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Rep Clarke Pledges to Continue Fighting for the Affordable Connectivity Program's Future
ISPs seek halt of net neutrality rules before they take effect
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Ten Things About ACP that Ted Cruz Cares About—And Ten Answers that Could Help Reshape How We Think About the Program
On May 2, 2024, New Street Research Policy Advisor and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Blair Levin testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband at a hearing entitled The Future of Broadband Affordability. In addition to his testimony and answers delivered during a Q&A with senators on the panel, Levin recently submitted written responses to a number of questions from the subcommittee. Below and in the forthcoming series of articles, we share both the questions from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Ranking Member of the full Senate Commerce Committee, and Levin's answers. The first question addresses mobile-only households.
The Affordable Connectivity Program provided a way to bridge the digital divide for over 23 million US households, but congressional inaction has led to its unfortunate end. The consequences will be devastating. Soon, many underserved families in rural and urban communities alike will have to make the difficult sacrifice of losing access to telehealth services, online learning, employment opportunities, and so much more. Reliable broadband is essential to our way of life and economy. Without it, millions of families relying on the ACP for internet access will be left out and left behind. This nation was founded on the simple principle that no matter who you are, what zip code you live in, or what political party you choose, every single American deserves an equal and fair opportunity to achieve the American Dream. So, I am determined to fight to keep that dream alive and will continue to fight for our most vulnerable communities, older Americans, seniors, veterans, and students. Our fight for the ACP will continue.
Residential fixed broadband internet access in the United States (US) has long been distributed inequitably, drawing significant attention from researchers and policymakers. This paper evaluates the efficacy of the Connect America Fund (CAF), a key policy intervention aimed at addressing disparities in US internet access. CAF subsidizes the creation of new regulated broadband monopolies in underserved areas, aiming to provide comparable internet access, in terms of price and speed, to that available in urban regions. Oversight of CAF largely relies on data self-reported by internet service providers (ISPs), which is often questionable. We use the broadband-plan querying tool (BQT) to curate a novel dataset that complements ISP-reported information with ISP-advertised broadband plan details (download speed and monthly cost) on publicly accessible websites. Specifically, we query advertised broadband plans for 687k residential addresses across 15 states, certified as served by ISPs to regulators. Our analysis reveals significant discrepancies between ISP-reported data and actual broadband availability. We find that the serviceability rate-defined as the fraction of addresses ISPs actively serve out of the total queried, weighted by the number of CAF addresses in a census block group-is only 55%, dropping to as low as 18% in some states. Additionally, the compliance rate-defined as the weighted fraction of addresses where ISPs actively serve and advertise download speeds above the FCC's 10 Mbps threshold-is only 33%. We also observe that in a subset of census blocks, CAF-funded addresses receive higher broadband speeds than their monopoly-served neighbors. These results indicate that while a few users have benefited from this multi-billion dollar program, it has largely failed to achieve its intended goal, leaving many targeted rural communities with inadequate or no broadband connectivity.
As expected, broadband industry lobby groups have sued the Federal Communications Commission in an attempt to nullify net neutrality rules that prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. Lobby groups representing cable, telecom, and mobile Internet service providers sued the FCC in several US appeals courts. Industry groups also filed a petition with the FCC asking for a stay of the rules, claiming the regulations shouldn't take effect while litigation is pending because the industry is likely to prevail in court. The FCC is highly likely to reject the petition for a stay, but the groups can then ask appeals court judges to impose an injunction that would prevent enforcement. The industry lost a similar case during the Obama era, but is hoping to win this time because of the Supreme Court's evolving approach on whether federal agencies can decide "major questions" without explicit instructions from Congress. The petition for a stay was filed by groups including NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, which represents large cable providers such as Comcast and Charter; and USTelecom, which represents telcos including AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink/Lumen.
