Lacking a global policy to support the modernization of legacy copper analog telephone infrastructure to fiber to support modern Internet protocol-based voice, video and data services, the United States has defaulted to multiple, one off piecemeal subsidy programs. Determining how these programs operate has resulted in further fragmentation into two camps. They are the broadbanders and the infrastructuralists.
The broadbanders have held sway since the 1996 Telecom Act. It directed the Federal Communications (FCC) to annually survey the deployment of advanced telecommunications infrastructure and identify and correct impediments.
The FCC chose broadband speed – how fast bytes travel to and from end user premises – as the metric by which to gauge deployment. As long as the numbers were increasing over the past three decades, the FCC declared sufficient progress.
Various subsidy programs also adopted this metric as an eligibility factor. Only premises offered specified broadband speeds falling below an arbitrary cutoff were deemed eligible. That in turn led to the creation of “broadband maps” to determine which addresses were considered served and thus ineligible and which were “unserved” or “underserved” and thus eligible.
The infrastructuralists argue this is inherently wasteful and short lived since what is deemed adequate “broadband speed” is dynamic and growing rapidly such that by the time subsidies are awarded, projects face imminent obsolescence. They favor subsidizing fiber to the premise delivery infrastructure because of its long-term life, relatively low upgrade costs and its capacity to easily accommodate the longstanding trend of increased device and data use.
The infrastructuralists’ influence peaked in 2021 when the Biden administration’s infrastructure legislation proposed appropriating $90 billion to subsidize public and utility cooperative owned fiber that the president noted have a lower cost structure since they don’t have to produce profit for investors.
Naturally, investor owned providers that dominate America’s market-based telecommunications were opposed. The bill was quickly scaled down and amended to favor the broadbander camp, using the broadband speed metric and related broadband mapping to determine subsidy eligibility.
The Biden administration proposed guidance for the amended measure’s Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program that allowed states to prioritize fiber projects in parceling out grants awarded to the states under the legislation. That gave the infrastructuralists leverage.
But the broadbanders -- particularly wireless and low earth orbit satellite services – claimed that was unfair. Americans in areas with obsolete legacy metallic infrastructure needed better service decades ago and suffered long enough. We can provide it much faster than building out fiber to them, they claimed, urging the feds to liberalize BEAD so some of the subsidies flow our way.
The broadbanders gained influence in the waning months of the Biden administration and now hold sway in the current Trump administration. In the BEAD battle, some states are claiming they know what’s best to meet the needs of their residents and businesses and insist fiber is the best use of taxpayer dollars. But the billions needed to build it largely come from Washington, giving federal policymakers the ultimate say.
As they have for decades, the broadbanders remain dominant over the infrastructuralists.
Wednesday, August 06, 2025
Saturday, August 02, 2025
Quantum enabled SDN
The company operates over a million miles of fiber and cable that deliver internet to 31.5 million homes and businesses. That means that for any piece of data to travel from Point A to Point B, there’s a near infinite number of combinations, said Elad Nafshi, Comcast’s chief network officer.
Data going into New York for example, could travel along the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel or the Amtrak train tracks, he said. And the fastest route also depends on other factors like, if there’s a fiber cut somewhere or a big surge of data into New York while everyone streams the Giants game.
Being able to calculate, in real time, all those variables to determine the optimal flow of data and deliver it at the fastest speeds for the highest number of people is something conventional computers struggle with. But, “that’s something that Quantum could do extremely well,” Nafshi said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/heres-how-quantum-computing-could-change-the-world-c7a995b1
This recalls the Cold War origins of the Internet. It was designed as ARPANET in the 1960s by the U.S. Department of Defense to provide a computerized governmental communication network that was self healing -- meaning it could automatically route around metro areas destroyed by nuclear weapon attacks.
Here, it is routing around network congestion.
Friday, July 25, 2025
Playing the long game in the fiber gold rush: Large investor owned provider overbuilding publicly owned network in small town that didn't initially pencil for private investment.
Fidium’s arrival has flummoxed local officials, partly because its parent company, Consolidated Communications, declined to build broadband infrastructure in Arrowsic years earlier, said Don Hudson, another commissioner. “It came as some surprise when all of a sudden we started seeing, essentially, a duplicated system being built on top of ours,” he said. “If it wasn’t actually happening, it would be laughable.”
Consolidated Communications, Fidium’s parent, owns many of the telephone poles in town. The local group had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to put its cables on them. That ownership has made it simple for Fidium to begin installing its own fiber without any approval from Arrowsic officials.
