AT&T unveiled plans to spin out and merge WarnerMedia with Discovery. The company's failed media deals destroyed more than $50 billion in shareholder value. The telecoms sector has long been fascinated with Hollywood as it has railed against the notion that the industry is little more than a collection of “dumb pipes” that act as conduits for value created by other companies. Yet telecoms-media convergence often comes at great cost and companies including AT&T and Verizon have embraced the notion that focusing on the pipes may not be so dumb after all.

USAC has released version 4.0 of the Connect America Fund Broadband Map (CAF Map), an interactive online map that shows the impact of the Connect America Fund (CAF) on broadband expansion to close the digital divide in rural America. The Connect America Fund – part of the federal Universal Service Fund High Cost program – provides funding to telecommunications carriers to deliver voice and broadband service in rural areas where the market alone cannot support the high cost of deploying network infrastructure and supplying connectivity. First launched in 2018, the CAF Map displays the geographic locations – by latitude and longitude – where carriers that receive CAF support have built out mass-market, high-speed Internet service. Version 4.0 of the map contains updated information to include deployment completed in 2020. The map currently contains broadband deployment data from carriers participating in the following Connect America Fund programs: Connect America Fund Phase II (CAF Phase II), Alternative Connect America Cost Model (ACAM), Connect America Fund Broadband Loop Support (CAF BLS), Alternative Connect America Cost Model II (ACAM II), the Alaska Plan, Rural Broadband Experiments (RBE), and Connect America Fund Phase II Auction (CAF II Auction). 

Jackson County Kentucky has one stop light in its 347 square miles—but also high-speed fiber optic internet service to rival any big city. In the coal country of eastern Kentucky, the 800-person town of McKee is the hub of a one-thousand-mile fiber-to-the-home network covering two of the nation’s poorest and most remote counties. The fiber link was built almost entirely with dollars from the federal government. It is a powerful example of the infrastructure of the 21st century and the importance of extending those connections to all Americans.

President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan includes $80 billion to connect unserved areas to high-speed broadband networks. The plan has been christened the American Jobs Plan because of the jobs that will be created to build the new infrastructure. The Kentucky experience illustrates the power of fiber connections to create jobs after the construction crews have gone home. When the fiber came to the areas around McKee, employment increased despite the collapse of the area’s main employer, the coal industry.

If the infrastructure plan is adopted, the story of McKee, Kentucky could be the story of every remote, rural, high-cost area in the United States. The story of McKee, Kentucky—where a fiber optic connection has changed lives, created jobs, and recruited residents—is a story that should be available everywhere.

A look at the obstacles and viable solutions for improving financial inclusion, providing access to bank accounts to the unbanked population in the United States, which currently represents approximately 6% of US households, and for reducing utilization of high-cost non-bank financial products and services. The report concludes that instead of establishing a large, duplicative and potentially expensive banking infrastructure to create bank accounts through the Federal Reserve or the U.S. Postal Service (postal banking), there are more effective and less costly ways to address the unbanked/underbanked challenge, including Expanding Broadband Access: Expanding broadband internet access to underserved areas allows individuals to better leverage digital banking services, which are the most convenient way to engage with unbanked/underbanked households.

The Federal Trade Commission, along with law enforcement agencies from six states, sued Internet service provider Frontier Communications, alleging that the company did not provide many consumers with Internet service at the speeds it promised them, and charged many of them for more expensive and higher-speed service than Frontier actually provided. In a complaint, the FTC and its state partners allege that Frontier advertised and sold Internet service in several plans, or tiers, based on download speed. Frontier has touted these tiers using a variety of methods, including mail and online ads, and has sold them to consumers over the phone and online. In reality, the FTC alleges, Frontier did not provide many consumers with the maximum speeds they were promised and the speeds they actually received often fell far short of what was touted in the plans they purchased.

The FTC’s allegations concern Frontier’s Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Internet service, which is transmitted over copper telephone wires. Frontier provides DSL service to approximately 1.3 million consumers, many in rural areas, across 25 states. Since at least Jan 2015, thousands of consumers complained to Frontier and government agencies that the company failed to provide DSL Internet service at the speeds they were promised. Many consumers have complained that the slower speeds actually provided by Frontier failed to support the typical online activities they should have been able to perform at the speed tiers Frontier had sold to them.

The FTC’s complaint was filed with the attorneys general from Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, as well as the district attorneys’ offices of Los Angeles County and Riverside County on behalf of the State of California.

SiFi Networks is dangling 10 Gbps capabilities in front of US operators, aiming to entice them to adopt a more European infrastructure model and sign on as tenants on its wholesale fiber network rather than building out the last mile themselves. SiFi has build commitments in place covering 13 cities across seven states. This will eventually yield a projected footprint of “well over” 40 million feet of fiber covering more than half a million homes and businesses. The company's open access network model is fairly revolutionary in the US, although “It’s very much commonplace in other countries, in particular in Europe, said  CEO Ben Bawtree-Jobson. "[B]ut in the US having last-mile infrastructure that’s independently operated, that isn’t under the control of the service provider is a new model." This is primarily due to the “the legislative influence of the big telco and cable operators,” said Jeff Heynen, VP of broadband access and home networking at analyst firm Dell’Oro Group. He said major incumbents like Verizon and AT&T “were able to successfully lobby legislators that they should own their networks and equipment because they bear the heavy cost of the initial deployment.” In states like North Carolina, these players even convinced lawmakers to “block the rollout of municipal fiber networks because they were argued to be unnecessary.”