CCG Consulting

At the end of July 2023, the Federal Communications Commission proposed a $20 million penalty against Q Link and Hello Mobile for not complying with the Customer Propriety Network Information (CPNI). The FCC concluded that the two companies violated the CPNI rules when they failed to protect confidential user data. The companies both had security flaws in their apps that allowed outside access to customer account information. There are stringent privacy rules in place at the FCC for voice providers, but nothing similar for broadband.

An AI expert suggested that AI could be used to produce better broadband maps. I had to chuckle at that idea. The primary reason for my amusement is that Federal Communications Commission maps are created from self-reported broadband coverage and speeds by the many internet service providers (ISP) in the country. ISPs have a variety of motivations for how and why they report data to the FCC. Some ISPs try to report accurate speeds and coverage.

Who still has landline telephones? The Washington Post's Andrew Van Dam found the answer in the National Health Interview Survey that is conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. Over the years, the survey has shown a correlation between having a landline and overall health. According to the survey, people who cut the cord and only use cell phones are more likely to engage in risky behavior.

On July 24, 2023, the Federal Communications Commission authorized a new subsidy program, Enhanced A-CAM (Alternate Connect America Cost Model). This program will extend subsidies to small, regulated telephone companies at a cost of about $1.27 billion per year for ten years.

In May 2023, the House Commerce Committee marked up nineteen pieces of telecommunications-related legislation.  One bill in particular, the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023 (H.R. 3557), represents what I’m seeing as a new trend of actions taken by big internet service providers (ISP) to preempt the authority of local governments.  H.R. 3557 would preempt a host of current rights of local governments to manage public rights-of-way for telecom infrastructure.

The broadband industry has always been cyclical. The industry has repeatedly gone through periods of booms and busts that have typically been exaggerated by the manufacturers of telecommunications equipment. We’re now seeing the beginnings of the end of the boom of the big cellular upgrades to 5G.

In October 2022, I wrote a blog about a bipartisan attempt to exempt broadband grant funding from being taxable income. Unfortunately, Congress has still not moved this legislation forward.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared with the other FCC Commissioners a draft Notice of Inquiry that would begin the process of raising the federal definition of broadband from 25/3 Mbps to 100/20 Mbps. In order for that to become the new definition, the FCC must work through the Notice of Inquiry process and eventually vote to adopt the higher speed definition. This raises a question of the purpose of having a definition of broadband.

Fixed wireless access (FWA) is currently seeing big success because it is filling several market niches. In rural areas, the product delivers speeds from 50 Mbps to 200 Mbps depending on how far a customer lives from a tower. In markets where the alternatives are slower technologies like satellite, DSL, or wireless internet service provider (WISP) broadband, customers are happy to have relatively fast broadband for the first time. FWA is also the product for the price-conscious consumer, priced between $50 and $65 when most other broadband technologies cost more.

There is one nuance of the Federal Communications Commission maps that doesn’t seem to be talked about. Internet service providers (ISPs) are only supposed to show coverage on the FCC maps for locations where they are able to serve within ten business days of a customer’s request for service. Any ISP that is claiming areas it won’t serve that quickly is exaggerating its coverage on the FCC maps. That can have real-life consequences. Consider the pockets of unserved areas inside cities. We worked with an urban area recently where we identified nearly 200 such unserved pockets.