To Fix America's Infrastructure, Start Here

Such has been the state of infrastructure in the U.S. for decades — fixes get put off until they’re absolutely necessary, and U.S. airports, roads and public transportation draw frequent comparisons to those in nations with far fewer resources. Meanwhile, countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East have leapt ahead with so-called smart cities, high-speed trains and eco-friendly buildings. In 2019, the U.S. ranked 13th in the world in a broad measure of infrastructure quality — down from fifth place in 2002, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.

Source: How to Fix America's Infrastructure

When it comes to advanced telecommunications, it's even worse. Progress has been impeded for decades because it hasn't even been regarded as critical infrastructure but rather a commercial service of providing "broadband" bandwidth and service bundles to qualifying households. That's changing with the Biden administration's proposed infrastructure investment plan, the American Jobs Plan, that regards telecom as critical infrastructure and as such, it cannot be left to the private market to build it.

As the administration makes a long overdue shift of the policy discussion from broadband to infrastructure, it must be careful not to allow legacy investor owned telephone and cable companies to continue to control the narrative by focusing on broadband bandwidth as they have for the past quarter century. (Or that the problem is largely confined to rural areas when only one third of U.S. homes are passed by fiber.) It's evident in their complaints that publicly or consumer cooperative owned fiber to the home would be wasteful "overbuilding" arguing their limited deployments provide sufficient bandwidth. 

Similarly, consumer advocates and public policymakers should avoid falling into the bandwidth trap by calling for more and better "broadband maps" showing what bandwidth is offered in a given neighborhood. The goal should be fiber connections to nearly every American doorstep, a goal the private sector cannot achieve quickly enough relative to the need that has been heightened during the public health restrictions accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic.

Verizon, AT&T look to wireless, C-band spectrum as cheaper alternative to building fiber to the home

That expanded opportunity is thanks to adding 4G fixed wireless access to the equation, as well as the addition of C-band spectrum to Verizon’s spectrum portfolio. C-band spectrum provides a broader reach. Initial 5G Home service was based on short range mmWave spectrum.

Verizon has suggested it will go on the offense with fixed wireless, hoping to take on cable company dominance in residential broadband access in major markets. Outside of its fiber footprint in the Northeast, Verizon has little wireline broadband assets to take on cable.

AT&T CEO John Stankey also shared some views on fixed wireless at the J.P Morgan conference yesterday. AT&T has not been a recent advocate of broad use of fixed wireless, but the company has a very limited fixed wireless offering for rural markets funded through the CAF program. It appears the company may try to build on that.

Stankey now says fixed wireless will play a larger role in the company’s future, although the strategy looks to be very different than Verizon’s take. AT&T appears to be looking to fixed wireless as a way to retire DSL in its non-fiber markets, rather than go on the offense in urban areas. The company has already stopped taking new orders for DSL.

 Verizon CEO: Verizon Fixed Wireless is Key to Monetizing 5G

 

Both big telcos are apparently hoping to utilize C-band radio spectrum -- Verizon over its mobile wireless infrastructure -- to provide advanced telecommunications services to homes as a cheaper alternative to building fiber connections to them. For AT&T, it's a replacement strategy for its obsolete DSL over copper technology being discontinued.

Memo to Biden administration on telecom infra component of infrastructure initiative

As the Biden administration negotiates with Congress on the advanced telecommunications infrastructure component of its American Jobs Plan infrastructure initiative, here are some points it should bear in mind. Some should alleviate concerns of fiscal conservatives who are leery of the amount of the funding proposed and how it will be financed.

