Looking back a generation shows still unrealized U.S. policy vision

Excerpted from Service Unavailable: America’s Telecommunications Infrastructure Crisis (2015):

U.S policymaking on Internet infrastructure began shortly before the Internet was decommissioned as a government-run network in the mid-1990s. In 1993, the Clinton administration issued a policy framework titled The National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action.[i] It called for the construction of an “advanced National Information Infrastructure (NII),” described as “a seamless web of communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer electronics that will put vast amounts of information at users’ fingertips.” Development of the NII, the document stated, “can help unleash an information revolution that will change forever the way people live, work, and interact with each other.” For example:

· People could live almost anywhere they wanted, without foregoing opportunities for useful and fulfilling employment, by “telecommuting” to their offices through an electronic highway;

· The best schools, teachers, and courses would be available to all students, without regard to geography, distance, resources, or disability;

· Services that improve America’s health care system and respond to other important social needs could be available on-line, without waiting in line, when and where you needed them.

Among its nine principles and goals, the policy called for extending the universal service concept to ensure that information resources are available to all at affordable prices. “Because information means empowerment, the government has a duty to ensure that all Americans have access to the resources of the Information Age,” the policy declared.

In addition to this policy document, the Clinton administration sponsored legislation championed by then Vice President Al Gore, who foresaw the coming role Internet-based telecommunications would play in the future. The Telecommunications Infrastructure Act of 1993 created a framework for its integration with the Communications Act of 1934.[ii] The legislation, which was not enacted and died in Congress, included several findings. The first three findings stated that:

(1) it is in the public interest to encourage the further development of the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure as a means of enhancing the quality of life and promoting economic development and international competitiveness;

(2) telecommunications infrastructure development is particularly crucial to the continued economic development of rural areas that may lack an adequate industrial or service base for continued development;

(3) advancements of the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure will increase the public welfare by helping to speed the delivery of new services, such as distance learning, remote medical sensing, and distribution of health information.

[i] The National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action, September 15, 1993, https://archive.org/stream/04Kahle000911/04Kahle000911_djvu.txt

[ii] Senate Bill 1086 (103rd Congress, introduced June 9, 1993), https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/s1086.

U.S. losing its build big moxie: telecom infrastructure modernization case in point

Can America Still Build Big? A California Rail Project Raises Doubts - The New York Times: The need for increased infrastructure investment has been one of America’s few remaining bipartisan issues, although left and right differ over whether public money or private money would finance it. President Barack Obama made reinvesting in roads, bridges and power plants a cornerstone of the 2009 economic stimulus package, and during the 2016 presidential campaign seemingly the only disagreement Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had on infrastructure was about which of their administrations would spend more on it. The issue unites truckers and train buffs, unions and Wall Street, economists from the left and right.

And yet, when it comes to spending the money — and actually getting things built — very little progress has been made. Following a brief spike during the recession, government investment has hovered around 3.3 percent of gross domestic product for the past few years, which is the lowest since the 1940s. In the meantime, roads, bridges and train tracks have gotten steadily older while proposals for new projects are delayed by political intransigence and legal delays.

The failure of the United States to timely modernize its legacy metallic telecommunications infrastructure built for the analog age of telephone and cable TV to fiber optic technology for the digital age is a pertinent example. Federal, state and local elected representatives uniformly proclaim the need is great with many at the state and local level saying it's the number one topic of constituent contacts. It's a major disconnect between what's needed and what's actually being built, reflecting the loss of America's moxie to think big and act big.

Meanwhile as the phone and cable companies incrementally upgrade their legacy infrastructures in search of high margin luxury "broadband speed" rents instead of bringing fiber to every doorstep as was the case with phone service, the nation is already a generation late and falling further behind where it should be in 2019. Fiber connections should have reached every home, school, business and government building by 2010 at the latest. The title of author Susan Crawford's recently published book Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution―and Why America Might Miss It points up the tardiness of this vital infrastructure reboot. It's not just a hypothetical. As Crawford's book notes, compared to other nations it already has.

Pennsylvania: Another underfunded, sloganistic statewide universal service initiative

Governor Wolf makes case for statewide broadband to support education - WFMZ: Restore Pennsylvania is an infrastructure initiative funded by the monetization of a severance tax. Restore Pennsylvania would invest $4.5 billion over the next four years in projects throughout the commonwealth. The initiative would address five priority infrastructure areas including high speed internet access, storm preparedness and disaster recovery, downstream manufacturing, business development, and energy infrastructure, demolition, revitalization, and renewal, and transportation capital projects.

States cannot achieve universal advanced telecom service with these kinds of woefully underfunded, sloganistic initiatives. There simply won't be enough money if the pot is shared with other infrastructure needs as it is here. In a state as large as Pennsylvania, it's doubtful there would be enough even if the entire sum was dedicated to telecom infrastructure. This is too big of a job for states to tackle on their own. The federal government must lead.

