Joan Engebretson

Individual service providers will be able to apply for loans, grants or a combination of the two in the upcoming $600 million US Department of Agriculture rural broadband pilot program, said Jannine Miller, senior advisor for rural infrastructure for the USDA. Traditionally, USDA has administered separate broadband loan and grant programs and has not had “the ability to package a loan and grant together – now we do with the rural broadband pilot program,” said Miller.

More than three-quarters (82.4%) of K-12 schools in areas served by rural telecommunication companies are connected to the internet over fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure, according to a new survey of rural telco members of NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association. The NTCA rural anchor institution fiber connectivity report also found that 75.9% of hospitals and medical clinics and 63.9% of public libraries in respondents’ serving areas are FTTP-connected.

A new report from the American Action Forum questions the economic impact of rural broadband.

Computer giant Microsoft has teamed up with RTO Wireless to provide broadband access to more than a quarter million people in rural New York state and Maine. It is the latest project in the company's Airband Initiative to connect rural areas to broadband partnerships with Internet service providers, and energy companies and others. The goal is to close the rural digital divide by July 4, 2022, including by making use of unlicensed spectrum in the so-called TV white spaces between TV channels.

The Federal Communications Commission has released an additional $36 million annually for 175 small rural carriers that opted to transition to receive broadband Universal Service support based on the alternative Connect America cost model (A-CAM). In exchange, the A-CAM carriers have committed to more aggressive broadband deployment goals – although those goals are not as aggressive as those originally established for the A-CAM portion of the high-cost Universal Service program back in 2016.

Broadband fixed wireless economics are considerably better than those for fiber-to-the-home, said Claude Aiken, president and CEO of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) in written testimony presented to the House  Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Aiken urged subcommittee members to support spectrum policy favorable to WISPs. He argued that by spurring investment in broadband fixed wireless, a WISP-friendly spectrum policy could help minimize the need for government subsidies to support broadband buildout.

The cost to deploy fiber to unserved US rural areas is about $61 billion, said Jim Stegeman, president of CostQuest Associates, an economic consultancy that specializes in telecommunication. CostQuest created the cost model used to determine broadband deployment costs for the Connect America Fund (CAF) subsidy program. The $61 billion estimated cost to deploy fiber to unserved U.S. rural areas is based on deploying GPON fiber-to-the-premises technology and does not include ongoing operational costs. Stegeman is the co-author, along with Steve G.

Windstream and USTelecom have reached a compromise agreement involving telecommunication unbundling that would offer an alternative to a filing made by USTelecom back in May. The agreement requires Federal Communications Commission approval, but generally the FCC looks favorably upon agreements that opposing telecom stakeholders have been able to negotiate without FCC involvement. Windstream is both a buyer and seller of unbundled network elements (UNEs).

When the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC) issued budget figures for the Universal Service Fund (USF) high-cost program, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai took the opportunity to blame USF funding cuts on the previous administration and attempted to drum up support for alternative budget control mechanisms proposed under his administration. The USAC budget figures show forecasted demand for rate of return carriers for the high-cost program for 2018-2019 exceeding the budget by 15.52%.

AT&T now has more than five times fewer legacy DSL customers than it did four years ago. Nevertheless, the company saw a net gain of 82,000 broadband subscribers in the first quarter, an achievement that reflects a major shift in the AT&T broadband mix. "[W]e are completing our broadband transition from DSL to IP broadband,” said AT&T Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer John Stephens. AT&T uses the term “IP broadband” to refer to services delivered over fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) and fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) infrastructure.