Universal Broadband

Too often, reports on the feasibility of municipal broadband networks in smaller markets are sponsored by large telecom companies with a financial stake in the game. Many communities with muni networks wonder if these researchers are measuring success the wrong way.

What’s the next Wi-Fi frontier? And how can we tap into it for public good? A key band of airwaves that companies are seeking is the unused spectrum in lower frequencies that sit between TV channels. The spectrum in the gaps between bands of airwaves reserved for broadcast television offers prime real estate for companies seeking to bolster connectivity. Those unused bands of airwaves, known as “TV white spaces” (TVWS), are a target for Microsoft in particular. The company recently introduced a program to bring free Internet access to rural families to help bridge the “homework gap” in Charlotte and Halifax counties in southern Virginia.

In 2016, New America’s Open Technology Institute also urged the Federal Communications Commission to allow schools to leverage TVWS to give students lacking broadband at home remote access to the school’s high-capacity broadband, which would be subsidized by the federal E-Rate program.

TeleQuality Communications filed comments urges changes to the Federal Communications Commission rural healthcare-broadband programs, arguing that the Universal Service Fund (USF) rural healthcare, telecom and e-rate schools and libraries programs would be more effective if they did not operate as isolated silos. TeleQuality, an organization that provides network connectivity for healthcare providers funded, in part, through the USF rural healthcare program. The filing includes some compelling data points, along with some creative ideas for potential reforms to FCC rural healthcare-broadband programs – although some readers may find some of the ideas unrealistic. The most compelling data points in the TeleQuality filing:

• The number of physicians serving rural areas is insufficient. The filing cites a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) report that found that a majority of rural counties have 1 practitioner serving 3,500 patients when 1 practitioner per 2,000 patients is recommended for adequate care – a finding that confirms similar data that Telecompetitor has reported previously. There is also a shortage of skilled IT personnel in rural areas, TeleQuality argues – another data point that is consistent with previous research on that topic.
• The number of FCC rural healthcare funding requests from healthcare providers has not increased as dramatically as the amount of funding requested – a phenomenon the filing attributes to the significant bandwidth increases needed to run electronic health records systems. At the same time, the FCC program remains underutilized because some healthcare providers do not have the resources to handle program filing and administration.

Louisville has launched a new public workspace — one that combines free loaner laptops and fiber Internet connection with modern design aesthetics, the sort more closely associated with trendy coffee shops than government facilities. And it’s done so in an economically challenged neighborhood where people often lack access to tech.

A central aim of this space is to help foster entrepreneurial partnerships and economic growth in a section of the city facing significant obstacles. The workspace, dubbed the PNC Gigabit Experience Center, is located in the Louisville Central Community Centers' (LCCC) Old Walnut Street development, which is in the Russell neighborhood on the city’s west side. The neighborhood didn’t even have a place where residents could grab a coffee and hop onto Wi-Fi, whether it be to discuss potential business collaborations, apply for jobs or simply browse the Web. The PNC Gigabyte Experience Center seeks to rectify this dearth by providing higher connection speeds and loaner tech, in a space that feels both vibrant and productive. The PNC Gigabit Experience Center is part of Louisville’s recently announced digital inclusion strategy, the city's plan to remove technological barriers so that all citizens have the digital access, skills and hardware to get jobs, degrees and other services.

CoSN and the Alliance for Excellent Education issued two complementary resources for school leaders to advance digital equity and increase broadband connectivity to students nationwide. Advancing Digital Equity and Closing the Homework Gap details the current state of broadband access, its adoption, and its barriers in US communities. The second brief, Advancing Digital Equity: An Update on the FCC’s Lifeline Program, recaps efforts to modernize the Lifeline Program, explains how these changes are at risk, and puts forth ways school leaders can stand up for the program and its positive impact on learning.

