Infrastructure

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare many of the inequalities in America, including the differences in access to broadband Internet. Three policies that can help: (1) allow cities to provide their own broadband; (2) expand and reform Lifeline; and (3) provide tax incentives to firms that subsidize their employees’ broadband. The first of these policies stimulates the “supply” of broadband, while the second two stimulate “demand.” Together, these policies should help reduce the digital divide.

Amid so much highly visible dysfunction in the American response to the coronavirus, it’s worth appreciating the internet as an unsung hero of the pandemic. It has stayed on because people out there are keeping it on. The internet’s performance is no accident, but rather the result of long-term planning and adaptability, ingenuity and hard work—and also some characteristics that have become part of the personality of the internet itself.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $23 million for three recipients in New Mexico to provide broadband service in unserved and underserved rural areas. These investments are part of USDA’s round one investments made through the ReConnect Pilot Program. 

International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have launched an accelerated action plan to better leverage digital technologies and infrastructure in support of citizens, governments and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Business closures and stay-at-home orders have hit the real-estate sector hard. But an obscure corner of the industry is benefiting from people staying at home. Fiber-optic cables are drawing a growing interest from investors. These cables, which transmit data through light and are a crucial component of high-speed internet, aren’t technically real estate.

Electric cooperatives have given hope to the rural broadband market, and Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation (BRMEMC), in the broadband industry for more than 17 years, has earned the right to call itself a pioneer in that emerging space. Several electric co-ops in the Southeast have contacted BRMEMC for advice about how to deploy a broadband network. BRMEMC, founded in 1938, is a member-owned electric cooperative headquartered in Young Harris, Georgia, serving more than 53,000 member-customers.

Reps Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Don Young (R-AK) -- with the bipartisan support of T.J.

Rural North Dakotans are more likely to have access to fiber connectivity and gigabit-speed Internet than those living in urban areas. This case study highlights the efforts of 15 local companies and telephone cooperatives who came together to invest in rural North Dakota and build gigabit fiber networks across the state. Their success is traced back to the companies’ acquisition of 68 rural telephone exchanges from monpoloy provider US West (now CenturyLink) in the 1990s.

New York State's Public Service Commission required Spectrum Internet, formed by the Time Warner Cable-Charter Communications merger, to significantly boost internet speeds upstate and expand broadband service to 145,000 residential units that currently don't have it. Lara Pritchard, a Charter spokesperson, claimed the company has completed the extension of its network to 100,421 new homes and businesses as of Jan. 31, 2020, which she claims is 13,000 ahead of the PSC schedule. Charter plans to meet the state requirement of 145,000 by Sept. 30, 2021, she said. 

2020 has demonstrated the resilience of our network plan we laid out over half a decade ago. And it’s given us all the motivation we could ever need to continue connecting Americans and first responders through FirstNet, fiber, 5G and more. We recently wrote a whitepaper titled “7 Principles of AT&T’s Network Transformation” that summarizes the next phase of our network journey.