May 31st is the final day that households will receive any benefit from the Affordable Connectivity Program on their internet bills. Without Congressional action to extend funding for the program, millions of households are now at risk of losing their internet connections. President Biden is once again calling on Congress to extend funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program, so tens of millions of Americans can continue to access this essential benefit. In the absence of funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program, President Biden remains committed to doing everything possible to ensure families continue to access affordable high-speed internet. The White House highlights voluntary commitments to customers from over a dozen internet service providers to offer plans at $30 or less to low-income households through 2024, so that families across America can continue accessing low-cost internet. This includes commitments from small, rural carriers that serve a single region and larger providers that cover multiple states.
 

The end of the ACP will undo the significant progress we have made toward closing the divide and harm millions of Americans. Not only that, but it will have economic and competitive consequences for our country if we fail to maximize the $42.5 billion investment we’ve made in broadband infrastructure through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. It is, as they say, penny wise and pound foolish. Connectivity has never been more important. By ensuring that all Americans can afford highspeed Internet, the ACP is an investment in our nation’s prosperity and the promise of opportunity for all. It is critical that Congress act to save the ACP and keep the progress made to close the digital divide.

On May 30, ACA Connects President and CEO Grant Spellmeyer wrote to Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Alan Davidson to urge the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to make sure small and medium-sized wireline broadband providers have a fair opportunity to compete in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program (BEAD). “The small and medium-sized wireline broadband providers represented by ACA Connects are eager to participate in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program (BEAD), but they will be deterred if they must comply with overly restrictive or burdensome requirements to offer and administer the 'low-cost service option.' Fewer participants in BEAD will mean less competition for funds, less fiber deployment, and a heightened risk of stranding Americans on the wrong side of the digital divide. We urge the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to keep these concerns front-and-center as it reviews and approves State and Territory plans for low-cost service options."

The overarching goal of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, established by Congress in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is to deploy broadband networks that reach every American and provide access to reliable, affordable, high-speed internet. Congress decided to allocate BEAD funds to states and territories since they are best situated to determine the needs of their communities, but it did not change any existing federal authority to oversee broadband or pricing. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) was given administrative oversight and programmatic support responsibilities to ensure the funds would be spent consistent with Congressional intent, including the review and approval of proposals after significant consultation between the state or territory and NTIA. These are critical procedures for NTIA to follow in determining whether low-cost plans are in fact affordable for the areas and markets where they are proposed. What is affordable in one community may not be considered affordable in another, so the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act gives NTIA the responsibility of reviewing and approving different approaches on a state-by-state basis. In this and a forthcoming series of articles, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is looking at states' plans to ensure affordable services are available on BEAD-supported networks. We begin with Louisiana. The state received a $1.355 billion allocation from the BEAD Program, the eighth-largest in the nation and the 10th-largest per capita.

Michigan is once again leading the country with its innovation. This time, however, the innovation isn’t new technology—but a funding strategy that would catalyze new technologies, and ensure access to jobs, healthcare, education, and government services are available and accessible in perpetuity. Their innovative strategy—leveraging Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) non-deployment funds to establish a Michigan Digital Inclusion Fund is designed to sustain digital inclusion work throughout the state beyond the short-term federal investments. In their BEAD Volume II draft plan, the Michigan High-Speed Internet Office (MIHI) within the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) proposes using the majority of their non-deployment funds to establish a “Michigan Digital Inclusion Fund” so that “digital equity can be pursued, achieved, and maintained.” In other words—so Michigan’s digital equity efforts have a powerful tool for sustainability. 

Spectrum announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to more than 330 homes and small businesses in Vance County (NC). Spectrum’s newly constructed fiber-optic network buildout in Vance County is part of the company’s approximately $5 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund-related investment in unserved rural communities, partly offset by $1.2 billion in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) RDOF auction. The company’s RDOF expansion will provide broadband access to 1.3 million customer locations across 24 states in the coming years. Spectrum has also won more than $700 million in state broadband expansion subsidies, which, combined with Spectrum investment, will connect another 300,000 homes and small businesses.

Broadband industry groups are asking a federal appeals court to scuttle the Federal Communications Commission's new disclosure obligations on telecommunications companies that suffer data breaches. The agency specifically required companies to notify consumers, federal law enforcement agencies and the agency about all breaches—even “inadvertent” ones—that expose personally identifiable information, including sensitive financial information. The broadband lobbying groups argue that Congress stripped the FCC of authority to issue the new regulations. The groups point to Congress's 2017 decision to revoke privacy rules passed by the FCC during the Obama administration. Those rules—which never actually took effect—would have required broadband carriers to obtain consumers' permission before harnessing information about their web activity for ad targeting. The Obama-era privacy rules also required providers to notify customers and law enforcement agencies about some data breaches that exposed personally identifiable information. Congress repealed the regulations under the Congressional Review Act. Congress has only rarely used the Congressional Review Act, and it's not clear how courts will determine when new rules are “substantially” the same as revoked ones.

The Fiber Broadband Associations Technology Committee published a new white paper on "The Benefits of Retiring Copper Today." Many telecommunications providers still face unnecessary complexity and expense by continuing to operate legacy copper last-mile broadband infrastructure, especially if they already migrated to fiber in the core and access network. The white paper explores the cost benefits and reasons why operators should accelerate the removal of copper completely and deploy future-proof fiber. In addition to fiber’s operational savings and better performance factors, FBA’s white paper outlines several approaches to replacing copper with fiber that recoup the capital expense of the migration, including:

• Reclaim Assets: The ducts and poles that carry copper can be reduced and/or repurposed to carry fiber, media that delivers exponentially more capacity than existing copper cable. The associated pole attachment fees will also be reduced as less fiber will be required due to its capacity, and the savings could be up to 50%.
• Real Estate: Many FTTH networks are centralized, minimizing the number of existing buildings and huts where the future network would occupy space and creating an opportunity to decommission this real estate and sell the properties.
• Salvage Goods: Copper is a valued commodity. Service providers can recover and sell existing copper cables for recycling to support other industries.