the telcos will have upgraded to symmetrical fiber. That would be a complete reversal of past history.

Benton applauds Chairwoman Rosenworcel and this critical effort to support a continuum of connectivity for America's schoolchildren. As far back as 2016, approximately 3 percent of the schools had begun to offer Wi-Fi on school buses, and nearly 4 percent were planning to do so in the near future. The reasoning is clear: school buses can be an extension of the school and facilitate online study. The FCC should seize this opportunity to turn school buses into rolling study halls.

One could be forgiven for assuming that California, a state famous for technology, would have better connectivity for even its rural residents. But many of the state's counties have profound broadband challenges, including the classic example of big telecommunications companies not investing in infrastructure in more remote areas due to a lack of a compelling business case. This is part of the reason why the Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC), an organization that represents 38 of the state's 58 counties, has chosen the open access municipal broadband model as the most viable solution to the high-speed Internet problems faced by its member counties. And the rural counties won't have to implement the open access network idea by themselves, thanks to a new partnership between RCRC affiliate Golden State Connect Authority and Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) Fiber. To date, UTOPIA has done about $450 million worth of fiber projects. All together, UTOPIA's networks are approaching 50,000 subscribers. One of the most notable things about UTOPIA's success is its lack of traditional broadband funding — notwithstanding that the organization isn't opposed to California tapping into such funds where appropriate.

The Biden administration rolled out the Affordable Connectivity Program to help low-income people pay for service. The federal government should not stop with this subsidy program when it addresses the affordability component of the digital divide. Internet service providers (ISPs) will get a lot of new customers as the government pays to extend service to areas that have not been worth serving when the companies were stringing the wires, and it would be a shame if the businesses were allowed to use their near-monopolies to drive up prices for everyone else. Cable TV companies are famous for using predatory pricing tactics to drive out competitors, even when the competition comes from municipal broadband agencies. The cable companies famously offer low introductory offers that shoot up after a few months, and the real cost of service is obscured by hidden fees that aren’t disclosed until after the service is hooked up. These practices are barely tolerable for an entertainment product like cable TV, but they cannot be accepted for a necessary service, especially since the infrastructure is so heavily subsidized by the public. Competition between ISPs would be one way to control costs, but it is not always possible to create competitive markets in remote areas. Public and municipal systems will be needed to keep the commercial providers honest.

Loup Power District is developing a funding resolution that can lead to the construction of a 300-mile backbone network to help area farmers receive high-speed broadband. The effort will affect residents in four rural counties: Boone, Colfax, Nance and Platte (NE). The power company is developing a funding resolution that would be executed by each public entity involved in a potential backbone network in the four-county area. A separate funding resolution would be executed by each county, Loup and any other public entity that could be interested in partnering for the backbone broadband network. Loup Power District — along with Nebraska Public Power District and Boone, Colfax, Nance and Platte counties — had previously entered a memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding rural broadband issues in the area. Meanwhile, the MOU is how the permit public entities can work together to pursue funding opportunities to bring high-speed broadband service to rural locations of the Loup's service area. The MOU also allows discussions with private entities that could be willing to become providers of broadband services in Loup's service area rural sections.

The city of El Paso (TX) is shifting its focus from providing COVID-19 relief to recovery as the county experiences low weekly coronavirus cases. More than $154 million were allocated from the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds in accordance with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) requirements to various departments and programs across the city. Of this funding, El Paso is devoting $10 million to last-mile broadband infrastructure to expand the city's backbone to areas 54 percent below the poverty line. “The allocation of the ARPA funding will allow our community to continue fighting the pandemic, while also providing key resources to support our families; maintaining vital public services such as the crisis intervention support and broadband expansion; and investing in the City’s economic growth through small and local businesses,” El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez said. Since April 2020, the city has received almost $400 million in federal funds, from 11 different agencies.