Machias-based internet service provider Axiom Technologies runs the town’s broadband service. Its CEO, Mark Ouellette, was also surprised to hear of Fidium’s entrance into Arrowsic. His company, which provides internet to several Maine towns, isn’t backing down.
“Typically, when another provider is in the community with fiberoptics, it’s quite a challenging business case to be made to build out fiber on top of fiber already there, especially in small places,” he said. “We are going to make a strong case that community cyber connectivity is an important asset for the community … because we return a percentage of our fees to the customer, back to the town.”
This is an interesting situation. A bigger for profit fiber ISP is overbuilding publicly owned fiber distribution infrastructure and taking advantage of its reduced barrier to entry with its ownership of the pole distribution infrastructure.
Consolidated Communications is likely playing the long game. A premises fiber connection has long term value given the 30-50 year life of the fiber plant. Large investor owned providers enjoy greater economies of scale and ability to spread costs than publicly owned networks serving a single small town such as the case here -- where both public and privately financed fiber desire to capture and keep end users.
This is the dynamic driving the fiber gold rush. A decade or two earlier, the business case for investor owned fiber turned on short term ROI that disfavored investment in smaller, less densely populated areas like Arrowsic, Maine. Now it recognizes the long term value of owning the fiber premise connection as well as the potential to sell it to an even larger player with a similar outlook.
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Lutnick’s right. Americans aren’t getting the benefit of the bargain -- of universal service.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced June 6 that the Trump administration would be revising the program rules for the $43.45 billion Broadband Equity and Deployment (BEAD) program, authorized by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA).
Lutnick said the program requires retooling in order to ensure Americans can obtain the full “benefit of the bargain” Congress intended in enacting the IIJA: broadband deployment. The Biden administration, in keeping with the infrastructure construction and modernization intent of the IIJA, administered BEAD with an infrastructure focus and specifically fiber to the premises (FTTP) and middle mile advanced telecommunications infrastructure.
The current administration however is reverting to the policy framework in place since the 1990s. It defines “broadband” as a service based on specified “high speed” throughput. The infrastructure to deliver it isn’t specified in this “technology neural” policy. In the original version of the IIJA, it was: FTTP. That fell away in a subsequent amendment of the legislation. (See earlier blog post here).
By deemphasizing landline infrastructure and instead making BEAD subsidies available for cheaper and less reliable non-landline infrastructure delivered service as fixed wireless and low earth orbit satellite, the Trump administration will “connect more Americans to broadband more quickly, and at a lower cost to the American taxpayer,” said Lutnick, who also serves as acting administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), charged with implementing BEAD.
However, Americans have never gotten the real benefit of the bargain: universal service of Internet protocol-based advanced telecommunications delivered by landline like voice telephone service before it. The expectation of that bargain was expressed as public policy in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, the Act “expanded the traditional goal of universal service to include increased access to both telecommunications and advanced services …for all consumers at just, reasonable and affordable rates.”
The closest federal policy came to mandating universal access to advanced telecommunications was in 2015 when the FCC placed Internet protocol telecommunications under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, classifying it as a common carrier utility requiring reasonable requests for service be honored and barring neighborhood redlining. The FCC declined to enforce its regulation adopting the reclassification and ultimately reversed course in 2018, repealing it.
The IIJA did not affirmatively express public policy of universal service. It merely stated findings that access is “essential to full participation in modern life in the United States.” Universal service is described in the legislation by its inverse: a “persistent ‘digital divide’ in the United States.” It charged states receiving planning grants to only determine how long it would take to construct infrastructure providing universal service.
That Americans have not seen universal landline delivered advanced telecommunications reflects a longstanding problem of insufficient political will for policy ensuring fiber would reach most every American doorstep. That would constitute “belt and suspenders” advanced telecommunications infrastructure that would serve well into the 21st century.
Instead, Americans have seen numerous, limited one off subsidies largely directed to investor owned providers with limited capacity to invest. Often that has meant no FTTP belt and only wireless suspenders to reliably hold up the trousers of its connectivity needs over the long term.
Lutnick said the program requires retooling in order to ensure Americans can obtain the full “benefit of the bargain” Congress intended in enacting the IIJA: broadband deployment. The Biden administration, in keeping with the infrastructure construction and modernization intent of the IIJA, administered BEAD with an infrastructure focus and specifically fiber to the premises (FTTP) and middle mile advanced telecommunications infrastructure.
The current administration however is reverting to the policy framework in place since the 1990s. It defines “broadband” as a service based on specified “high speed” throughput. The infrastructure to deliver it isn’t specified in this “technology neural” policy. In the original version of the IIJA, it was: FTTP. That fell away in a subsequent amendment of the legislation. (See earlier blog post here).
