Competition/Antitrust

Representing 26 towns across Massachusetts from Cape Cod to Chelsea, an informal group of mostly town officials has formed the Massachusetts Broadband Coalition in search of a way out of a broken broadband market and to ensure everyone in their individual communities has access to high-speed Internet. The newly-formed coalition has recently started to meet monthly to share information about what kind of alternatives there might be or could be, to the big cable monopoly provider in their towns.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Community Broadband Act to improve internet and broadband access across the country by removing roadblocks prohibiting local communities from building their own broadband networks. Twenty-one states have passed laws that either restrict or outright prohibit local communities from investing local dollars in building their own broadband networks.

The United Kingdom announced its wireless infrastructure strategy on April 11, 2023. As part of this effort, the UK aims to deliver nationwide coverage of standalone 5G to all populated areas by 2030, ensuring that it can bring its full benefits to villages and rural communities well beyond cities and towns. The Prime Minister has set out 5 priorities for the UK government - to build a better, more secure, more prosperous future for the UK, including growing the economy, and creating better-paid jobs and opportunity right across the country, which this strategy is focused on delivering.

T-Mobile appears to be eyeing a serious move into the US fiber market, confirming plans to offer service in two Colorado cities in addition to its original pilot market of New York City. Open access networks could offer the operator one of the fastest ways to expand its fiber reach. While open-access networks aren’t nearly as prevalent in the U.S. as in Europe, they are slowly beginning to proliferate.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel delivered remarks on April 6th, 2023, about the state of communications infrastructure in Indian Country to the 2023 Reservation Economic Summit. "I believe affordable broadband access is a prerequisite for full participation in our society and economy." This statement made by Rosenworcel in her speech highlights the importance of universal broadband access. Rosenworcel discusses the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has brought attention to the digital divide affecting low-income families and rural communities.

Some questions about T-Mobile’s Home Internet service remain unanswered, including the cause of a deceleration of subscribers from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2022. However, the analysts at MoffettNathanson took a stab at examining that and other issues related to fixed wireless access (FWA) in a new report. The report is an update of one from a year ago in which MoffetNathanson worked with Opensignal, formerly Comlinkdata, to analyze where FWA subscribers are coming from. Not a lot has changed from a year ago; Opensignal’s estimates of T-Mobile’s FWA subscriber mix show sign

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel responded to a letter from a group of senators regarding broadband consumer labels and pricing transparency. Specifically, Sens Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) urged the FCC to independently collect pricing data as the Commission fulfills its requirement of providing internet service provider (ISP) broadband consumer labels. In her response, Chairwoman Rosenworcel highlighted two actions taken by the Commission in late 2022.

Some people in the telecommunications industry like to compare the copper or fiber lines transmitting data under our feet to railways. They are both natural monopolies, they argue: duplication is wasteful, the high costs of construction deter new entrants, and economies of scale are essential for survival. But laying fiber costs much less than laying a railway track. The very fact that over 100 alternative network providers — or “altnets” — have popped up, backed by billions in private capital, suggests the financial incentives are there to multiply the infrastructure.

Cable companies’ wireless offerings are a bigger threat to wireless providers than wireless providers’ broadband offerings are to cable companies, according to a new research note from industry financial analysts at SVB MoffettNathanson. It’s a contrarian view at a time when fixed wireless offerings from T-Mobile and Verizon are stealing cable broadband subscribers and the mobile market is heavily saturated. The researchers base their analysis on several key market realities. One of the most critical is that the wireless industry is roughly twice the size of the broadband industry.

Is the broadband industry reaching maturity? There was still significant growth in broadband over the last few years. In 2019, national broadband subscribers grew by 2.6%. That leaped to 4.5% in the 2020 pandemic year. In 2021, broadband growth slowed to 2.8% but rebounded to 3.3% in 2022. The 2022 growth rate is likely inflated by rural broadband growth, as practically all the overall industry growth for the year came from cellular fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband provided by T-Mobile and Verizon. What would a mature broadband market look like?