Almost half a million cable, broadband, and voice subscribers are not being provided service in the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Ida according to the Federal Communications Commission. The number of those not able to access service is even greater given the more than a million without power. Louisiana has the vast majority of subscribers without either phone, TV or internet access, or a combination of those, at 468,674. Mississippi follows with 10,909, and then Alabama with 1,125. Four TV stations report still being out of service, though some of those have continued to provide news and information via their websites. There are also 13 radio stations still off the air. The FCC has not yet released anything regarding the historic flooding in the New York/New Jersey area and its impact on communications.

Former Administrator of the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service and current Managing Member with Rural America Strategies Chad Rupe joined the Fiber Broadband Association’s Fiber for Breakfast to share how current broadband allocations are “a bridge halfway” to aiding family farms and the growing need for precision agriculture. According to Rupe, both the farmer and provider can build up rural economies and harvest profits with precision agriculture. Farmers in rural areas often do not have integrated systems and have not gained the full benefits of ever-increasing technology advances; additionally, those farmers are rarely connected at the farmhouse with the Federal Communications Commission's standard of 25/3 Mbps. “When Congress discussed and included $65 billion in the infrastructure bill for broadband, think of the return on investment when adding precision agriculture on-site equipment to the eligibility of these funds,” said Rupe. “If we stay on the current path, we are shutting out the economics of connecting 2 million farms and not closing the digital divide with a sustainable operating capacity to reach the least dense areas of the US.” Rupe also stressed that these buildouts do not have to stay on the farm. Rather, fiber broadband can be used to support grain silos, livestock feedlots, the rain and trucking industry to get produce to market, the traceability of food through blockchain, and more.

The study examines the dangers of government-owned broadband networks and warns that increasing the number of government-operated networks (GONs) would do little to lower their costs or increase broadband subscribership. Specifically, the study highlights the significant historical failures of GONs, and how they have left taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars in government debt and forced consumers to pay higher prices for other municipal utility services to make up for operational losses. Key findings:

• The long history of GONs failures teaches us that public ownership of broadband networks is a bad policy for serving consumers, encouraging competition, and promoting innovation;
• Municipal broadband networks crowd out private investment and competition;
• These networks are more inefficient when compared to private networks; and
• GONs providers often lose money and then shift these costs to taxpayers and other public utility services – meaning the effective price paid by consumers is ultimately much higher than advertised.