Universal Broadband

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking input on how it should gauge whether broadband is being deployed in a timely manner — a determination the commission makes annually in the FCC Broadband Progress Report. Under consideration is “whether some form of advanced telecommunications capability, be it fixed or mobile, is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” Alternatively, the commission asked for input on whether it should consider an area to be served only if both fixed and mobile broadband are available there. Traditionally the report has only considered fixed service in gauging broadband deployment progress.

[Commentary] Many business models have been disrupted by the internet. The next incumbent industry being challenged includes the old-style cable and telecom companies. They do everything they can to throw mud on the open-access fiber-optic infrastructure — including UTOPIA — that some of us enjoy along the Wasatch Front. Don’t fall for it. The future is brighter than the negativism of these companies and their allies in the Utah Taxpayers Association. That negativism leads to flawed studies like that from the University of Pennsylvania, which are easily rebutted by Next Century Cities and the Coalition for Local Internet Choice. But one has to take a moment to understand why Utahns, and everyone in the country, want the opportunity for gigabit broadband at better prices.

As the Trump administration undertakes rural broadband access expansion, stakeholders disagree on ways to reach the target. At issue is a recent order adopted by the Federal Communications Commission during its August open meeting, which lowered the threshold for federal subsidies to expand mobile broadband from 10 to 5 megabits per second. There’s a discernible difference between those speeds: Basic web surfing is doable at 5 mbps. At 10 mbps, activities like video streaming become possible. According to a 2017 state of the internet report by technology firm Akamai, average mobile speed in the United States is just over 10 mbps. But rural areas have languished due to the low returns on investment for providers building the necessary infrastructure where there aren’t a lot of rate payers. The FCC plans to auction off the $4.53 billion in its mobility fund — MF-II — over the next ten years for companies to offer service in these high-cost areas.

In changing the target speeds for determining eligible areas, the FCC cited a petition by T-Mobile USA Inc., which argued that lowering the target speed to 5 mbps would help channel the subsidies to areas where there isn’t any of the necessary infrastructure, and are considered “unserved.” Rural wireless carriers say changing the speed target undermines work they’ve already done to deliver service. And they point to an earlier FCC assessment, under previous leadership, about the insufficiency of 5 mbps for delivery of services to rural Americans. Rural wireless carriers argue the change could threaten existing broadband service in “underserved” areas.

American Internet users are telling the Federal Communications Commission that mobile broadband is not a full replacement for fast home Internet service. The week of Aug 7, the FCC kicked off its annual analysis of broadband deployment and signaled that it might determine that smartphone access is a proper substitute for cable or fiber Internet. In doing so, the FCC could conclude that broadband is already being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, and thus the commission could take fewer steps to promote deployment and competition.

There have been over 300 new comments filed since we wrote about this two days ago, almost universally lambasting the FCC's suggestion that Americans might not need fast home Internet service and could make do with mobile broadband only. Mobile is hindered by data caps, limits on tethering, and reliability problems that make it fall short of a wired Internet connection, people told the FCC.

[Commentary] A new Broadband Access Coalition of internet service providers has joined forces with consumer, schools and health care advocacy groups to petition the Federal Communications Commission to open up the airwaves for spectrum best suited to a new, superfast broadband service for the whole of America.

This new approach does not rely solely on fiber, which is costly and difficult to deploy, but instead harnesses wireless broadband. This technology can be deployed at up to one tenth the cost of laying new fiber cabling to homes, with far fewer disruptions and project delays. It can also bring new superfast Wi-Fi services to areas that have no or little choice over their broadband provider. 94 percent of our internet traffic traverses Wi-Fi and home or business broadband connections – not more expensive cellular airwaves. The coalition’s petition proposes to open up new wireless spectrum for improving broadband services cost-effectively. This spectrum can provide great coverage in underserved rural areas, and can stimulate new competitive Internet Service Providers to enter the market and connect dense suburban areas. Unfortunately, the mobile industry is lobbying to secure this new spectrum band for its own exclusive use. The new wireless approach means consumers no longer have to be tethered to any physical infrastructure. Unlike challenging other traditional utilities, action doesn’t require consumers to overhaul their homes – all they have to do is make their voices heard.

[Fink is the CPO and Co-Founder of Mimosa Networks]

At a recent panel convened by the Wireless Future Project at New America, Ellen Satterwhite, of the American Library Association, noted that 40 percent of libraries cannot meet the minimum speed requirements set by the Federal Communications Commission (100Mbs for small libraries and 1Gbs for large ones) because of high costs or lack of access. We need only look at Idaho to get a glimpse of this absurd pricing: One library there pays $1000 per month for 5Mb service, while another pays $650 per month for 40Mb service.

