Friday, May 28, 2021
Headlines Daily Digest
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Broadband Infrastructure
Republican Senators Release $928 Billion Infrastructure Counteroffer, Including $65 Billion for Broadband
A group of Republican Senators has unveiled a $928 billion infrastructure proposal to counter President Joe Biden's plan for a nearly $2 trillion bill. The proposal outlines a significant increase from the most recent GOP plan to spend $568 billion. The new version includes additional money for roads, bridges, water, rail and airports, but the majority of the proposed spending is part of an existing baseline plan for investments. The total new money is just $257 billion. The single-largest spending item is $506 billion for roads, bridges and major projects — a $91 billion increase. The proposal includes $65 billion for broadband. The White House called the Republican counteroffer "encouraging," but said they were concerned about the proposal to use COVID relief funding to pay for the plan. President Biden said he plans to meet with Republican senators on infrastructure talks the week of May 31.
The Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development (RD) is seeking applications for the Rural Placemaking Innovation Challenge (RPIC) from eligible entities to provide technical assistance and training to rural communities for placemaking planning and implementation. This funding opportunity will be administered by the USDA Rural Development Innovation Center and is authorized by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2021, to provide up to $3 million in competitive cooperative agreement funds. This announcement lists the information needed to submit an application. RPIC operates under a number of concepts including "Broadband is an essential component to supporting placemaking initiatives."
Using Federal Communications Commission and other public data sources to assess recent trends in residential fixed broadband pricing in the United States. The analysis reveals continued substantial price reductions for both the most popular and highest-speed broadband internet services. The data show consumers are also benefiting from marked increases in the speeds they receive for their broadband dollar. US broadband prices continue to decline in the face of unprecedented increased broadband demand due to the pandemic, and as the overall cost of consumer goods and services continue to rise. These facts are likely drivers of recent findings that the US is well ahead of the European Union when it comes to broadband deployment and adoption
Today’s USTelecom update is just more of the same grossly misleading and inaccurate analysis of broadband prices first seen in a prior report released last year. This new report, like the earlier versions, falsely asserts that the broadband prices internet users pay are declining. They are not, as can be seen from broadband providers’ statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other survey data. USTelecom describes its misleading index as an actual price with a dollar figure, even though its methodology produces a result that is completely divorced from the actual prices people pay. USTelecom’s methodology is unnecessarily complex, and hides the reality anyone can learn from looking at ISPs’ annual reports. Those reports show companies’ average residential revenues per broadband customer — the average, actual price customers are charged — rising at more than twice the rate of inflation, with a sharp increase during the first quarter of 2021. For example, Comcast’s residential-broadband customers paid $53.71 per month on average in 2016 and $65.90 as of the first quarter of 2021. Charter’s residential-broadband customers paid $50.64 per month on average in 2016 and $61.97 per month as of the first quarter of 2021. Ignoring this reality, USTelecom’s analysis grossly manipulates FCC data on standalone non-promotional advertised rates, which are not the same as the price customers are actually charged. USTelecom further manipulates the FCC data it uses to construct this phony price index.
Today’s USTelecom report is the latest in a spate of flawed and deeply conflicted research from internet service providers on the price of their own service. It is curious that USTelecom would rely on third-party surveys rather than get the pricing data directly from its ISP members. If internet service is as affordable as USTelecom claims, ISPs could prove it by disclosing their pricing data to the Federal Communications Commission. Open Technology Institute’s research makes clear that the cost of broadband in the United States is too often opaque, misleading, and unaffordable. We identified prices the same way consumers do—by going directly to the ISPs and seeing what they advertise at a given address. If ISP advertising is inaccurate or hides the true price, then that is a flaw in their transparency with consumers, not the data. Our study’s methodology is fully transparent. The entire dataset is published online so anyone can review it and crunch their own numbers. We understand these are inconvenient truths for some in the broadband industry, but the data speaks for itself. It is disappointing that industry lobbyists have invested so much time misrepresenting our study with specious analyses. We must have struck a nerve.
Competition is a wonderful thing. A case in point is the enormous difference Charter Spectrum charges new customers in areas where competition exists, and where it does not. Stop the Cap! compared promotional new customer offers in the metro Rochester (NY) market where Spectrum faces token competition from Frontier’s slow speed DSL service. Then we checked pricing in neighborhoods where a fiber to the home overbuilder called Greenlight also offers service. Spectrum does not even bother offering new customers its entry-level 200 Mbps plan in areas where it has significant fiber competition. For $20 less per month, you get double that speed. Gigabit service is $20 less in competitive areas, too. Spectrum charges a hefty $199.99 compulsory installation fee for gigabit service in non-competitive neighborhoods. Where fiber competition exists, sometimes just a street away, that installation fee plummets to just $49.99.
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.
© Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 2021. Redistribution of this email publication — both internally and externally — is encouraged if it includes this message. For subscribe/unsubscribe info email: headlines AT benton DOT org
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