Telecommunication

Democrats are gearing up for another attempt at confirming President Joe Biden’s nominees for top posts at the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration after GOP objections stalled them in 2021. The three nominations — Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] for the open FCC seat, Alvaro Bedoya for the open FTC seat and Alan Davidson to head NTIA — technically expired when the December 2021 session ended.

With the broadband gap laid bare by the events of 2020, 2021 saw a renewed focus on meeting the challenge once and for all.

Many rural residents and businesses are furious that they can’t get fiber broadband even though there is fiber close to their home or business. They can’t understand why the uncaring company that owns the fiber can’t make the tiny investment needed to connect them to fiber that’s already tantalizingly close to them. The fiber that runs close to the home and business is likely middle-mile fiber. These middle-mile routes are often seen as too valuable by telecom companies to serve last-mile customers.

Several large telecom companies have announced big plans to expand fiber coverage, and I assume that also means heavily participating in the infrastructure law's $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grant program that is aimed primarily at bringing better broadband to rural areas. It’s likely that companies want to benefit from the huge upcoming federal grants. The easiest way for them to take advantage of the federal grant is to plan to overlash fiber onto existing telco copper where the companies are already the incumbent.

I assume that most people know the famous line from Field of Dreams where the disembodied voice promises, “Build it, and he will come.” For twenty years, I’ve been advising broadband clients against taking that advice. It doesn’t make any sense to invest a lot of money into building a broadband network without first having done enough market research to know that people will buy your services. Now, I want to talk about a similar-sounding idea – build it, and they will fill it. This is a shorthand way to describe the unbelievable growth in broadband demand.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel hereby appoints seven members to the Board of Directors of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC). The term for the representative for commercial mobile radio service providers will end on December 31, 2022. All other positions are for a three-year term beginning on January 1, 2022. Chairwoman Rosenworcel appoints the following individuals to the USAC Board of Directors:

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) now includes 38 states, two US territories, and five federal agencies: US Department of Agriculture (USDA), US Department of the Treasury, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). The NBAM is a geographic information system platform which allows for the visualization and analysis of federal, state, and commercially available data sets.

Service providers who plan to participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) could submit

House Republican Leaders sent a series of letters to federal agencies asking about steps they are taking to close the digital divide. The letters were sent by Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Leader Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Oversight and Reform Republican Leader James Comer (R-KY), Appropriations Committee Republican Leader Kay Granger (R-TX), Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Agriculture Committee Republican Leader Glenn Thompson (R-PA).

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the first ACCESS BROADBAND Report, which highlights the accomplishments of NTIA’s recently established Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth (OICG) over the past year.