Daily Yonder

[Commentary] Here’s a five-step system to create portable consumer subsidies for broadband:

1) Use the Federal Communications Commission’s data to identify all areas unserved by broadband. Census blocks would be considered unserved if they lack broadband as defined by the FCC. Broadband is defined today as an evolving standard consisting of four attributes: speed (currently 25/3 Mbps), capacity (150 GB per month of data or the median household usage), latency (100 milliseconds) and price (median national price).
2) Use the FCC’s Connect America cost model to determine the appropriate level of public funding for each location in each census block. The FCC cost model was developed over many years with the cooperation of the nation’s telephone companies to calculate the cost of constructing, maintaining and operating fiber-to-the-premise networks. The FCC has used this model to calculate a level of subsidy necessary to build and provide service to every location in every census block throughout the country.
3) Make available such support to all internet service providers (ISPs) that are certified in states as eligible telecommunications carriers (ETC). The count of each ETC’s subscribers should only include broadband service and should be limited to one subsidy per location, similar to the limitation of the Lifeline program of one subsidy per household.
4) Every six months, when ISPs submit data to the FCC indicating geographic area, speed, technology and numbers of customers, each eligible telecommunications carrier that wishes to participate in the Connect America Fund would submit their data to the Universal Service Administrative Company. The fund administrator would compensate each carrier based upon the number of locations served with broadband and the subsidy per location per census block. The FCC would also continually update its information on where services were provided without the use of a subsidy in order to eliminate those areas from further public funding.
5) Any ISP could win back a customer it loses, and thereby win back the subsidy amount. This will encourage ISPs to continue to improve service offerings even in rural areas, and allow public funds to follow ongoing consumer decisions, rather than pre-set government decisions. Whether the service chosen is fiber-based, copper-based, wireless (fixed or mobile), satellite, drone or balloon, the FCC would get out of the business of determining the type of technology and attempting to compare the relative weights of technologies.

[Chambers is a partner at Conexon, LLC, a company dedicated to working with electric cooperatives interested in serving their members with broadband]

Broadband planners and supporters in Missouri and Tennessee say that legislative battles for publicly owned broadband have reached the tipping point this week. In MO, a bill that would prohibit municipalities from running broadband networks passed in the State Senate Jobs, Economic Development, and Local Government Committee and will move to the full Senate for debate.

In TN, several competing bills are in play, including one touted as a compromise that keeps the ban on municipal networks while allowing co-ops to offer broadband under certain conditions. Other proposals would remove municipal broadband limitations completely. On March 8, the TN bill was amended with the governor’s cooperation to allow co-ops to provide video. The original bill prevented co-ops from providing voice or video over any broadband networks they built. The last-minute change indicates that the wording of the bill is still open to negotiation — either to favor municipalities or to favor the positions of large telecommunications corporations that oppose the measure. In 2016, for example, when the Legislature was on the brink of removing municipal broadband restrictions entirely, AT&T forestalled the vote by helping push through a measure to study the issue for another year.

Legislation proposed in Virginia and Missouri would tighten the noose that restricts local governments from creating broadband options.

In Virginia, the bill comes from a state delegate with strong ties to the telecommunications industry and with ALEC, the national advocacy group that wrote similar laws for other states. Virginia’s State House Bill 2108 effectively stops cold all of the efforts the state has taken to get broadband in communities through seemingly benign definition. The bill allows municipal networks only in areas that don’t already have broadband – defined as 10 Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload.

In Missouri, meanwhile, the state’s current anti-municipal network law, written in 1997, bans public entities from owning and providing telecom services. But it’s always been an implied or assumed ban, even though an exception for broadband was written into the bill. One Missouri city built a network without challenge, and Columbia two years ago planned to play the same “Get Out of Jail Free” card. The Missouri Legislature has been making annual efforts since 2014 to ban muni broadband. This year’s entry is SB 186, which would prohibit retail or wholesale competitive service. By banning wholesale efforts, the bill would prevent a municipality from working with private-sector companies to supply broadband.

[Commentary] Americans may be split in national politics, but when the topic is broadband, voters of all persuasions are supporting fewer restrictions on community-sponsored networks. The future of federal funding is uncertain, but that doesn't have to stop communities from moving forward with municipal, cooperative, and public-private broadband initiatives.

[Craig Settles is a broadband industry analyst, consultant to local governments, and author]

[Commentary] For years, we’ve heard “fiber is the future.” Now some innovators, including Google, say fixed wireless could play a bigger role in getting high-speed access to rural America. Lower costs, quicker installation, and the potential of hybrid wired and wireless networks are some of the reasons. As the drive intensifies to have their constituents connected to the rest of the world with highspeed Internet access, leaders of rural towns and counties can meet that need faster and for less money by building hybrid broadband infrastructure. Though it has taken a little more time than has been hoped, wireless could be on the brink of becoming an equal partner with fiber in the rural broadband world.

[Craig Settles is a broadband industry analyst and consultant]

[Commentary] In thinly-populated rural and tribal areas, community anchor institutions (CAIs) can be vitally important to connecting residents to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, because of economic factors, anchor institutions in rural and tribal areas have an especially difficult time obtaining high-capacity broadband connections at affordable rates. When implementing programs designed to increase access to broadband service in rural areas, federal, state, and local efforts should give high priority to the broadband needs of rural community anchor institutions.

[Koutsky serves as Chief Policy Counsel for Connected Nation]

[Commentary] Fast Internet access is the critical element in building healthier rural economies that create opportunity and improve quality of life. Here are some ways to get your community focused on the need for speed:

Lack of local leadership buy-in is a deal breaker.
Asking why you need faster Internet today is like asking why you needed electricity when candlelight was the standard 100 years ago.
Broadband connectivity and applications are quality-of-life issues.
Demonstrating usefulness is critical.
Urban density is no longer an advantage.
“Middle of nowhere” mentality is no longer applicable.

[Dr Roberto Gallardo is the leader of the Mississippi State University Extension Service Intelligent Community Institute]

[Commentary] The US has failed to deliver on universal high-speed, wired Internet service. The consequences for America's disconnected are a litany of troubles: economic decline population loss, less access to education, and poorer quality medical care. History is likely to judge the United States very harshly in how it met its Internet telecommunications infrastructure challenge. If the nation and its leadership had engaged in proper planning and budgeting a generation ago for the construction of ubiquitous fiber to all American premises, by now, the nation would be fully fibered and reaping the complete promise and value of the Internet. Instead, the previous two decades were squandered on inaction.

[Fred Pilot is from California and writes the Eldo Telecom blog.]

[June 1]