U.S. Telecom Infrastructure Crisis

Analysis & commentary on America's troubled transition from analog telephone service to digital advanced telecommunications and associated infrastructure deficits.

Wednesday, February 05, 2025

Survey: About half of all households passed by fiber in 2024 -- with less than half of those connected.

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Internet connectivity is regarded as a utility as was voice telephone service before it where most every address had service. Nevertheless a...

Friday, December 27, 2024

Incoming federal government could place greater emphasis on “broadband” bandwidth over fiber, cut subsidies

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For the past three decades, U.S. advanced telecommunications policy has been bandwidth focused: defining and delivering “broadband” speed – ...

Sunday, December 08, 2024

Industry sponsored white paper points to public, consumer utility coop ownership of fiber telecom delivery infrastructure to achieve broad socioeconomic benefit.

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In the fourth decade since telecommunications began to shift to Internet protocol-based technologies, about half the connections to U.S. hom...

Friday, November 15, 2024

Incoming Congress, administration could revamp direction of BEAD from sell to buy side subsidization

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Longtime telecom blogger Doug Dawson speculates the $43.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program funded by Infra...

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Connecticut's inexplicable archipelago strategy for BEAD subsidies

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In breaking up the state into workable regions, the Connecticut broadband office is asking grant applicants to propose bringing fiber to e...

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

First with fiber: Private capital maneuvers for first mover advantage

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Some critics, including telecom writer Karl Bode, have characterized Tier 1 players’ sudden embrace of public-private partnerships, includin...

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Draft BEAD program update would give states more leeway to use LEO, FWA services using unlicensed spectrum when more economical than FTTP.

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In a March 2023 interview , U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, “If we're going to connect every American, including the tens...

Wednesday, August 07, 2024

Former FCC Chair Pai urges states to direct BEAD funds to sparsely populated counties as countywide projects

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The $42.45 billion BEAD program tasks each state with identifying unserved and underserved communities for funding. States have been thinki...

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About this blog

Fred Pilot: United States; In the early 1990s as digital, Internet protocol-based telecommunications emerged, it became clear that fiber optic technology would replace copper telephone lines of the analog pre-Internet era. But the transition from copper to fiber that should have been largely completed by the start of the second decade of the 21st century has been painfully slow and incremental. That has brought about a crisis of deficient telecommunications landline infrastructure in most of the nation. Public policymakers dither and engage in wishful thinking that wireless and satellite technologies will solve the problem. The crisis deepened in 2020 with the emergence of pandemic contagion and public health measures that increased the need for robust and affordable IP-based telecommunications to support virtual work, education and telemedicine. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a crisis as a “decisive moment,” “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending,” and “a situation that has reached a critical phase.” The state of American telecommunications infrastructure and policy is precisely at that point.

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