Telecommunication

Charter Communications scaled back its forecast for broadband net addition growth in the full year 2021 after posting a significant slowdown in subscriber gains in Q3. The company gained 265,000 internet customers across the two segments in Q3 2021, raising its year-to-date total to 1.02 million. The Q3 figure marked a significant year-on-year drop from 537,000 in Q3 2020 and sequential slide from 400,000 net adds in Q2.

Congress is poised to shield a $42 billion broadband grant program from federal transparency and privacy laws, hampering oversight of money expected to flow mostly to telecommunications companies. In a bid to cut through red tape and speed delivery of the broadband funds, the Senate-passed Infrastructure Investment and JOBS Act includes a provision that suspends certain rules the federal government ordinarily has to follow in administering programs.

A new startup backed by funding from AOL founder Steve Case and Laurene Powell Jobs wants to break up broadband monopolies across the country. Underline, a community infrastructure company, began building its first open access fiber network in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in October 2021. Under the open access model, Underline builds and operates the fiber network while multiple service providers can use it and offer service to customers.

President Joe Biden is ready to fill some key vacancies at the Federal Communications Commission. The White House has nominated current Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel for permanent chair of the agency and Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to sit as the third Democratic commissioner on the FCC. The nominations are not a surprise in the telecom world according to Blair Levin of New Street Research. Senate confirmations for the picks are still needed.

With the release of a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) has made important changes for Round 3 of its ReConnect Program. RUS has included a preference for local governments, non-profits, and cooperatives as applicants and added additional points to those applications. Further, RUS is expanding eligible areas beyond the FCC’s 25/3 definition of broadband.

Comcast raked in 300,000 broadband net additions in Q3 2021, a figure that was less than half the number it added in 2020 and lower than the pre-pandemic gain it posted in the comparable period of 2019. The operator added 633,000 subscribers during the pandemic in Q3 2020 and 379,000 broadband customers in Q3 2019. Comcast CFO Michael Cavanagh previously warned that the operator expected net additions to slow in Q3.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the November 2021 Open Commission Meeting:

A new analysis by The Diffusion Group (TDG) finds that the number of US households subscribing to a broadband service but not a pay-TV service will grow from 38 million in 2020 to 54 million in 2025, up 42 percent in the five-year period. “By 2025, nine-in-ten US households will use residential broadband, of which roughly half will use a pay-TV service from a legacy or virtual MVPD [Multichannel Video Programming Distributor],” said Paul Hockenbury, veteran industry researcher and TDG senior analyst.

President Biden has finally made his critical telecommunications appointments to fill out the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA). As expected, Biden named Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to serve as full chair and renominated her to fill her expired term. As hoped, he also nominated my former boss and all-around Telecom Boss Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to be the third FCC Commissioner.