Desperate for fiber connectivity amid pandemic, states grasp for constrained federal funding

The long road to expand NH broadband - NH Business Review: Federal requirements for the CARES Act — such as the requirement broadband networks are prepared to make residential connections by Dec. 15 or else not be reimbursed — were meant to expedite projects to meet immediate needs. Bordering on unrealistic, the guidelines were criticized by the Monadnock Broadband Group and others interviewed by NH Business Review for excluding efforts that were already underway or could have made planning inroads with financial assistance.  “We put an initial $50 million into the fund because it was completely unknown what the application process would yield,” said Sununu. “I think we could have done a lot more with this money, but we just didn’t have the time. That was one of the biggest drawbacks is the time constraints the federal government put on these dollars.”

States desperately need federal funding to build fiber to the premise advanced telecom infrastructure now that homes due to pandemic public health measures now serve as workplaces, classroom, medical clinics and require robust symmetric connectivity. Feeling the pain most sharply are homes lacking access to commercial fiber providers due to neighborhood redlining and monthly rates out of reach for economically stressed households.

As this article highlights, navigating the tight constraints placed available federal funding is producing frustration. CARES Act funding is designed as short term emergency funding to help state and local governments cover costs related to responding to the pandemic and not specifically purposed for longer term infrastructure projects.

Broadband Breakfast: Open Access Network Builders Discuss Ownership Models for Next Generation Broadband Infrastructure

Broadband Breakfast: Open Access Network Builders Discuss Ownership Models for Next Generation Broadband Infrastructure: Panelists agreed in order to fund fiber to the last mile, it is necessary to build into cities first, where network adaption will be high. This will generate the necessary revenue to build into sparser neighborhoods.

This is basically the same model employed by investor owned incumbent telephone and cable companies that brought the United States to the place it is today with big gaps in advanced telecom infrastructure and two thirds of homes not having access to a fiber to the prem #FTTP connection.

It cannot scale up quickly enough to catch up the nation to where it should be in 2020 but for its excessive reliance on investor owned providers that led to these shortcomings. The nation needs a crash build public project to bring #FTTP to nearly every American doorstep. The current viral pandemic control measures that shifted knowledge work out of centralized commute-in offices made its advanced telecom infrastructure deficits painfully apparent.

Rapid rise in work from home #WFH drives demand for enterprise grade connectivity

As states and localities put in place contagion control measures that shut down centralized commute in offices in mid-March of this year, many knowledge workers migrated to working at home. But with only about a third of all U.S. homes having access to fiber to the premise (FTTP) connections, many found their home connections wanting.

They are less secure than enterprise connections. Bandwidth is tight and competes with other users in the household such as students engaged in online learning and video entertainment streaming. Service from legacy telephone and cable companies is optimized for streaming video entertainment with asymmetric circuits allocating much more bandwidth to downloading than uploading. That’s not optimal for virtual knowledge work that often involves the use of two-way videoconferencing and virtual private networking.

The virtual office in the cloud needs fiber connectivity. A co-working space company offering its aptly branded CloudVO (virtual office) recognizes this need. It sells passes for access to these spaces offering what it describes as enterprise-grade connectivity – presumably FTTP.

Meanwhile, AT&T recently rolled out a new business offering aimed at bringing enterprise grade connectivity to home-based knowledge workers. AT&T’s Home Office Connectivity however isn’t FTTP per se. It would also use business class fixed wireless service supported by its mobile 4G LTE infrastructure where there’s no FTTP infrastructure and as a backup network. But that’s where the service becomes decidedly more residential than business class. It’s sold in bandwidth consumption tiers of 8, 12 and 50 Mbps at $80, $130 and $200 monthly, respectively.

The target market for Home Office Connectivity is businesses, not the homes of home-based knowledge workers according to AT&T:

The service enables businesses of any size to extend enterprise broadband connectivity throughout their workforce, whether it is for a single additional line or thousands. It also simplifies onboarding and management with consolidated invoicing directed to the business, single-number enterprise customer care, and professional on-site installation by a certified AT&T technician.

The line between residential and business service in the legacy telephone company business structure is becoming blurred.

AT&T should add residential FTTP service where it has installed fiber

It’s Hard to Like AT&T | POTs and PANs: Over the last year, I’ve said some nice things about AT&T. It was nice to see AT&T wholeheartedly embrace their commitment to build fiber past 12 million homes as they had promised as part of the conditions of buying DirecTV. In the past, they might have shrugged that obligation off and faked it, but they’ve brought fiber to pockets of residential neighborhoods all over the country. It seemed that they were unenthusiastic about this requirement at first, but eventually embraced when somebody at the company realized that new fiber could be profitable.

Doug Dawson’s right. It is indeed good to see badly outdated legacy copper plant being modernized to fiber to the prem (FTTP) infrastructure by one of the nation’s biggest telcos. It’s at least a decade overdue. But the downside it’s just a few discrete residential “pockets” as Dawson points out amid recent indications from AT&T that it will be dialing back its landline capital expenditures.

Moreover, in parts of AT&T’s service territory, services on these new fiber installs are being limited to enterprise customers willing and able to afford rates at hundreds of dollars per month and higher. Nearby residences that could be served by drops from the new fiber are relegated to DSL over aging copper twisted pair. Or in some cases, asymmetric 10/1Mbps fixed wireless service in exurban areas that competes for limited mobile bandwidth since it runs on top of mobile wireless infrastructure.

These exurbs typically have population densities of more than 200 people per square mile, where fixed wireless and limited fiber to the home are best suited, according to a Microsoft-sponsored study by the Boston Consulting Group. That study was done in 2017. The appetite for residential bandwidth has increased since then. And it’s likely spiked higher in recent weeks as more people work, study and get medical attention at home during the SARS-CoV-2 contagion, using videoconferencing that requires the symmetrical connectivity fiber enables. Those bandwidth intensive activities are likely to persist to a greater degree after the pandemic ends than they did before.

