Universal Broadband

The Federal Communications Commission could vote as soon as Feb or earlier to reduce the speed required for an internet connection to be considered broadband for purposes of the FCC’s annual broadband progress report. If the FCC opts to change the definition of broadband in response to the Notice of Inquiry, it’s important to note that the changes should only impact the annual progress report and not the CAF program. 

President Donald Trump is expected to thank America's farmers for their political support on Jan 8 and to unveil a plan designed to help revive fortunes in struggling rural areas. "While other sectors of the American economy have largely recovered from the Great Recession, rural America has lagged in almost every indicator," according to the president's new task force report. The task force makes a number of recommendations, beginning with improved broadband service.

Today I want to discuss Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai’s belief that we are on the cusp of a new era of partnership between the FCC and rural electric cooperatives. Specifically: our hope that electric coops will become a bigger part of closing the digital divide and delivering online opportunity to rural Americans who have been bypassed by the broadband revolution. And how the FCC can work with you all to bring about this change. 

The Trump administration is eyeing multiple “work streams” to help speed along broadband deployment, the National Economic Council’s Grace Koh told reporters: easing the permitting process on federal lands; letting towers built on federal lands also include infrastructure from telecom companies; and using dark fiber agencies have deployed to help rural providers through interconnection agreements.

The onset of a new year brings plenty of predictions, and so I will hazard one: Many of the biggest events of 2018 will be bound together by a common theme, namely the collision of the virtual internet with the real “flesh and blood” world. This integration is likely to steer our daily lives, our economy, and maybe even politics to an unprecedented degree. For instance, the coming year will see a major expansion of the “internet of things,” especially home and other smart devices subject to our commands.

The Federal Communications Commission is about to hold an auction used to dole out grants to companies to build internet in rural America. But now, a bunch of items are off the block: Companies and co-ops, big or small, will no longer be able to apply for money to build internet infrastructure in many of these regions, because Big Telecom says there’s already internet there.

In most of the Twin Cities, where about 60 percent of Minnesotans live, the internet is oxygen — at once ubiquitous and unnoticed. But for somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of Minnesotans, according to recent estimates, the internet is still ephemeral.  The state has been involved in broadband since the Gov Tim  Pawlenty (R-MN) era. There is an Office of Broadband Development, and a Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force, and Border-to-Border Broadband grants that have supported community efforts to get high-speed internet with $65.58 million in the last three years.

On December 21, 2017, the National League of Cities sent a letter to the chair of the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee concerning filings made by a number of local government associations on broadband deployment. The NLC highlighted four points from the filings:

Frontier has extended broadband service to over 275,000 households across CA, using a mix of its own capital and the Federal Communications Commission's Connect America Fund Phase II program funding.