Sunday, November 26, 2023

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021 marked start of fundamental shift in U.S. telecom policy

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021 marked the beginning of a fundamental shift in how the United States regards what it termed in the 1996 Telecommunications Act as advanced telecommunications based on Internet protocol (IP). It’s evolving from a commercial information service as it’s currently regarded and lightly regulated by the Federal Communications Commission to critical infrastructure.

But not fully. It’s still referred to in the IIJA as “broadband:” the incremental evolution since 1998 in throughput from narrowband dialup and changing FCC definitions of it since then. With those definitions based on the business models of the large telephone and cable companies that market bandwidth in price tiered increments.

As might be expected with evolving public policy, it reflects both old and newer thinking. Current policy regards advanced telecommunications as critical infrastructure on one hand as expressed by the IIJA and as a commercial information service -- with access to information priced on the bandwidth of the connection to access it, i.e., “broadband by the bucket” on the other. 

Authorized by the IIJA, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) subsidy program eligibility guidance increases the bandwidth base level from 1990s narrowband dialup to first generation ADSL (i.e. <25/3 with latency > 100ms) and explicitly favors fiber to the premises (FTTP). The latter is an infrastructure versus a throughput-based standard, although the IIJA continues to utilize a minimum coaxial cable throughput standard (100Mbps down/20Mbps up). Locations not offered that level of throughput are secondarily eligible for BEAD subsidization as “underserved.”

Notably, AT&T is urging states to allow it to qualify for BEAD subsidies for contiguous projects to upgrade both generations of copper delivered Digital Subscriber Line (DSL): first generation ADSL (as unserved) and VDSL (underserved). That’s because locations in AT&T’s service area fall into both categories and are often in proximity -- a function both of the limited technological range of each generation of DSL over decades-old legacy twisted pair copper as well as AT&T’s decisions on where it deployed DSL. 

Some neighborhoods were never offered ADSL while others were, provided they were sufficiently close to telephone central offices and remote DSLAMs. Second generation VDSL is even more limited in range and was deployed to serve denser, cherry picked neighborhoods where cable is often also available. BEAD program rules would allow AT&T to propose projects comprised of a mix of "unserved" and "underserved" locations down to the individual address since the rules define an eligible project as one of just discrete number of addresses or even a single address.

In the not too distant future as advanced telecommunications becomes increasingly FTTP infrastructure-based, the notion of "broadband" bandwidth that bears relevance for legacy metallic landline delivery infrastructure will become obsolete.

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