Administration favors fiber advanced telecom infrastructure for IIJA funding. Law could advantage governments and utility cooperatives.

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded networks should be built to stand the test of time and be fast enough to accommodate current and future needs. Given current demand and evolving technologies, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law programs should prioritize the fastest speeds possible and require a minimum of at least 100/20 Mbps. Relatedly, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding should prioritize fiber-to-the-home wherever practical to future-proof the infrastructure. At the same time, respondents expressed the need for states to have flexibility to utilize both fixed and wireless technologies to fully reach all Americans and called for the ability to substitute fixed wireless and satellite options where fiber is not cost-effective or where no provider is willing to offer fiber. (Emphasis added)

The administration today clearly affirmed its preference for fiber optics for advanced telecom delivery infrastructure funded by the Infrastructure Investment of Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA), shifting away from the technology neutral policy of the 1996 Telecom Act.

The IIJA prioritizes grant funding for up to 75 percent of capital costs of deploying advanced telecommunications infrastructure for projects where at least 80 percent of the premises to be served are not advertised landline or wireless connectivity of at least 25 Mbps for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads.

But capital project construction is only part of the overall cost. The fiber infrastructure must also be maintained and repaired. Field electronic equipment must be updated and replaced every several years. These additional costs may deter a commercial entity that must earn a profit for its investors from building fiber in the sparsely populated areas deemed "unserved" under the IIJA and prioritized for funding. That would favor governmental operators and consumer utility cooperatives that operate without the burden of generating profits and paying income taxes, particularly if the federal government deems that grants awarded under the IIJA are taxable income.

U.S. advanced telecom policy has produced highly fragmented infrastructure, wide access disparities

Before the National Broadband Plan, policy groups did not truly work together to create broadband implementation strategy, Baller said. The project in which he was involved helped establish that a national unified plan for expansion was necessary in order for internet access to actually increase.Groups did not “think how their interests and others worked together,” he said.

 

This unified approach still impacts the strategy behind implementation today of Congress’ 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Further, his experiences consulting with Google’s Fiber for Communities project influenced how he has approached his work to ensure implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

 

The goal is to maximize the effect to close the digital divide. And the tool to do that, according to Baller, is to focus on local broadband deployments: Look at where incumbents lagging in their efforts to deploy higher capacity broadband.

 

https://discuss.broadband.money/c/get-broadband-grant-alerts-news/jim-baller-is-a-resolute-champion-of-municipalities-building-broadband

 

This assessment is way off the mark. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan issued in 2010 hasn't produced a unified national approach to modernizing the nation's outdated copper-based telecommunications delivery infrastructure to fiber. Instead, it's highly fragmented with only about a third of all homes with access to fiber connections from a mix of investor-owned, utility cooperative and government owned infrastructure. In many areas, stopgap wireless technologies have been employed to fill the gaps. Nor does the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) set a unified national approach or infrastructure standard, instead allocating grants to the states based on the degree to which they fall short of an arbitrary minimum "broadband" throughput.

 

The local municipal focus advocated here has accentuated the fragmentation, with policymakers making patchwork efforts to increase "broadband throughput" instead of regarding advanced telecommunications infrastructure more widely in a regional and interstate context as universal telephone service was before it.

Infrastructure Bill "broadband mapping" timeline: The fighting begins this fall

Washington, March 31, 2022 – The chair of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that the improved broadband maps needed to adequately disburse billions in federal infrastructure dollars will come this fall. During a House Energy and Commerce Committee Oversight hearing Thursday, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said, “Absolutely, yes. We will have [complete] maps in the fall.”

Completed Maps Will ‘Absolutely’ Be Available This Fall, FCC’s Rosenworcel Says

That will start the clock on multiple rounds of disputes over the accuracy of the maps as well as proposed advanced telecom infrastructure projects whose eligibility for 75 percent planning and construction grant funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA)  is linked to the maps. The maps will determine projects ineligible for funding because less than 80 percent of addresses are deemed under IIJA provisions as "unserved:" areas where no incumbent providers offer "broadband" service of at least 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. 

Here's the timeline of how these battles will likely play out, assuming the maps are issued as projected by the fall:

Fall 2022: FCC releases maps for state input as to their accuracy.

Fall 2022-Spring/Summer 2023: States dispute maps accuracy claiming they overstate “served” areas as with prior FCC "broadband maps."

Fall 2023:  After FCC deems new maps accurate, states and incumbents/WISPs continue to disagree over their accuracy.

Late 2023-Early 2024: Incumbents/ WISPs file challenges of proposed projects with states, contending they cover “served” areas.

Summer/fall 2024: Incumbents/WISPs appeal state determinations to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) as allowed by the IIJA.

Early 2025: States and incumbents/WISPs appeal NTIA determinations to the courts.