A hybrid model of medical care would also be good for telecommunications

Health Care Spending In The US And Taiwan: A Response To <em>It’s The Prices, And A Tribute To Uwe Reinhardt</em> | Health Affairs: Uwe Reinhardt And Taiwan’s Single-Payer Health System

In 1989, as a high-level government adviser to Taiwan when it was planning to implement universal health insurance, Uwe boldly recommended a single-payer system. Taiwan’s government accepted this recommendation in 1990 and implemented its single-payer National Health Insurance (NHI) in 1995.
Uwe based his recommendation on three policy considerations. First, a single-payer system is effective in controlling cost; this was a major policy goal of the government as health spending in Taiwan was growing rapidly. Second, a single-payer system is equitable: coverage is universal and all insured are treated equally regardless of ability to pay or preexisting conditions. Third, a single payer system is administratively simple and easy for the public to understand. The NHI has achieved all three policy goals. Uwe also suggested that Taiwan retain its predominantly private delivery system. He believed that the private sector has an important role to play in a nation’s health care system. As long as financing and payment were within the purview of government, a mixed delivery system of private and public providers could work well within a single-payer framework. Taiwan’s experience has shown this to indeed be the case. (Emphasis added)

As with health care, the Americans pay more and get less value than other nations for telecommunications services. In a parallel with advanced telecom services, many Americans find needed medical care inaccessible or unaffordable. The late health care economist Uwe Reinhardt's prescription for Taiwan was putting the government in charge of the financial side of medical care while allowing the private sector to do what it does best: providing care.

The United States should do the same for another essential and high cost service: telecommunications. Let the telecom providers do what they do best -- planning, building and operating networks -- and relieve them of the burdens of infrastructure finance and ownership. Their weaknesses here have led to widespread infrastructure deficiencies, market failure and poor value service offerings. Hybrid models get around the winner take all, win-lose dynamics and allow providers and consumers to both benefit.

FCC chief touts hybrid fiber and next gen wireless delivery infrastructure as viable alternative to FTTP

U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said a hybrid infrastructure of next generation wireless backhauled by fiber offers an alternative delivery method for fixed premise advanced telecom service where the return on investment to connect premises directly to fiber isn't adequate.

Industry observers are skeptical of this scenario, noting next generation wireless service requires the construction of substantial new fiber infrastructure to support it, significantly weakening the investment case.

Pai disagrees, arguing that sufficient fiber infrastructure is already in place to move ahead with deployment. "Part of the reason is, in terms of the possibilities of fixed wireless, given the fiber penetration that some of your members have," he told the NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association in New Orleans earlier this week. Pai urged the group to "think broadly" about "how to extend this great fiber penetration you’ve got." 

Generation into IP telecom era, AT&T still has no durable, scalable premise service delivery infrastructure

AT&T Does a Flip Flop on Fixed 5G, Now Sees It “Unequivocably” a Landline Broadband Replacement - Telecompetitor: “As we look at 5G will you have enough capacity to have a good broadband product that serves as a streaming service for all of your DIRECTV NOW, your Netflix, et cetera?” asked Stephenson in a SeekingAlpha transcript of today’s earnings call. “I absolutely am convinced that we will have that capacity, particularly as we turn up millimeter wave spectrum. That’s where the capacity and the performance comes from and that’s where you’ll begin to see a broad – a true replacement opportunity for fixed line broadband. So I have little doubt that in the three to five year time horizon you’ll start to see substitution of wireless for fixed line broadband.”

The concerns that Stephens expressed last year related primarily to the cost of backhaul to support 5G fixed wireless. Stephens apparently also was envisioning fixed 5G wireless being deployed in the millimeter wave spectrum band. Millimeter wave spectrum will support the highest broadband speeds, but over relatively short distances. Hence there is a need for dense backhaul infrastructure.

It is unclear what has caused the company to have a change of heart about the prospects for an AT&T fixed 5G wireless offering. Interestingly, however, the company recently released a policy paper touting the potential of using its AirGig fixed broadband technology in combination with 5G. Although the paper doesn’t provide details, perhaps AT&T is looking at the possibility of using AirGig to provide backhaul for fixed 5G.

A generation into IP telecom era, AT&T has no proven durable premise service delivery infrastructure easily scalable throughout its service area as its 1990s DSL over copper outside plant goes obsolete. AirGig remains an experimental technology. And the millimeter wave frequencies used by 5G can't penetrate objects.

