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  2. August 2017

August 2017

Rebutting Myths About UTOPIA and Fiber Networks

[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.

TV and Internet Bundles: A Case Study

With few alternatives, many households are choosing to simply cancel the services they need. A 2015 study found that 15% of American adults had abandoned their paid cable or satellite television service. Meanwhile, only 67% of adults had broadband service at home, down from 70% from just two years prior. This case study aims to examine a community absent from telecom companies’ field of view. The subject of this study is a working-class couple in their late 50s....Americans have been vocal about their opposition to increasing TV and internet prices, sometimes opting to cancel their services altogether. As service providers start to recognize the threat of losing customers, they must acknowledge the extent to which their practices have harmed elderly, immigrant, and working-class households in particular. Most importantly, policymakers must take advantage of the role they may play in advocating for these communities through promoting competition among telecom companies.

Squeezed out by Silicon Valley, the far right is creating its own corporate world

Over and over again, America’s far-right has learned that the 1st Amendment doesn’t protect them from Silicon Valley tech companies. Over the last two years, a crop of start-ups has begun offering social media platforms and financial services catering to right-wing Internet users. “We’re getting banned from using payment-processing services, so we have no other choice,” said Tim Gionet, who goes by the name “Baked Alaska” and who is scheduled to speak at the Charlottesville (VA) rally. “If that’s the gamble they want to take, I guess they can, and we’ll make our own infrastructure.” The new companies are small, paling in audience size to their gargantuan, mainstream counterparts. But piece by piece, supporters of the far-right are assembling their own corporate tech world — a shadow Silicon Valley, one with fewer rules.

Rural Carriers Unhappy With FCC Move on Mobile Broadband

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.

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