Why U.S. FTTP infrastructure deployment won't follow the 20th century timeline for electrification

Here's how a colleague thinks Susan Crawford's forecast of a long winter of telecom discontent might play out in the coming years as the nation wanders in the darkness unlit by fiber to the premise. He believes "very, very few cities and no counties" have the money or the political will to pursue FTTP telecommunications infrastructure. The construction of FTTP infrastructure reaching all American homes, schools and businesses, he predicts, will play out over decades as electrification did in the early part of the 20th century. There will be 20 or 30 years of isolated private or municipal builds, followed by another 20 or 30 years of federally funded infill to cover the remaining unfibered areas. 

I disagree with the comparison to the deployment of electrical distribution infrastructure in the previous century. Information and communications technology is moving at a far faster pace in the 21st century. We're seeing robust, pent up demand for Internet service that is far outstripping the ability of Internet service providers to deliver it at reasonable, affordable rates due to widespread market failure. Americans simply will not tolerate such a prolonged wait for universal FTTP service.

Politics also argues for a much more compressed timeline than my esteemed (and anonymous for now) colleague envisions. The United States is close to or already at a political tipping point in terms of protecting the de facto monopolies of the legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies -- among the most hated and least respected institutions in the nation. That inevitable tipping point is when their lobbying currency is greatly devalued relative to consumer and business demand for Internet services that grows stronger by the day. 

Finally, the pace of technological progress is far faster than in the early 20th century. A disruptive technological development could come along that would drastically reduce the time and cost of deploying FTTP. For example, super strong and lightweight carbon fiber or nanotube sheaths that could be deployed on poles by remotely operated drones once the poles are made ready. That would greatly reduce labor costs, which is the major FTTP cost challenge. As well as maintenance costs since the sheaths would be wind resistant and squirrel proof.

America’s winter of telecom discontent calls for strong, unified federal intervention to bring the spring

The United States faces a long, dark winter of telecommunications discontent if it continues to rely upon the tender monopolistic mercies of the legacy telephone and cable companies. If the light of spring is to come and comprehensive construction undertaken to address the nation’s accumulated telecom infrastructure deficits and build fiber optic connections serving all American homes, schools and businesses, the federal government must take a predominant role relative to its funding and construction. So argues Susan Crawford, who urges a dual pronged strategy utilizing federally subsidized bonds paired with a program to fund and oversee regional infrastructure builds.

Crawford and I are on the same general page here. In my recent eBook, Service Unavailable: America’s Telecommunications Infrastructure Crisis, I call for a federal telecommunications infrastructure initiative to fund universal fiber optic infrastructure as a fully federally funded public works project, not unlike the federal highway construction initiative of the 1950s. Crawford proposes something similar, but also harnessing private investment capital via a regionally administered federal telecom infrastructure development and finance agency, funded by federally subsidized bond proceeds.

Crawford and I agree fiber is the only option for ensuring the nation has the telecom infrastructure it needs now and for the future. We can’t get there trying to subsidize yesterday’s “broadband” speeds or hoping that somehow the laws of physics can be overcome and wireless and satellite will magically offer a cheap workaround. We also agree a unified, federal strategy is needed that also takes a regional approach. 

“[T]o avoid waste and inefficiency, we need to get it right from the beginning — and not just hope we’ll get there with our current patchwork quilt of federal, state, and local government agencies and private utility planners, each with different goals and motivated by different incentives,” Crawford writes. She couldn’t be more correct on that point.

New year, same FCC finding: Advanced telecom infrastructure not being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion

As it has since 2010, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected to report this month that advanced telecommunications infrastructure is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion. Consequently, 34 million Americans still lack access to landline premise service with 39 percent of the nation's rural population left without service, according to a draft progress report required under Section 706 of the Communications Act issued this week.

On the heels of a Pew Research Center study finding that premise service connections have leveled off as more Americans exclusively use mobile wireless devices for Internet access, the draft FCC report notes these consumers tend to perform a more limited range of tasks and are significantly more likely to incur additional usage fees or forgo use of the Internet.

AT&T exec: Mobile wireless primary driver of fiber deployment (and John Donovan's inapt cite of Moore's Law)

Donovan: AT&T Beating Moore's Law | Light Reading: Part of achieving those capex gains while continuing to meet rising demand for bandwidth is AT&T's integrated planning. While its Project VIP local fiber deployment initiative has wound down, the company is still able to push fiber more deeply into some areas, based on the need for business services or backhaul for cell towers and small cells, Donovan said.

"We have a really good cost curve on incremental costs for wireless," he said. "We are still putting fiber out where it is economic -- that is a big part of our program."

Yet another project to nominally push fiber to premises -- like Project Pronto and  Project Lightspeed before it-- is going away as AT&T like other big telcos shifts its focus away from residential and small business premise service to the mobile segment.