Texas Hill Country: Where the "rural broadband" descriptor and comparisons to electric power in 1930s fail

Broadband Communities – News & Views / GVTC Launches New Fiber Internet Tier Structure in Texas: SMITHSON VALLEY, TX — GVTC, a fiber communications provider internet, digital cable TV, phone and interactive home security monitoring to residential and business customers in far north San Antonio, the Texas Hill Country and South Central Texas, is simplifying its fiber-to-the-home offerings with a new fiber internet tier structure. GVTC launched brand new fiber internet plans that feature standard download speeds of 250 Mbps in its fiber-to-the-home areas. In addition, upgrades to 500 Mbps and 1 Gbps are offered, all three plans featuring 250 Mbps upload speeds as well. New plans are available to both new and existing customers.

Despite the availability of fiber to the premise advanced telecom service in these areas, there is a continued misleading and overly broad description of America's telecom infrastructure deficiencies as a "rural broadband" issue. They've also been inaccurately compared to the lack of electric power infrastructure in the early 20th century when these same areas were completely unwired and left in the dark. Electric power infrastructure was truly a rural problem then because it didn't exist outside urbanized areas. Advanced telecom infrastructure by contrast is deployed in a far more granular manner by investor owned providers that cherry pick nominally rural neighborhoods where they believe they can earn the fastest return on investment and redline the rest.

Oregon opens broadband office to connect rural residents

Oregon opens broadband office to connect rural residents: Spokesmen from the governor’s office told StateScoop the office would essentially serve as a policy and planning hub, responsible for coordinating a statewide strategy and securing funding to ensure everyone in the state has access to high-speed internet. In Oregon, some communities in urban areas have less broadband access than others, but the issue primarily affects rural communities outside of the state’s more populous western cities.

Given the above mission statement, the office would have to include a major federal lobbying function to secure the billions needed to achieve universal advanced telecom service. And especially considering the state's budget allocates just $5 million for infrastructure projects, an amount that won't go very far statewide.

CenturyLink Down, Not Working? Nationwide Outages Reported By Users

 

CenturyLink Down, Not Working? Nationwide Outages Reported By Users

When the Internet was created in the 1960s by the U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Project Agency, it was designed to be "self healing." That means if one part of the network is taken out (in DARPA's scenario, a nuclear strike on one or more American cities), the network routes around the damaged areas and keeps functioning as a "network of networks."

As legacy telephone and cable companies became Internet Service Providers using the Internet protocol technology to deliver voice, video and data telecommunications, the survivability and redundancy built into the Internet has weakened. Too much of their network operations functions are centralized, rendering their entire national networks vulnerable to a single hardware or software glitch as shown by today's most recent outage taking down much of CenturyLink's network.

The lesson here for policymakers and regulators is the United States needs to ensure the advanced telecommunications services the Internet transports must be designed and managed to build on the original resilient design of the Internet. That could mean reducing the role of private sector, investor owned players like CenturyLink that are naturally inclined to limit network operational capabilities in order to avoid the expense of managing multiple and redundant network assets.

While technically more complex, given their vital role advanced telecommunications should be as solid and reliable as basic analog voice telephone service that preceded it.

USDA ReConnect Rural Broadband Pilot Rules Released, Allocates $600M in Loans and Grants - Telecompetitor

USDA ReConnect Rural Broadband Pilot Rules Released, Allocates $600M in Loans and Grants - Telecompetitor: To be eligible for a 100% loan or 50% loan / 50% grant, the service area must be in a rural area where 90% of the households do not have sufficient broadband access. To be eligible for a 100% grant, the service area must be rural and 100% of the households must lack sufficient broadband access.

These funds are apparently targeted to truly rural America where they'll make only a slight dent in advanced telecom infrastructure deficits. They won't help in much of the United States and particularly exurban and metro edge communities where redlining by investor owned ISPs is commonplace.

California policymakers should consider creating public utility to serve Northern California delivering electric power -- and advanced telecommunications.

Northern California’s electric utility Pacific Gas & Electric’s future as a going concern is in doubt in the aftermath of enormous wildfires in the region the past several years, most recently the disastrous Camp Fire that incinerated the town of Paradise. The investor-owned utility is potentially facing liability claims running into the many billions of dollars from deaths, injuries, property damage and fire suppression costs that it will be hard pressed to pay. This circumstance is raising the question of whether the public interest of reliable and safe electric power would be better served by a publicly owned utility.

The question presents at a pivotal time as regulators prepare to reassess PG&E’s organizational structure going forward, the Legislature begins a new biennial session and new administration is about to take office. Veteran Sacramento columnist Dan Walters suggests they explore whether California’s electric utilities should become governmental entities – regional versions of municipally owned utilities already operating in the state. “All of them have markedly lower rates than the three big private utilities, and have governing structures that are much more transparent and accountable, not only to ratepayers but to voters.”

