Joan Engebretson

CenturyLink and Frontier apparently see the current Federal Communications Commission administration as potentially sympathetic to their concerns about business data services regulation. The carriers asked the commission to grant them non-dominant business data service status, arguing that they do not dominate that market because they have ample competition. The move comes just a few months after the previous FCC administration in October attempted to impose FCC oversight on packet-based business data offerings and indicated plans to continue to regulate time- division multiplexing(TDM)-based business services from incumbent carriers such as CenturyLink and Frontier based on price cap regulation.

A West Virginia Broadband Bill introduced in the state house of representatives aims to spur broadband competition and deployment by allowing local communities to form cooperatives to build broadband networks. House Bill 3093 also would re-establish a state broadband enhancement council charged with collecting data about internet speeds, seeking and dispensing non-state funding and grants, and making recommendations to the legislature. Additionally, the bill includes rules about the use of conduit, microtrenching and pole access, and would prevent broadband providers from making false claims about the speeds their broadband service is capable of delivering.

Importantly, the bill is designed to require no state funding. Nevertheless,a local media outlet expects the bill to face opposition in the state senate, considering that the senate president also works as sales director for Frontier Communications, which already has expressed concerns about whether the bill would achieve its intended goals.

Telecommunication companies are likely to use a mixture of technologies — including fixed wireless, copper bonding and vectoring – to meet deployment requirements of phase two of the Connect America Fund (CAF), said Kurt Raaflaub, head of strategic solutions marketing for broadband equipment supplier Adtran.

While fiber-to-the-home would be the most future-proof broadband upgrade, Raaflaub doesn’t see it as being cost-effective for CAF II deployments, at least not on a widespread basis. He noted that carriers will be able to meet CAF II broadband speed requirements with these other technologies. CAF II requirements range between 10 Mbps downstream/ 1 Mbps upstream and 25/3 Mbps, depending on deployment costs. “You have to leverage what you have,” Raaflaub commented. While CAF II applies specifically to the nation’s largest price cap carriers, requirements are similar for smaller rate of return carriers who get funding through the high-cost Universal Service Fund to serve many of the nation’s most rural areas.

Wireless carriers, known as competitive eligible telecommunications carriers (CETCs), who currently receive Universal Service funding in areas that will no longer be eligible for support will have that funding phased out over a two-year period beginning one month after completion of an upcoming mobility fund reverse auction. Details about the CETC support phase-out are included in an Federal Communications Commission order adopted Feb 23 and released to the public this week.

Areas are ineligible for funding if at least one company offers LTE service in the area at speeds of at least 5/1 Mbps without CETC support. The FCC estimates that about $300 million of the $483 million in USF funding that currently goes to wireless carriers, excluding Alaska, is for areas that will not be eligible for support. The FCC was not persuaded to extend the phase-out period to five years, despite concerns expressed by some wireless carriers that failure to do so could leave some areas without service, at least for some time. That would occur if the winning bidder does not currently offer service but instead must build a new network and if current carriers opt to pull out of the market when funding is cut back or cut off. The Rural Wireless Association also argued that, based on previous FCC documents, CETCs had expected to continue to receive funding for a longer period. Companies subject to the two-year CETC support phase-out will receive two-thirds of their traditional support level in the first year and one-third in the second year.

The state of New York awarded nearly $212 million in funding to bring broadband to parts of the state where service is not available today or is only available at low speeds. The broadband funding awarded went to 26 companies, including cable companies, municipal networks, and cooperatives, as well as to traditional telecom companies including FairPoint Communications, Frontier Communications, and TDS Telecom.

Awards were made in phase two of the New NY Broadband Program. Funding recipients also must contribute some funding of their own, yielding total anticipated investment of more than $268 million. New NY Broadband is an ambitious program announced in 2015 that allocated $500 million to make broadband available throughout the state. Except in the most rural areas, operators are required to deploy service supporting speeds of at least 100 Mbps downstream. For the most rural areas, the minimum speed target is 25 Mbps downstream.