• Don’t cut the funding below the $100 billion originally proposed. Consider that a partial amount for what will ultimately be required to provide a public option of fiber connections reaching every American doorstep. It’s likely at least twice that amount will be necessary.
• Allocate 90 percent of the funding to long term, low interest loans and 10 percent to technical assistance grants targeted to public sector and nonprofit entities as prioritized in the initiative.
• Factor in future income tax revenues from enhanced economic activity ubiquitous fiber will enable.
• Avoid framing this infrastructure component as promoting market competition. It’s a nonstarter as telecom infrastructure like other utilities is a natural monopoly where no meaningful market competition (many sellers and buyers) can exist. The goal should be to provide public option open access fiber infrastructure, not to compete with legacy telephone and cable companies.
• Similarly, avoid framing this infrastructure element as addressing “unserved” or “underserved” or “rural” households and falling into the speed trap of debating what constitutes “broadband” and where it’s offered. An estimated two thirds of U.S. homes are not passed by fiber and can be found in urban, suburban and exurban as well as rural areas. Public option open access fiber infrastructure will not only help them gain access to modern telecommunications service, but also boost affordability for those households that are passed by fiber.

U.S. at telecom infrastructure crossroads, needs a public option

Biden’s plan is one step toward imagining a new social contract that guarantees universal broadband services. Incentivizing municipal broadband to challenge corporate ISPs’ political and commercial hegemony, the plan is a strong start. But municipal broadband initiatives tend to be highly localized and fragmented, with many communities unable to build their own networks. The federal government needs to coordinate and scale these efforts to build publicly owned Internet networks to ensure that all Americans have access to a “public option” for their broadband services. 

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Today we find ourselves at a crossroads. For too long, we’ve tinkered at the margins instead of confronting the corporate capture of the pipes, wires, and other infrastructure powering the Internet. Now we must take a firm stand: We can either have a democratic Internet that includes reliable and affordable access to all or a highly commercialized Internet that delivers profits to a few enormous corporations. We cannot have both.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/broadband-infrastructure-biden/

 

Public option open access fiber provides much needed alternative to commercial “broadband.”

A major benefit of public option open access residential fiber connectivity offered by a regional or local governmental entity or consumer telecommunications cooperative is it provides an accessible and affordable alternative to commercial “broadband” service sold in multiple incrementally priced speed tiers offered in select neighborhoods.

Most residential users don’t know what their throughput level is. They are only aware of throughput when there’s a functional issue such as websites taking a long time to load, choppy video and/or audio on calls, or video streams that pixelate or buffer too much and produce the dreaded “spinner.”

Instead of a speed tiers used by commercial broadband ISPs, open access fiber service can instead offer a single national throughput service level standard. Starting out, that should be the 100 Mbps symmetrical standard proposed in the telecom infrastructure component of the Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan. Over time, the standard would be increased to accommodate continued growth in bandwidth demand generated by devices and application services. VOIP should be included for those households that want voice telephone service rather than relying on commercial mobile wireless service.

Along with a single throughput standard, there should be a flat monthly rate, similar to that offered when Google Fiber made its debut in a few U.S. metros a decade ago. Ideally, that should be around $45 a month with a $20 lifeline rate for qualifying low-income households.

Revised California state budget proposes $7 billion investment over 3 years to enhance advanced telecom access and affordability

A revised budget for the State of California’s fiscal year beginning July 1 calls for spending $7 billion over three years to enhance advanced telecom access and affordability. According to a budget summary issued today, slightly more than half of state residents have access to infrastructure providing fiber level service. “Service at speeds below 100 Mbps is not enough for households who are juggling the demands of distance learning, telework, and accessing health care on-line,” the summary states. “These numbers are an indication of lack of access, lack of quality infrastructure, and lack of affordability.”

The budget would also appropriate state funds to supplement federal American Rescue Act funds to construct a statewide transmission network. “The statewide network will incentivize providers to expand service to unserved and underserved areas by substantially reducing their upfront infrastructure costs, creating new opportunities for municipal fiber networks, and promoting affordability for consumers,” the summary states. “This essential backbone infrastructure is a foundational step towards the entire state having access to broadband. Moreover, the generational investment will create tens of thousands of quality jobs to help the state’s economy recover from the pandemic.”

