Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Headlines Daily Digest
Today: Equity, Access and the Digital Divide
Don't Miss:
Municipal Broadband Is Restricted In 18 States
Digital Inclusion
Broadband Infrastructure
Wireless
Antitrust/Ownership
Social Media/Platforms
Education
Company News
Policymakers
Digital Inclusion
The California Broadband Council developed this “Broadband for All” plan understanding that digital equity warrants broadband access, adoption, and training. This Plan focuses on achieving three long-term goals:
- All Californians have high-performance broadband available at home, schools, libraries, and businesses.
- All Californians have access to affordable broadband and necessary devices.
- All Californians can access training and support to enable digital inclusion.
Municipal broadband has been obstructed in many states over the years. There are currently 18 states in total that have restrictive legislation against municipal broadband networks in the US.
- 18 states have restrictive legislation in place that make establishing community broadband prohibitively difficult.
- Five additional states (Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, Oregon, and Wyoming) have other types of roadblocks in place that make establishing networks more difficult than it needs to be.
- A further five states (Arkansas, Idaho, Tennessee, Washington, and Montana) have introduced bills to remove municipal broadband restrictions so far this year. Montana’s bill has failed, while Arkansas’ passed in February.
Both Verizon and T-Mobile have been touting fixed wireless access of late as a way to help close the digital divide, take market share from cable companies, and reap new revenues. But the fixed wireless access players are being questioned about the desirability of wireless as compared to fiber. The analysts at Cowen recently hosted Verizon CTO Kyle Malady, who admitted that fixed wireless is not fiber-like. But Verizon also has experience with fiber via its Fios product, which has been in place for eight years. Malady noted that consumers do not use or need anything remotely close to the 1 Gbps speeds that FiOS provides. The Cowen analysts said that fixed wireless providers need to improve their consumer marketing. Currently, consumers seem to equate speed with quality and reliability. Of Malady’s comment about speeds, the Cowen analysts said, “We note this ‘more than enough speed’ stance has been endorsed by various [broadband providers] for years, and a valid point, yet a point that needs to be articulated effectively to consumers.”
As part of the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Data Collection effort to collect comprehensive data on broadband availability across the United States, the FCC is encouraging the public to download the FCC’s Speed Test app, which is currently used to collect speed test data as part of the FCC’s Measuring Broadband America program. The app provides a way for consumers to test the performance of their mobile and in-home broadband networks. In addition to showing network performance test results to the user, the app provides the test results to the FCC while protecting the privacy and confidentiality of program volunteers. The network coverage and performance information gathered from the Speed Test data will help to inform the FCC’s efforts to collect more accurate and granular broadband deployment data. The app will also be used in the future for consumers to challenge provider-submitted maps when the Broadband Data Collection systems become available. The FCC Speed Test App is available in the Google Play Store for Android devices, and in the Apple App Store for iOS devices.
Opponents to Verizon’s planned acquisition of prepaid TracFone often cite the negative impacts they believe it will have on Lifeline subscribers and the prepaid market overall. But Verizon is pitching the transaction as a means of improving TracFone’s ability to provide Lifeline-supported services and better serve the prepaid sector. Verizon said that TracFone, as part of Verizon, will become a stronger competitor against the flanker prepaid brands of AT&T (Cricket ) and T-Mobile (Metro). Verizon alluded to the fact it doesn’t participate in the prepaid segment in “any meaningful way,” but with the acquisition of TracFone, it would be jumping to the head of the pack. TracFone at the end of the fourth quarter had about 20.7 million customers, while Cricket has about 11 million and Metro has about 20 million, according to Wave7 Research. Verizon also said that commenters either ignore or “fail to grasp” that the transaction will bring facilities-based competition to Lifeline service.
Consolidated Communications CEO Bob Udell highlighted 5G and public-private partnerships as two key opportunities for providers to close the broadband gap in the rural US, but warned state-level restrictions could hamper the latter’s potential. The company recently set a goal to cover at least 70% of its footprint with gigabit broadband services by 2025. Udell said he sees 5G rollouts as a key chance to advance its plan. Founded in Illinois in 1894 as the Mattoon Telephone Company, Consolidated Communications now ranks among the top 10 fiber providers in the US, with a footprint spanning 23 states and 46,000 route miles of fiber.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act, new legislation to take back control from big business and return it to the American people. Senator Hawley’s bill will crack down on mergers and acquisitions by mega-corporations and strengthen antitrust enforcement to pursue the breakup of dominant, anticompetitive firms. The bill would:
- Ban all mergers and acquisitions by companies with market capitalization exceeding $100 billion
- Example: Google could not purchase Waze and incorporate it into the Maps app
- Empower the Federal Trade Commission to designate “dominant digital firms” exercising dominant market power in particular internet markets, which will be prohibited from buying out potential competitors
- Example: Facebook’s dominance in social networking should prevent it from acquiring startups seeking to build new social media platforms
- Prohibit dominant digital firms from privileging their own search results over those of competitors without explicit disclosure
- Example: Google could not promote its own reviews over Yelp reviews without disclosing the affiliation up front
- Reform the Sherman and Clayton Acts to make clear that direct evidence of anticompetitive conduct is sufficient to support an antitrust claim, which will allow enforcers to effectively pursue the breakup of dominant firms and prevent antitrust cases from devolving into battles between economists
- Example: Facebook’s complete acquisition of a major competitor, Instagram, should be sufficient to justify antitrust action without needing to bring in specialists to define the “social networking market"
- Replace the outdated numerically-focused standard for evaluating antitrust cases, which allows giant conglomerates to escape scrutiny by focusing on short-term considerations, with a standard emphasizing the protection of competition in the US
- Clarify that “vertical” mergers are not exempt from antitrust scrutiny
- Example: Amazon could not acquire additional companies in its supply chain
- Drastically increase antitrust penalties by requiring companies that lose federal antitrust suits to forfeit all their profits resulting from monopolistic conduct
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
© Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 2021. Redistribution of this email publication — both internally and externally — is encouraged if it includes this message. For subscribe/unsubscribe info email: headlines AT benton DOT org
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