Policymakers would be wise and forward looking to also consider expanding the scope of a publicly owned regional utility to include advanced telecommunications. Consumers would likely get a better deal there as well. Much of PG&E’s service area lacks adequate landline telecommunications infrastructure, nominally served by investor owned corporations like PG&E. A publicly owned utility would operate without the need to generate profits and could concentrate on providing the highest possible level of service and value to all – and not just some premises. Particularly when advanced telecommunications service is increasingly seen as essential as electricity.

New methods of installing fiber optic cable on poles owned by PG&E show promise to lower construction costs compared to the traditional strand and lash method of utilizing a separate metal suspension cable hung in the middle part of the pole leased by telephone and cable companies. These include lighter weight all-dielectric self-supporting cable and aerial conduit used in conjunction with smart grid technology. Smart grid technology could also improve safety management of the electric infrastructure, reducing wildfire risk.

Cooperatives served early 20th century exurban America's electricity and telephone needs, but face far more challenging situation for today's advanced telecom

Matheson: ‘We Want the Consumer to Have Real Broadband’ - America's Electric Cooperatives: NRECA CEO Jim Matheson, speaking before a Washington audience of business strategists, outlined how federal policymakers can help close the digital divide and what innovative electric cooperatives are doing to meet rural America’s broadband needs in the meantime.High-speed internet service “is important to us as electric cooperatives because we are owned by the communities we serve, communities that won’t have much of a future without broadband,” Matheson said at the Next.2018 conference held Nov. 13-15 by Bloomberg BNA, a news and analysis company.

Matheson underscored how electric co-ops are leaders in smart technology, yet Federal Communications Commission policies fail to make the most of co-op investments for broadband development. “The FCC has spent $114 billion, and there are still 23 million people without access to broadband,” he said. This gap in service is due in part to the commission’s reliance on self-reported and unverified data about internet service from incumbent providers.

Electric power was first deployed in urban areas of the United States at the start of the 20th century. That's what led to the formation of electric cooperatives in the 1930s to provide electricity outside of urban areas.

Today's advanced telecom infrastructure deficiencies are a different story. Unlike early electric power service, advanced telecom infrastructure does exist outside of urban and suburban areas. But it's generally only deployed to discrete areas where legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies believe they can earn a relatively rapid return on their capital expenditures and maintenance costs. As per the previous post on this blog, that can mean service for one house while another just down the road, around the bend or outside town limits is deemed unservicable.

Incumbents aren't keen on federal subsidies for providers desiring to serve those they do not since they potentially infringe on their territorial monopolies. Consequently, federal subsidy program rules hamstring potential alternative providers, impractically targeted at filling the only the unserved redlined holes in the incumbents' swiss cheese distribution networks. The incumbents lobby for those rules. They naturally want to maximize the size of the cheese and minimize the size of the holes in the data on infrastructure availability they are required to report to regulators under the 1996 revision of the Communications Act. The incumbent rigging of the rules leaves cooperative leaders like Matheson understandably frustrated.

When one premise has advanced telecom service and another nearby does not, it's not a "rural broadband" issue

Electric coops could end Mississippi's broadband 'deserts': What’s considered a “broadband desert” can be deceptive. My elderly parents, for example, live in a rural area between two cities that are served by broadband, but still can only get basic dial-up services. People just up the road can receive broadband from AT&T, and when we recently inquired about services, AT&T looked up the address, assured us they could help and dispatched a technician. But when the tech showed up and tried to install the equipment, he apologetically explained that the home was just out of reach. He was sympathetic to my parents’ plight, and it wasn’t his fault, but it was just not happening.

This account illustrates why America's advanced telecom infrastructure deficiencies cannot accurately be described as a "rural broadband" problem as it's typically dubbed in both mainstream and info tech media. As has been the case for at least a decade as reported on this blog, the problem is redlining by legacy incumbent ISPs with no universal service requirement as exists for traditional voice telephone service. One premise is offered service while another nearby is not. That wasn't the case with electric power distribution infrastructure in the early 20th century. That was truly a rural issue since rural areas were bereft of electric power service.

Purpose of "broadband maps" is to protect legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies, delay progress

FCC leaders say we need a 'national mission' to fix rural broadband - CNET: But before you can really get things going, you have to address one key issue, Rosenworcel said.
"Our broadband maps are terrible," she said. "If we're going to solve this nation's broadband problems, then the first thing we have to do is fix those maps. We need to know where broadband is and is not in every corner of this country." You can't solve a problem you can't measure, she added.

And one can't reach a destination or goal without a plan. Rather than serve that purpose, American policymakers have instead used "broadband maps" to protect legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies and delay progress. They're continuing the fool's errand the incumbents assigned them. Policymakers instead need to set the goal of bringing fiber to every home, school and business and work from the rebuttable presumption that it doesn't exist in most of the nation.