So how can we ramp up connectivity in these areas? One potential solution that has shown promise is fixed wireless internet. This, in a nutshell, involves beaming internet access from a broadcasting tower directly into people’s homes via a small receiver on their roof. These sorts of point to multi-point (P2MP) fixed wireless services are becoming increasingly popular, particularly in Middle America, in part because of the relative ease of deployment and the ability to provide gigabit-level speeds. You might be wondering, then, how we can encourage fixed wireless. At the panel, advocates and industry leaders discussed the possible benefits of expanding, or sharing, wireless spectrum access in the 3.7-4.2GHz band to wireless internet service providers, or WISPs. This would be a boon to rural WISPs like Jeff Kohler’s Rise Broadband. Kohler noted that companies like Rise are starting to “feel the squeeze” on the spectrum they’re currently allowed to operate on. He also noted that the cost per customer is considerably less as well, often being roughly $250 for someone using fixed wireless, where the average rural fiber consumer could be upwards of $1,000. In fact, the overall cost of deploying “wireless fiber” for his company was roughly one-tenth of the price of standard fiber.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has a theory. He believes that accessing the Internet through a smartphone is just as good as having high-speed Internet access in your house. In fact, he appears to believe this so strongly that he is looking into changing his agency's guidelines so that any place in the U.S. that has sufficient mobile coverage will be considered "connected," even if people living there have no option to receive broadband access in their homes. That theory forms the essence of a new Notice of Inquiry that the FCC has just put out.

The notice is a first step toward a potential policy change with respect to how the agency measures broadband deployment in the US. If Pai's idea somehow becomes the new official credo for the FCC, it would be a disaster for efforts to improve access to connectivity in America—a country that has, as we have noted several times in just the last year, a persistent, embarrassing digital divide. Mobile broadband access isn't the same as connectivity at home. The screens are smaller, data caps on mobile bandwidth are much tighter (and overages far more expensive), and speeds are slower—something the agency seems to acknowledge in the notice, when it suggests that "mobile broadband" be defined at 10Mbps of download speed and 1Mbps upstream. For the record, that's less than half the 25Mbps/3Mbps threshold necessary for a home connection to qualify as "broadband."

Americans might not need a fast home Internet connection, the Federal Communications Commission suggests in a new document. Instead, mobile Internet via a smartphone might be all people need. The suggestion comes in the FCC's annual inquiry into broadband availability. Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband (or more formally, "advanced telecommunications capability") is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.

During the Obama administration, the FCC determined repeatedly that broadband isn't reaching Americans fast enough, pointing in particular to lagging deployment in rural areas. These analyses did not consider mobile broadband to be a full replacement for a home (or "fixed") Internet connection via cable, fiber, or some other technology. But with Republican Ajit Pai now in charge, the FCC seems poised to change that policy by declaring that mobile broadband with speeds of 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream is all one needs. In doing so, the FCC could conclude that broadband is already being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, and thus the organization would take fewer steps to promote deployment and competition.

The Federal Communications Commission wants recommendations on how to improve its data collection process for phone and internet access after becoming aware the agency was basing policies on increasingly flawed information. On Aug 4, the FCC announced its plan to revise the filing process for Form 477, a data set the agency uses to analyze broadband coverage in different areas of the country and show the public what providers they could access.

Internet and phone providers submit data on their coverage in different regions every six months. Many have called the data set inaccurate and unreliable, reporting a number of instances when the FCC says broadband providers are available in areas they don’t cover. The agency aims not only to refine the data set and purge incorrect information but also to reassess what data it needs to paint an accurate picture of nationwide coverage. According to Pai, the FCC may be asking for too much data—some of which it may not need for analysis—and that could overburden companies and discourage them from filing properly.

Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as amended (1996 Act), requires the Commission to determine and report annually on “whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” With this Notice of Inquiry we initiate the next annual assessment of the “availability of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion,” and solicit comment and information to help guide our analysis.

The Commission released the 2016 Notice of Inquiry on August 4, 2016, asking a number of questions about broadband deployment, but did not issue a subsequent report. In light of the changes in the industry and our recent actions to encourage broadband deployment, we propose to start this Inquiry afresh, with updated data and questions focused on the current progress of deployment of advanced telecommunications capability. In response to this Inquiry, we seek objective data and other evidence reflecting the state of broadband deployment and availability.

We encourage individual consumers, providers of broadband services, consumer advocates, analysts, companies, policy institutes, governmental entities, and all other interested parties to help us determine the most effective ways to complete this statutorily mandated task. We also encourage commenters to bring to our attention new issues concerning the deployment and availability of advanced telecommunications capability and recommend new ways to measure and evaluate deployment and availability. The information we gather in this proceeding will help ensure that our broadband policies are well-informed and backed by sound data analysis as we strive to encourage the deployment of broadband to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn did not vote to launch the proceeding saying, “While the structure of this item may look similar to past years, and I appreciate the Chairman accepting edits that I proposed, for several reasons I must respectfully concur.” He complaints include: 1) proposing a speed benchmark that is way too low, 2) deeming an area as “served” if mobile or fixed service is available, and 3) NOI seeks to measure deployment in terms of year-over-year progress rather than whether the service is actually meeting the needs of consumers.