The vast majority of residential customers and home office and teleworkers are not going to be willing or able to afford paying several hundred dollars a month for business class service offerings. AT&T should consider adding residential service at accessible residential rates in areas where it has already has installed fiber or it’s in the works.

California: Use bonds for public utilty, consumer coop-owned fiber to the premise telecom infrastructure as stimulus

Don’t expect an economic stimulus package using state tax money.States can’t print dollars like the feds can. President Trump and Congress will do all the stimulating. But (California Senate President pro tempore Toni) Atkins and (Assembly Speaker Anthony) Rendon want to tap into infrastructure bonds that have already been authorized by voters and quickly push the borrowed money out into job-creating projects. There’s $42 billion in unsold bond authorization.

Source: Newsom wields California executive power amid coronavirus - Los Angeles Times

That bonding capacity should be tapped to fund public utility and consumer coop-owned fiber to the premise telecom infrastructure as an economic stimulus initiative. Not only would doing so directly create jobs; it would also provide a boost to California's knowledge and information economy. Particularly as its constituents rely on advanced telecommunications services to work at home and especially those in Northern California counties lacking good infrastructure. They need robust and reliable connectivity only fiber can offer.

FCC head Ajit Pai grossly mischaracterizes telecom infrastructure as competitive market

Pai Explains Commission's Coronavirus Philosophy - Radio World: But I also think that the market creates powerful incentives for companies to do the right thing. If your company doesn’t step up for you, or even worse, engages in bad behavior, consumers will be much more likely to turn to the competition in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

Pai's right. But only when it comes to competitive markets. Telecommunications infrastructure isn't one due to high cost barriers that keep out potential competitors and first mover (incumbent) advantage that make it a natural monopoly or duopoly. It's simply not economic to have multiple lines running to a home to deliver Internet protocol-based telecommunications services.

I’d also argue that the general regulatory approach that we have in the United States have applied to the broadband marketplace gave us much stronger infrastructure in the first place, as it gave companies the incentives to invest in resilient, robust networks that could withstand unprecedented consumer demands. (Emphasis added)

This requires some explaining on Pai's part. With competitive market forces absent and no regulatory requirement to meet market demand by requiring they provide fiber connections to homes asking for them, legacy telephone companies lack incentive to invest in replacing their decades old copper lines with fiber. Only fiber to the premise #FTTP can assuredly support "resilient, robust networks that could withstand unprecedented consumer demands."

U.S. policymakers should expedite public option #FTTP infrastructure planning, construction

Rebuilding and modernizing America’s infrastructure has taken on greater urgency in the current sharp economic downturn. Those efforts should expedite the planning and construction of advanced telecommunications infrastructure whose role has taken on greater importance as people work, study and receive medical care at home to prevent contagion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

As people are thrown out of work by public health efforts to contain the pandemic, construction of this infrastructure should create an accessible and affordable “public option” for originating and receiving high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video. Doing so will create jobs while supporting post pandemic economic recovery.

Legislation should be enacted quickly that would create a make available to state, regional and local governments and consumer electric and telecom cooperatives:

• Technical assistance grants for fiber optic to the premise (FTTP) infrastructure design and business planning;
• Guaranteed low interest loans backed by federal government for FTTP projects with engineering designs and business plans meeting specified quality and level of service standards.

U.S. telecom infrastructure deficiencies inaccurately described as "rural broadband" problem

Neighborhood broadband data makes it clear: We need an agenda to fight digital poverty: The digital gap between urban and rural parts of the country tends to garner the most attention. However, our analysis of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) data tells another story: The majority of digitally disconnected households live in metropolitan areas, and the gaps are especially large when comparing neighborhoods within the same place. Effectively, some residents live in digital poverty even as their neighbors thrive.

Poor connectivity within metro areas has not gotten the attention it deserves, particularly as their residents seek more affordable housing in more distant suburbs and exurbs that typically lack modern fiber to the premise #FTTP telecom infrastructure. Much of the media narrative instead is based on a circa 1950 version of the United States. At that time, residential settlement was much more binary, divided among urban and rural areas. This has also led to outdated and inaccurate comparisons of poor "rural broadband" to lack of electric power and telephone infrastructure in rural areas in the early part of the 20th century.

Elizabeth Warren’s telecom policy: First FTTP infrastructure, then level of service standard

A major flaw in current U.S. telecom policy is that takes a completely backwards approach. Instead of first establishing an infrastructure standard – fiber to the premise (FTTP) – it begins with a level of service standard: bandwidth. That set the stage for years of unproductive debate over what constitutes an acceptable level of throughput for Internet service, mostly measured in bandwidth but also latency. At the same time, bandwidth demand doubles about every three years. What was deemed sufficient bandwidth not long ago soon becomes less than adequate. Policymakers end up chasing their tails, caught on the downside of the bandwidth growth curve and skating to where the puck was instead of where it’s going.

Unhappy with slow and congested bandwidth, Americans continually pressure their elected representatives for more bandwidth to support faster throughput, making it one of the top issues for their constituents. Nationwide, the politicians are listening. Hearing their constituent complaints, they proclaim the problem is poor “broadband speeds.” “Better broadband” is the obvious solution. But among them, only Sen. Elizabeth Warren seems to correctly understand the issue. She has put the chips in the correct order in her presidential campaign’s telecom policy. First, it sets forth an infrastructure standard, proposing generous federal grants to electricity and telephone cooperatives, non-profit organizations, tribes, cities, counties, and other state subdivisions to build FTTP reaching every American home. Second, it establishes a level of service standard: symmetrical bandwidth of at least 100 Mbps both directions.