For nearly a decade, veteran technologist Steve Perlman has been trying to sell the world on pCell, a complicated but potentially far speedier way to make use of crowded wireless airwaves. Now, for the first time, Perlman's Artemis has a commercial customer for the technology, with San Jose (CA)'s SAP Center, home to the San Jose Sharks arena, installing a private pCell network. Artemis says its networks can deliver 10 times as much data compared to traditional cellular networks. Perlman — a co-founder of WebTV who also did stints at Apple and Microsoft — has won praise for the novel approach, but has struggled to make inroads into the cellular industry. In 2015, Nokia agreed to test the technology but never made it commercially available. With a new wave of technology around 5G and the prospect of more corporate campuses and venues building private wireless networks, Perlman sees a renewed opportunity for the technology, which he has been self-funding through his Rearden incubator. Essentially, rather than trying to fight wireless interference, pCell actually relies on the competing signals to help deliver packets of information faster and more efficiently. In its latest iteration, Artemis is using an unlicensed band of spectrum, known as CBRS, as home for its wireless networks.

When the late Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow penned his “Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace” in 1996, proclaiming “our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty,” he railed against “the great invertebrate in the White House” and the “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel.” So what would Barlow have thought when, on April 28, 2022, 60 governments, mostly from the industrial world, met (in person or in their virtual selves) at the White House to sign a “ Declaration on the Future of the Internet,” initiated by the United States along with Australia, Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom? Despite the irony, this international declaration articulated an optimistic and participatory vision under the heading “reclaiming the promise of the Internet.” It celebrated the Internet as “a single interconnected communications system for all of humanity” with benefits for innovation and entrepreneurship, for creators, and for every person. It reaffirmed long-standing principles, referring several times to an Internet that is “open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure” and to the importance of multistakeholder governance of the Internet rather than government fiat. Sovereignty may endure, but with a flavor of Barlow. Rather than simply a restatement of these policy principles, though, the Declaration of the Future of the Internet frames a global divide that presents “serious challenges” to this hopeful vision. In particular, it calls out “efforts to splinter the global Internet” and “some authoritarian governments,” as well as use of platforms and technology for repression, surveillance, and disinformation. It also adds to this list concentrations of market power, the “quantity and security of personal data collected,” and the role of platforms in spreading disinformation and other harmful content.

[Cameron Kerry is an Ann and Andrew Tisch Distinguished Visiting Fellow of Governance Studies at the Brookings Center for Technology Innovation.]

The National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), representing more than 700 independent broadband and pay-TV providers serving all 50 states and the US territories, announced the launch of Connectivity Exchange, a new program that allows its member operators to compete for and win bids to provide broadband network services to national brands or large-scale RFPs through a members-only, industry-first, fully automated platform from quote to order with unified billing and support. By joining Connectivity Exchange, NCTC’s member operators can unlock new revenue opportunities by extending broadband network sales efforts to customers and markets they may not have been able to reach previously. NCTC’s members cover many of the areas of the country that are hard to reach today and with the Connectivity Exchange, buyers will more easily be able to access these locations. Connectivity Exchange is being launched through a partnership with Connectbase, formerly known as Connected2Fiber, and Neustar services, providing best-in-class pricing and services to participating member companies. NCTC’s members have already registered over six million locations with Connectbase, creating an aggregate network that is automatically surfaced to prospective wholesale network buyers using the Connectbase platform. Their world class technology platform enables NCTC members to streamline their wholesale buying and purchasing.

Experts from the US Department of Commerce's Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) partnered with the Spectrum Management Authority and other technology agencies within the Government of Jamaica to expand and expedite broadband internet service to underserved communities in the country. During a workshop in Kingston, Jamaica, CLDP brought together representatives of the Jamaican Spectrum Management Authority, the Office of Utilities Regulation, and other governmental agencies to hear from the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Microsoft's Airband Initiative, and the Wireless Internet Service Provider Association. Day one of the conference focused on rural connectivity through private sector solutions while the second day will cover governmental programs such as the FCC's Universal Service Fund. The keystone of the event was the signing of a memorandum of understanding creating a framework for future collaboration between the two governments ad the strong interest to continue working closely together on common information and communications technology objectives.