By deemphasizing landline infrastructure and instead making BEAD subsidies available for cheaper and less reliable non-landline infrastructure delivered service as fixed wireless and low earth orbit satellite, the Trump administration will “connect more Americans to broadband more quickly, and at a lower cost to the American taxpayer,” said Lutnick, who also serves as acting administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), charged with implementing BEAD.
However, Americans have never gotten the real benefit of the bargain: universal service of Internet protocol-based advanced telecommunications delivered by landline like voice telephone service before it. The expectation of that bargain was expressed as public policy in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, the Act “expanded the traditional goal of universal service to include increased access to both telecommunications and advanced services …for all consumers at just, reasonable and affordable rates.”
The closest federal policy came to mandating universal access to advanced telecommunications was in 2015 when the FCC placed Internet protocol telecommunications under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, classifying it as a common carrier utility requiring reasonable requests for service be honored and barring neighborhood redlining. The FCC declined to enforce its regulation adopting the reclassification and ultimately reversed course in 2018, repealing it.
The IIJA did not affirmatively express public policy of universal service. It merely stated findings that access is “essential to full participation in modern life in the United States.” Universal service is described in the legislation by its inverse: a “persistent ‘digital divide’ in the United States.” It charged states receiving planning grants to only determine how long it would take to construct infrastructure providing universal service.
That Americans have not seen universal landline delivered advanced telecommunications reflects a longstanding problem of insufficient political will for policy ensuring fiber would reach most every American doorstep. That would constitute “belt and suspenders” advanced telecommunications infrastructure that would serve well into the 21st century.
Instead, Americans have seen numerous, limited one off subsidies largely directed to investor owned providers with limited capacity to invest. Often that has meant no FTTP belt and only wireless suspenders to reliably hold up the trousers of its connectivity needs over the long term.
Monday, May 19, 2025
Multiple factors align against universal FTTP over near term
Each state and territory then must set up and administer its own broadband infrastructure grant program using the statutory framework to distribute the money to the internet service providers that will be building the networks. Importantly, Congress directed that each state and territory must ensure every broadband serviceable location in its jurisdiction gets connectivity as a condition of receiving the bulk of BEAD funding. (Emphasis added)
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA) as the 1996 Telecommunications Act before it states public policy intent of universal advanced telecom service. The IIJA placed responsibility on the states to implement it. The IIJA appropriated $43.45 billion for delivery infrastructure to the states as “once in a generation” seed funding under the law’s Broadband Equity and Deployment (BEAD) program.
BEAD required states to develop Five Year Action Plans with timelines to achieve universal service. It also requires states to "rigorously explore ways” to cover the cost of advanced telecommunications infrastructure builds eligible for BEAD subsidies with other sources of funding. BEAD program rules developed by the Biden administration require they include “a comprehensive, high-level plan attain universal service.”
As the plans were filed with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in 2023, it became clear states would have to come up with significant organic funding sources. Oregon’s plan indicated the state would need nearly five times its $689 million BEAD allocation to build universal fiber to the premises (FTTP) infrastructure at an estimated cost of $3.3 billion deployed over a five year period.
Similarly, California’s plan stated the Golden State is unable to assure timely construction of universal FTTP infrastructure – estimated to cost $9.78 billion including infrastructure hardening in areas with high wildfire risk – because less than half that amount is available as federal and state subsidy funding. The plan offered no strategy to bridge the gap such as a state bond measure.
Consequently, states and also the federal government that assumed office this year are looking to wireless delivery technologies such as fixed terrestrial wireless and low earth orbit satellite. That has sparked controversy over whether dollars appropriated under the IIJA are best invested funding durable infrastructure in line with the bill’s infrastructure focus or emphasizing service delivery to get more American homes connected.
The likely outcome of this debate as far the as the IIJA is concerned will favor the later. The IIJA’s telecom infrastructure funding formula isn’t oriented to infrastructure despite the bill’s purpose and title. Rather, it’s based on need and specifically deepening bandwidth constraints that exist because FTTP has not timely been deployed to replace legacy copper telephone delivery infrastructure incapable of handling ever increasing Internet protocol-based service demand. Only half of all U.S. households had access to FTTP connections in 2024 according to the Fiber Broadband Association’s 2024 Fiber Deployment survey by RVA LLC Market Research & Consulting (RVA).