Some rural areas could be left without wireless service if the Federal Communications Commission approves the latest proposal for the Connect America Mobility Fund Phase II, cautions the Rural Wireless Association.

Some wireless carriers in high-cost rural areas currently receive funding through the traditional high-cost universal service fund, which also covers landline carriers, but moving forward the plan is to create separate funds for mobile and fixed service. RWA’s concerns come as the FCC gets set to vote soon on the mobility fund. The term “Phase II” has been applied to that fund to differentiate it from a previous one-time program that awarded funding to a relatively small number of wireless carriers through a reverse auction process to test the concept of using that type of auction to award funding. Mobility Fund Phase II is expected to direct Universal Service dollars to high-cost rural areas where no unsubsidized competitor offers service at speeds of at least 5 Mbps downstream/ 1 Mbps upstream, the RWA notes. Qualifying areas are expected to be included in a reverse auction that will award funding to the network operator that agrees to bring service at speeds of at least 10/1 Mbps for the lowest amount of support. One of RWA’s concerns is that it could take winning bidders a few years to build the new network and if the winner does not currently provide some type of service in the area, there is a danger that all current carriers could pull out before the new network is available.

Angie Communications, which calls itself the world’s largest telecom startup, has ambitious gigabit plans – including bringing Angie gigabit service to several markets that Google Fiber planned to serve but later halted and to 87 other markets. Angie has a unique business model that will use fiber that other network operators deployed to business buildings as the backhaul infrastructure for wireless gigabit services.

Back in December the company announced that it would offer service at speeds up to 10 Gbps to business customers in 10,000 buildings in 87 markets reached by fiber operators with whom Angie has business agreements. At that time, the company also noted that it has used that strategy in other parts of the world, where the fiber connectivity to the buildings also serves as backhaul infrastructure for gigabit wireless service.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline actions drew harsh responses from a range of stakeholders. For example, the Benton Foundation issued a press release with comments from one of its directors and from nine other organizations criticizing the decision. “The unexpected revocations will not only limit choices for Lifeline customers, but also have a chilling effect on participation of other potential broadband providers of Lifeline service,” said Amina Fazlullah, director of policy at the Benton Foundation. Organizations criticizing the decision in the press release included the Communications Workers of America, the Free Press, the NAACP, the National Consumer Law Center and others.

Despite increased interest in fixed 5G on the part of the nation’s largest carriers, it’s still not a great choice for rural areas, said Jeff Kohler, co-founder of rural broadband wireless network operator Rise Broadband.

In discussing fixed 5G vs. broadband wireless, Kohler said he sees the relatively short range of 5G wireless as a disadvantage in rural areas. “On the 5G front, what we’re seeing is a lot of high-frequency millimeter wave technology,” said Kohler. As Kohler noted, millimeter wave spectrum is “great for high capacity and high speed over very short distances.” In contrast, the broadband wireless technology that Rise is using can cover distances of up to five miles from a tower, Kohler said. “Using millimeter wave you would probably have to split [the signal] five to seven times using small antennas and repeaters to reach three to five miles,” he commented.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has established what he is calling the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) aimed at bridging the digital divide and accelerating the deployment of high-speed broadband services. One of the BDAC’s first tasks will be to draft a model code for broadband deployment that will address topics such as local franchising, zoning, permitting and rights-of-way regulations with the goal of eliminating or reducing red tape that can complicate deployments. If this sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because several other entities already have undertaken aspects of this task. These entities include but are not necessarily limited to:
Google Fiber
CTC Technology & Energy
Gig.U
Pew Center on the States
Next Century Cities

Hopefully the BDAC will avoid re-inventing the wheel by reviewing these and other existing studies as part of the process of developing the model code. Also on tap for the BDAC will be addressing further reforms to the FCC’s pole attachment rules; identifying unreasonable regulatory barriers to broadband deployment and ways to encourage local governments to adopt deployment-friendly policies; and other reforms within the scope of the commission’s authority, according to a press release about the BDAC issued today.