AT&T urges states to favor contiguous BEAD funded projects serving both unserved and underserved locations

AT&T is urging states to award subsidies of up to 75 percent of construction costs allocated by the federal government’s Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program for combined projects containing both unserved (where at least 80 percent of serviceable addresses in the project are not offered throughput of 25/3 Mbps or better) and underserved (where at least 80 percent of serviceable addresses are not offered throughput of 100/20 Mbps or better).

In so doing, AT&T is clearly indicating it plans to use any BEAD funding it is awarded to edge out its footprint. Some addresses could be served by VDSL over AT&T’s existing copper cable plant and qualify as underserved under BEAD program rules. As DSL signals degrade with distance, addresses farther out from its central offices and DSLAMs would likely not and be served by first generation ADSL – or no landline connections whatsoever – falling below the 25/3 Mbps cutoff and thus qualify as unserved. Some addresses in the latter category might ostensibly be designated as extremely high cost locations that AT&T would serve with fixed wireless.

A potential problem AT&T faces at least some states in urging BEAD funding for contiguous unserved/underserved projects is BEAD program rules require states to first award funds for projects reaching unserved locations. Underserved projects can only be funded if there are enough funds remaining from a state’s BEAD allocation after all unserved locations have been served.

AT&T is apparently aware. “We know that this won’t be possible in every state," writes Erin Scarborough, president of AT&T’s Broadband and Connectivity Initiatives, in a blog post. As the “next best alternative,” Scarborough urges states to group eligible locations into the smallest geographic unit possible, such as a census block, and allow providers to combine them into project areas. “This would still enable providers to design efficient deployments that maximize the use of existing infrastructure,” Scarborough wrote.

Near term outlook, trends for advanced telecom infrastructure

U.S. telecom policy will continue to favor investor owned, market-based advanced telecommunications infrastructure despite its higher cost compared to public and consumer-owned (utility cooperative) infrastructure. The predominant role of privately owned legacy telephone and cable infrastructure reinforces path dependency.

Government and consumer utility coop owned open access fiber to the premise infrastructure missed significant expansion opportunity from 1998 to 2019 as telephone companies made minimal investments in fiber to the premise (FTTP) delivery infrastructure, keeping legacy copper outside plant in place. Lack of political will, unrealistic expectations of incumbent providers, unfavorable demographic and economic trends, tax resistance and reliance on limited grant programs for majority of funding versus organic debt funding severely limited their expansion.

Boosted by infusions of private equity investment, investor owned FTTP builds will be expanded beyond what providers could otherwise achieve on their own due to limited capex constrained by overleveraged balance sheets and dependence on expected network revenues to meet rate of return goals. Private equity investment is motivated by a potential premium upon exit in five to seven years through sale of their stakes to their provider partners and/or network consolidators. Investment will be primary focused on newer existing and planned suburban developments in selected metros. Private equity investment is predicated on regarding FTTP as long term asset that affords first mover advantage. Connecting the customer premise means owning the customer since only one fiber connection will meet current and future service needs.

Advanced telecommunications infrastructure subsidies allocated by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will mostly go to large telephone and cable companies to incrementally edge out their networks in rural and exurban areas, primarily to dense clusters of homes and those in areas of cut off density not reached by existing landline advanced telecommunications infrastructure. Some BEAD funding will subsidize wireless in remote rural areas to provide both fixed and mobile services.

FTTP networks in less densely developed areas will receive some subsidization from existing programs as well as a new potential high cost area subsidy program to replace the FCC Universal Service Fund, particularly if the FCC reclassifies Internet protocol telecommunications service as a common carrier utility.

FWA seems like a lower cost alternative to FTTP -- until radio propagation constraints taken into account.

Outside of our urban cores and highway corridors, many modern life-enhancing technologies remain unavailable. For underserved constituencies, health outcomes are less positive; educational and business opportunities are more limited; and a myriad of other harms are borne by our more rural constituencies. But 5G FWA stands to finally connect those communities that remain unserved or underserved. Because this technology can span distances and cross terrains that coaxial and fiber cannot, at a fraction of the cost, more communities will be connected using 5G FWA than ever before. 

https://broadbandbreakfast.com/2023/08/sascha-meinrath-12-gigahertz-band-is-key-to-bridging-the-digital-divide/

The challenge is very limited propagation. The high frequencies used by FYA like the 12 Gigahertz cited in this article have very limited reach. Propagation distance is inversely correlated to the frequency. High frequencies can carry more data than lower ones. But the tradeoff is they don’t travel very far. Consequently, homes and businesses close to FWA radio towers get good throughput as Doug Dawson explains in this blog post. But just a bit farther out, it drops off dramatically as this example of a Sacramento, California suburb illustrates using two relatively lower frequencies. For 12 Gigahertz, the propagation circle of coverage would be even smaller. 

To overcome these limits, in rural areas it would seem to make sense to deploy radios close to customer premises mounted on existing utility poles or new dedicated poles. But the tradeoff there would be those radios would need fiber to feed them. At which the economics would point to connecting the premises to fiber directly as the most cost-effective approach.