Donovan's invocation of Moore's Law unfortunately perpetuates the incorrect analogy of telecommunications service as a consumptive utility like electric power or natural gas. In the world of telecommunications, Moore's Law more properly applies to the growth in consumer bandwidth demand as I blogged in 2010. Additionally, Moore's Law applied to the total microprocessor market unlike the segmented markets employed by legacy telephone companies like AT&T.

Cable and telco lobbyists block broadband infrastructure subsidies in California

Cable and telco lobbyists block broadband infrastructure subsidies in California: Frontier is the only major incumbent that’s been willing to play with the CASF program, and now that it’s taking over Verizon’s wireline systems it should be even more enthusiastic. But it’s clear that most would prefer to have CASF die a quick and quiet death. Cable companies won’t touch anything that might entangle them with state regulators. AT&T and Verizon are all about mobile, and aren’t interested in investing in wireline service. Most of all, cable companies and mobile carriers are upset that independent competitors are getting CASF subsidies.

This is the death knell for California's failed -- as measured by its goal to bring advanced telecommunications services to 98 percent of households by last year -- California Advanced Services Fund infrastructure subsidy program operated by the state's Public Utilities Commission.

The proposed legislative hill on which the seven-year-old CASF died would have pushed that goal to 2020 and retained a circa 2001 legacy DSL level Internet service standard to define eligible projects as those falling below that standard. In that regard, the CASF was already slowly dying relative to bringing modern telecommunications services to Golden State residents. The legacy incumbents anxious to preserve their de facto market monopolies from the threat of interlopers were only too happy to thrust in the dagger after years of challenging projects proposed for CASF subsidization.

The likely final straw was the PUC's approval last month of subsidies for a relatively large fiber to the premise build proposed to serve nearly 2,000 southern Nevada County premises. That would put FTTP infrastructure built by someone other than themselves squarely in their nominal service territories. Which from the perspective of the incumbent telco and cable companies, posed a dangerous precedent that could have opened the door to even larger builds.

State level telecom state-level infrastructure programs like the CASF are underfunded and technically substandard. They are also very vulnerable to incumbents efforts to hamstring or kill them outright. That circumstance makes the case for a robust federal telecommunications infrastructure initiative to bring fiber optic connections to every American home, business and school. The job is too big and too important to the nation's future to be left to the states.

Minnesota Governor Recommends $100 Million Rural Broadband Funding

Minnesota Governor Recommends $100 Million Rural Broadband Funding: In 2016, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton wants to triple the state's past broadband efforts.

When Dayton commented on the state's $1.87 billion budget surplus, he recommended that Minnesota allocate $100 million in grant funding for rural broadband development. If that funding is approved by the state Legislature this spring, the current grant program would require applicants to at least match the funding offered, which means the state may soon see a total of $200 million in rural broadband funding.

Underfunded efforts such as these to build "rural broadband" telecommunications infrastructure are states' best efforts to respond to the enormous infrastructure deficiencies they are facing. The problem is there simply isn't enough money available at the state government level to build modern, fiber optic telecom infrastructure serving every home, school and business within their borders. Allocating millions won't address a problem that requires billions. State subsidy programs also tend to reinforce infrastructure disparities since it's more feasible to build middle mile infrastructure with limited funds than to build complete infrastructure that reaches neighborhoods.

Telecommunications is interstate infrastructure in the 21st century, just as roads and highways were in the 20th -- and substantially funded by the federal government. States can only chip away at the nation's telecom infrastructure deficiencies. Given the nation is now a generation behind where it should be, the federal government should undertake a crash telecom infrastructure program to prepare it for the 21st century. Doing so would provide a significant economic stimulus, create jobs and facilitate economic development, education, healthcare and mitigate commute transportation demand on those aging 20th century highways. The resulting economic multiplier effect would return many of those federal dollars invested in the form of tax revenues.

At start of new year, U.S. faces worst of all worlds on federal telecom modernization policy

As 2016 dawns, the United States faces the worst of all worlds when it comes to federal policy on telecommunications infrastructure modernization to ensure all American homes and small businesses have access to landline Internet connections.

In early 2015, the nation adopted policy classifying Internet service as a common carrier telecommunications service. Under the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order, Internet service is subject to the Communication Act’s universal service requirement, mandating service be provided upon request and barring neighborhood redlining by Internet service providers. Nevertheless, a year later, millions of U.S. premises that attempt to order service will -- as they have for more than a decade -- continue be turned away by ISPs because the FCC is not enforcing these provisions.

Absent regulatory action ensuring compliance with these requirements and frustrated by technologically outmoded, spotty and overpriced Internet telecommunications service, state and local governments are naturally concerned over the adverse economic impacts. Consequently, they’re looking to build their own modern infrastructure. But given the billions of dollars needed to build it, they’ll need substantial financial backing from the federal government. Since none exists or appears to be forthcoming, pressure for strong policy action at the federal level will grow this year.