The proposed budget would also establish a $500 million Loan Loss Reserve Account to help local governments, tribes and non-profits secure private financing for fiber infrastructure. “These last-mile networks require large upfront investments but the return to customers, communities, and California is significant,” the summary notes. The budget also proposes to supplement an existing high-cost area subsidy program managed by the state public utility commission with $500 million in federal American Rescue Act funds.

The state Legislature must approve the proposed budget by June 15. Separately, lawmakers are considering submitting a bond measure (AB 34) to state voters that would raise $10 billion for grants to local governmental entities and Indian tribes for advanced telecommunications infrastructure and services.

Biden admin telecom infrastructure policy: Rural vs. urban not just a false choice. It's a false dichotomy.

For now, at least, the debate over the Biden broadband plan has mostly broken down along party lines, with familiar divisions emerging between those working to close the broadband availability gap in rural America and those working to close the access and affordability gap in cities. To Jonathan Chambers, a partner with the rural fiber-connectivity company Conexon, the Biden plan risks diverting funding to cities, when it ought to go toward building out networks in rural America, where it's more costly to build and where a sparse population makes it harder to recover costs through subscription fees. "I'm in favor of spending money on infrastructure, but unless you identify the problem first and target the money toward the problem, you're just going to perpetuate the problem," said Chambers, who previously worked for both the Senate and the FCC. Chambers worried that the Biden plan is motivated by "the folks in the Biden administration want[ing] to support their constituency, which are cities." Proponents of the Biden plan view the rural-urban divide as a false choice. "We have a real challenge in connecting both rural and urban populations," said Mitchell. "To the extent that we have to choose between them, I think we're doing something wrong." (Emphasis added)

https://www.protocol.com/policy/biden-broadband-plan

Mitchell's right. Not only is this a false choice, it's a false dichotomy. When it comes to telecommunications infrastructure policy, too many discuss the issue as if it were still 1950 and there were largely two Americas, one urban and one rural. 

Today, it's not as binary. Americans have also settled in suburbs, small towns and expanding exurbs at the edges of metropolitan areas. Advanced telecom infrastructure deployment is very unevenly deployed in these areas, where people have moved to escape congested and costly urban areas. The public health restrictions of the past year or so have accelerated that trend. The Biden administration's American Jobs Plan that would allocate $100 billion to building public option open access fiber to the home advanced telecom infrastructure offers a substantial start to meet this need.

Argument that public option open access fiber is unnecessary "overbuilding" misses the point

Cable companies' argument against municipal broadband is not new. Cable, they say, already blankets the country. Why build more capacity where it already exists when there are still parts of the country with no capacity at all? Besides, they argue, it's not the government's place to interfere with private competition. "The belief that municipalities deserve some type of preference in the distribution of funds and that that somehow is going to lead to some greater consumer benefit? We don't think that's true or that there's any real evidence," said James Assey, executive vice president of NCTA. That argument has gotten cable companies their way in state after state, including in Tennessee, where AT&T fought efforts by Chattanooga's successful municipal network to expand in 2016. And it's gaining ground among lawmakers in Congress too. "The proposal today would prioritize, unfortunately, inefficient government-run networks, at the expense of private networks, and create arbitrary speed thresholds that favor fiber-only projects with no restrictions to prevent overbuilding in areas where broadband already exists," Republican congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers said during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week.

https://www.protocol.com/policy/biden-broadband-plan

The "overbuilding" argument misses the point. Building open access fiber to the home infrastructure provides a badly needed public option (and NOT market competition given telecom infra is a natural monopoly) to ensure access to and affordability of advanced telecommunications. Investor owned companies answer first to their shareholders and have no public obligation to ensure those exist. By contrast, the Biden administration's telecom infrastructure plan proposed as part of the American Jobs Plan serves the American people whose interests undoubtedly outweigh those of shareholders.

The timing of the proposed public option is propitious. Legacy telephone and cable companies lack the financial capacity to take on the job and can only invest where they can be assured of a rapid return on investment. Private capital investment is too risk averse, like the legacy providers favoring dense residential "communities" such as planned unit and multi-family development.