Recent research found that as the share of White non-Hispanics increases, average download and upload speeds decreases. To delve deeper into this finding and better understand the factors affecting internet speeds, this research conducted spatial error regression models looking at different groups across two points in time (2019 and 2022). Results indicate that rural, older, and poorer groups continue to be associated with slower speeds and that by 2022, these relationships became stronger, widening the divide. Remote work and educational attainment had a positive impact on speeds, particularly average upload speeds. These positive impacts increased over time, providing evidence of the need for symmetrical networks (download and upload speeds are identical). Lastly, the finding that White non-Hispanics are associated with slower internet speeds remained: it was in place as early as 2019 and became stronger by 2022, also widening the divide. Five research and policy insights are discussed to better inform broadband stakeholders and policymakers.
Public Service Commission of Wisconsin Awards $1.4 Million to Improve Telecommunications Access and Affordability in Wisconsin
The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) awarded $1,481,167 to help Wisconsin residents access essential telecommunications services. The PSC awarded a total of 24 grants from the 2024 rounds of the Nonprofit Access Grant Program, the Lifeline Outreach Grant Program, and the Telemedicine Equipment Grant Program, all of which are funded by the Universal Service Fund (USF). The USF was created to promote and assist with the availability and affordability of telecommunications services in Wisconsin.
- The PSC awarded $500,000 from the Nonprofit Access Grant Program to 11 nonprofit organizations to help provide access to telecommunications services for low-income households and persons with a disability.
- The PSC awarded $239,597 from the Lifeline Outreach Grant Program to fund five projects to increase participation in the Lifeline Program, which provides eligible households discounts on the cost of phone, cell, and internet services. Four non-profit organizations and one county received funding to improve outreach and raise awareness of the Lifeline Program.
- The PSC awarded $741,570 from the Telemedicine Grant Program to help 8 non-profit medical clinics purchase medical telecommunications equipment. This grant program is designed to improve access to specialized telecommunications equipment that helps ensure the availability of technologically advanced medical services. This program also enhances access to medical care in rural or underserved areas of the state, to underserved populations, and/or to persons with a disability.
The full list of grant recipients is available here
Intrepid Fiber Networks is expanding its open access fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks with deployments in eight more communities in Colorado and eight more towns in Minnesota. These newly announced communities are in proximity to current Intrepid deployments, representing an organic expansion of its network. These new locations will bring Intrepid’s network to over 400,000 homes and businesses passed across the two states. Intrepid, which was founded in 2021, has quickly made a name for itself because its anchor tenant for its Colorado and Minnesota networks is T-Mobile. The company also scored with equity financing from Brookfield Asset Management. Intrepid is also talking to other ISPs, which may end up striking wholesale agreements over time. Typically, an open access network will have as many as five ISPs serving end customers. But too many ISPs can deteriorate the profits of the individual service providers. The company is also open to partnering with municipalities if it can “make the math work.” And it’s looking at Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) opportunities.
Wondering how the broadband equipment market is doing? Not great, according to Dell’Oro Group. In first quarter 2024, global revenue for the broadband access equipment market dropped 12 percent year-over-year to $4.1 billion, as spending in the market reached a two-year low. What’s the deal? Dell’Oro VP Jeff Heynen said that in some cases, operators are still working through excess inventory they built up in late 2022. That’s a situation still affecting optical networking equipment. “They had pulled forward orders in order to make sure they could meet subscriber demand or to have equipment ready as they continued their fiber expansion projects,” he said. But stockpiled inventory isn’t the only issue in North America. Dell’Oro’s report found North American broadband providers in first-quarter reduced their spending on new equipment by 25 percent year-over-year. That’s due to stalled subscriber growth along with increasing labor costs. So, operators don’t need as many modems or gateways, Heynen said. The Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program is also impacting new equipment sales in North America. Some broadband providers are slowing their deployments now, he said, “as they wait on decisions by individual states for project allocations.”
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), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and Zoe Walker (zwalker AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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