While the Biden administration nevertheless prioritized funding FTTP, impatience with poor service options in less densely populated areas that have existed for many years as well as short term fiscal conservatism – are combining with the IIJA’s service orientation and the lack of adequately funded state plans to attain universal FTTP to mitigate against universal FTTP over the near term. Another major factor is deteriorated utility poles that increases costs via replacement or resort to more costly underground infrastructure as well as patchwork of pole ownership and access hurdles.
Thursday, March 06, 2025
Origin of “tech neutral” shift for BEAD subsidies lies in 2021 infrastructure bill
This week’s policy shift on the advanced telecommunications infrastructure subsidy component of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to make it “tech neutral” and give less preference to fiber to the premises (FTTP) has its origins in 2021 as the IIJA was being enacted. The change -- which emphasizes rapid deployment -- is expected afford greater consideration to subsidizing providers of fixed terrestrial wireless and low earth orbit (LEO) satellite Internet.
The original bill sponsored by the Biden administration would have appropriated $100 billion for fiber infrastructure to be primarily deployed by local governments, nonprofits and consumer cooperatives. The administration noted supporting these entities would allow subsidy dollars to go further since they operate without the need to generate profits for investor-owned entities.
Opposition from legacy telephone and cable companies watered down the bill to cut the funding to $43.45 billion for delivery infrastructure. Instead of FTTP, the bill employed a throughput versus infrastructure-based standard for the subsidies.
Accordingly, the funding program was chartered as Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD). Funding was restricted to premises not able to obtain bandwidth of 25Mbs down and 3Mbps up. “Broadband” was defined as 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up with latency of 100 milliseconds or less.
At that point, the legislation – nominally dedicated to improving various categories of essential infrastructure – deemphasized infrastructure and instead the level of “broadband” service available at a given address. It retained a market-based policy despite widespread market failure the bill was intended to mitigate. This favored incumbent telephone and cable companies looking to incrementally edge out their existing infrastructures and providing a substantial degree of protection from publicly owned and utility cooperative operators.
The administration however sought to maintain an FTTP infrastructure focus in its rules for the BEAD program, describing it as less prone to obsolescence and thus able to deliver the best long-term value.
This week’s policy shift and the designation of throughput – broadband – in the IIJA now puts fixed wireless and satellite providers on a strong footing for subsidization. They could plausibly argue that any technology that can deliver “broadband” as specified in the IIJA should be eligible.
The original bill sponsored by the Biden administration would have appropriated $100 billion for fiber infrastructure to be primarily deployed by local governments, nonprofits and consumer cooperatives. The administration noted supporting these entities would allow subsidy dollars to go further since they operate without the need to generate profits for investor-owned entities.
Opposition from legacy telephone and cable companies watered down the bill to cut the funding to $43.45 billion for delivery infrastructure. Instead of FTTP, the bill employed a throughput versus infrastructure-based standard for the subsidies.
Accordingly, the funding program was chartered as Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD). Funding was restricted to premises not able to obtain bandwidth of 25Mbs down and 3Mbps up. “Broadband” was defined as 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up with latency of 100 milliseconds or less.
At that point, the legislation – nominally dedicated to improving various categories of essential infrastructure – deemphasized infrastructure and instead the level of “broadband” service available at a given address. It retained a market-based policy despite widespread market failure the bill was intended to mitigate. This favored incumbent telephone and cable companies looking to incrementally edge out their existing infrastructures and providing a substantial degree of protection from publicly owned and utility cooperative operators.
The administration however sought to maintain an FTTP infrastructure focus in its rules for the BEAD program, describing it as less prone to obsolescence and thus able to deliver the best long-term value.
This week’s policy shift and the designation of throughput – broadband – in the IIJA now puts fixed wireless and satellite providers on a strong footing for subsidization. They could plausibly argue that any technology that can deliver “broadband” as specified in the IIJA should be eligible.
Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Survey: About half of all households passed by fiber in 2024 -- with less than half of those connected.
Internet connectivity is regarded as a utility as was voice telephone service before it where most every address had service. Nevertheless as legacy telephone companies replace the twisted pair copper that delivered voice telephone service, less than half of the homes where it is available have fiber service, according to the Fiber Broadband Association’s 2024 Fiber Deployment survey by RVA LLC Market Research & Consulting (RVA).
The 2024 survey estimates suggests that fiber now passes 56.5 percent of U.S. households with a bit less than half – around 45 percent – having fiber service. With IP connectivity considered a utility, one might expect that figure to be much higher, around 90 percent or more. Particularly given the pent up demand accumulated over decades as Internet Protocol (IP)-based services such as the web, email, and streaming video accelerated and IP connectivity became an essential element of commerce, education and medical care. Also, given fiber’s high desirability for reliability and capacity.