In the briefs, the groups underscore current data that paint the picture of broadband access and its implications:

• The Pew Research Center found that 5 million households with school-age children do not have broadband access. Low-income families make up a heavy share of those households.
• According to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 42 percent of teachers reported that their students lack sufficient access to technology outside of the classroom.
• Results from CoSN’s 2016 Annual Infrastructure Survey show that 75 percent of district technology leaders ranked addressing the lack of broadband access outside of school as a “very important” or “important” issue for their district to address.
• In the same survey, 68 percent of respondents reported that affordability is the greatest barrier to out-of-school broadband access.

Over time, the Lifeline Program has provided critical support for underserved Americans to help improve these trends.

In 2016, with the help of a program called ConnectHome -- a partnership between EveryoneOn and the Department of Housing and Urban Development -- the Choctaw Nation connected every single rental housing property in Talihina to low-cost internet service. Choctaw Nation was one of 28 pilot cities to join the ConnectHome initiative back in 2015. The Obama-era program has since connected some 20,000 people in those cities to the internet, and distributed more than 7,000 smartphones and laptops, funded with in-kind contributions and donations from internet providers and advocacy groups.

Now EveryoneOn is announcing its plans to take over the ConnectHome program from HUD and expand its efforts to close the digital divide in more than 100 communities, both rural and urban, by 2020. HUD will still serve on the group’s advisory board, but will no longer manage it day to day. The new entity, rebranded ConnectHome Nation, is an effort not only to grow the program but to protect it from the often mercurial whims of Washington.

The rules of broadband are changing, and local governments want a say in how they evolve.

In an ex parte filing l with the Federal Communications Commission, several municipal officials, along with a representative of the National League of Cities, outlined a recent meeting with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and a member of her legal staff. The city officials voiced their concern that the newly-formed Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) is lacking in representation from local municipal governments, and that industry executives and advisors make up an overwhelming proportion of the committee's membership. According to the letter, the officials "encouraged the Commission to work in the direction of partnership with, rather than preemption of, local officials, who share the Commission's goal of closing the digital divide."

The National League of Cities notes that more local representatives have been appointed to BDAC working groups of late, but the organization argues that working group participation isn't enough and that the Commission should "increase the number and diversity of local officials on the BDAC to a level comparable with the number and diversity of industry officials."

It is an era of unprecedented interest in broadband as a platform of economic and community development. Advanced communications networks are increasingly recognized as a growing engine for economic activity, democratic participation, healthcare, and education. Local governments, in particular, increasingly embrace opportunities to develop next-generation broadband in their communities—and to reap the many benefits that broadband will deliver to their residents and businesses. Emerging public–private partnership (P3) models present a promising alternative to the traditional “municipal broadband” or “middle mile” models for the many communities that lack the capital or expertise to deploy and operate fiber networks, or to act as Internet service providers (ISPs) on their own. These models include: 1) Public facilitation of private investment, 2) Public funding and private execution, and 2) Shared investment and risk.

Approximately 140,000+ rural homes across four states -- West Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee -- have improved broadband access, due in part to Frontier and the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund (CAF) investments. Impacted states include. With 134,000 homes, West Virginia saw the bulk of these broadband improvements. The CAF directly funded new broadband expansion to 16,900 homes there, with an additional 117,000 households seeing improved broadband capability.

Daryl Parks, the attorney representing "Cleveland Broadband Consumers" claiming AT&T is "redlining" service in Cleveland and elsewhere, is pledging to open a multi-front legal attack on the company, including raising questions about its fitness for the multi-billion-dollar contract to manage FirstNet.

AT&T has said it does not redline and continues to invest in wired and wireless broadband in Cleveland and elsewhere, but Parks is not persuaded. Parks has sent a letter to AT&T and its board warning that "in the near future" he plans to certify a class for a class action lawsuit, bring a formal redlining complaint at the FCC, and "raise with the nation’s governors the issue of AT&T’s suitability to manage the emergency communications service FirstNet, given the urgency of providing service to low-income communities by first responders in disasters such as Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina and Sandy."