The most likely explanation is the growth of IP service over coax cable television infrastructure that grew rapidly since the mid-2000s as telephone companies delayed the transition to fiber, instead using their existing copper networks with digital subscriber line (DSL) technology.
Another probable factor that began to take off in the following decade is the smartphone. That allowed people to gain both mobile and home IP connectivity. Over the past few years, mobile providers like Verizon and T-Mobile have rolled out fixed wireless technology that some households are using instead of higher priced cable service.
The infrastructure for this service can be put in place much faster than fiber to the home. Until it reaches a natural capacity limit due to the technical limitations of high radio frequencies to reliably deliver service, it will satisfy at least some household demand for connectivity and deemphasize the role of fiber in meeting it.
The 2024 survey estimates suggests that fiber now passes 56.5 percent of U.S. households with a bit less than half – around 45 percent – having fiber service. With IP connectivity considered a utility, one might expect that figure to be much higher, around 90 percent or more. Particularly given the pent up demand accumulated over decades as Internet Protocol (IP)-based services such as the web, email, and streaming video accelerated and IP connectivity became an essential element of commerce, education and medical care. Also, given fiber’s high desirability for reliability and capacity.
The most likely explanation is the growth of IP service over coax cable television infrastructure that grew rapidly since the mid-2000s as telephone companies delayed the transition to fiber, instead using their existing copper networks with digital subscriber line (DSL) technology.
Another probable factor that began to take off in the following decade is the smartphone. That allowed people to gain both mobile and home IP connectivity. Over the past few years, mobile providers like Verizon and T-Mobile have rolled out fixed wireless technology that some households are using instead of higher priced cable service.
The infrastructure for this service can be put in place much faster than fiber to the home. Until it reaches a natural capacity limit due to the technical limitations of high radio frequencies to reliably deliver service, it will satisfy at least some household demand for connectivity and deemphasize the role of fiber in meeting it.
Friday, December 27, 2024
Incoming federal government could place greater emphasis on “broadband” bandwidth over fiber, cut subsidies
For the past three decades, U.S. advanced telecommunications policy has been bandwidth focused: defining and delivering “broadband” speed – and not modernizing the nation’s legacy metallic telephone and cable TV delivery infrastructure to fiber. That policy focus is likely to gain greater emphasis with a new federal government taking office in 2025.
Blair Levin, a widely quoted analyst and former U.S. Federal Communications Commission official, told Fierce Network that “the biggest question is whether the new administration will take the view that satellite broadband is equal or better than terrestrial alternatives.”
More than likely it will given president-elect Donald Trump’s indicated approval for LEO satellite internet service over subsidizing fiber to the premises (FTTP) landline infrastructure preferred by the Biden administration’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program.
In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan less than two weeks before his election, Trump impliedly suggested Congress could end subsidies for FTTP, pointing to Elon Musk’s Starlink LEO satellite Internet service. “We're spending a trillion dollars to get cables all over the country, right up to upstate areas where you have like two farms,” Trump told Rogan. “And they're spending millions of dollars [via BEAD]…Elon can do it for nothing.”
Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) President Gary Bolton holds out hope modernizing twisted pair copper and coax cable delivery infrastructure to fiber will nevertheless remain on the table in the incoming government. "We’re optimistic the new Congress and administration will provide opportunities to build out more robust rural fiber connectivity," Bolton said in a statement to Fierce Network.
Blair Levin, a widely quoted analyst and former U.S. Federal Communications Commission official, told Fierce Network that “the biggest question is whether the new administration will take the view that satellite broadband is equal or better than terrestrial alternatives.”
More than likely it will given president-elect Donald Trump’s indicated approval for LEO satellite internet service over subsidizing fiber to the premises (FTTP) landline infrastructure preferred by the Biden administration’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program.
In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan less than two weeks before his election, Trump impliedly suggested Congress could end subsidies for FTTP, pointing to Elon Musk’s Starlink LEO satellite Internet service. “We're spending a trillion dollars to get cables all over the country, right up to upstate areas where you have like two farms,” Trump told Rogan. “And they're spending millions of dollars [via BEAD]…Elon can do it for nothing.”
Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) President Gary Bolton holds out hope modernizing twisted pair copper and coax cable delivery infrastructure to fiber will nevertheless remain on the table in the incoming government. "We’re optimistic the new Congress and administration will provide opportunities to build out more robust rural fiber connectivity," Bolton said in a statement to Fierce Network.
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