The FCC, 2.5 GHz Spectrum, And The Tribal Priority Window: Something Positive Amid The COVID-19 Pandemic

from the Nilch-Bee-Naa-Alkaa-Go-Ohooa-Doo-Eidii-Tii dept

Never has “necessity is the mother of invention” rung more true than in trying to get high speed broadband to Native Americans. Long on the other side of the “digital divide,” Tribes have struggled to attract traditional carriers to provide service on their reservations, where population densities are low, poverty rates are high, and a Byzantine array of federal, state, and Tribal regulations related to rights-of-way stall or derail deployment efforts. In a dramatic mid-pandemic paradigm shift, Native Americans are becoming the early adopters of a promising wireless technology – the 2.5 GHz band.

The FCC’s 2010 National Broadband Plan identified, and attempted to quantify, for the first time, the digital divide in Indian Country. The FCC has taken significant positive steps to close the digital divide, but most of those steps have involved tweaks around the edges. A heightened Tribal variable in the High Cost program helps provide slightly more money to carriers. Reverse-style auctions in the Tribal Mobility Fund and upcoming Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) help carriers deploy to the next cheapest areas (since funds are awarded to the carrier seeking the lowest amount of support), but don’t really address how to get broadband deep into the heart of rural America (or rural Tribal lands).

When the FCC decided to overhaul the underutilized 2.5 GHz Educational Broadband Service (EBS) in 2019, it turned to an approach long-advocated in Indian Country – a Tribal Priority on the spectrum. (I was fortunate to have been involved with helping push for the Broadcast Tribal Priority in 2008.) Used only once before, in the broadcast service, FCC Chairman Pai went far out on a limb to propose giving Tribes first dibs on any unused spectrum. The Broadcast Tribal Priority has been something less than a success, with fewer than a dozen AM and FM stations awarded to Tribes under the program over the past decade.

The FCC set a relatively short window for filing applications, yet 457 applications were filed, representing the vast majority of the 574 federally recognized Tribes, and virtually all Tribes that have reservations that are not in urban areas.

Meanwhile, while the FCC considers the pending applications, the agency “doubled down” on the “Tribal window” by allowing Tribes to receive special temporary authority (STAs) to utilize the spectrum. The FCC granted the Navajo Nation an STA for the largest single reservation — to provide students with broadband access during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Navajo Nation put together a unique and diverse team in order to deploy the 2.5 GHz spectrum quickly. Navajo Technical University (NTU) is the lead on the project, working with local carrier Sacred Wind Communications and MuralNet, an outside consultant The team leveraged a National Science Foundation Award (#1827199 “Nilch Bee Naa Alkaa Go Ohooa Doo Eidii Tii (Using Air (Technology) to Learn and Understand New Things”)) for backhaul and quickly began deploying 2.5 GHz equipment around its Crownpoint, NM, campus, to provide free service to college students.

Early data indicate that the 2.5 GHz spectrum is performing well above theoretical predictions, even on the topographically diverse Navajo Nation. Students who previously had no affordable and reliable broadband service because the total lack of wireline infrastructure can now continue their studies from home. Those relatively close to the towers where 2.5 GHz spectrum antennas are deployed are enjoying 25 Mbps download and 6 Mbps upload speeds. One student lives more than four miles away, and not within line-of-site of the tower, yet is still getting consistent speeds of 8 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. And that’s with first-generation gear, sure to improve as the 2.5 GHz spectrum is further developed and deployed.

But most important, students are getting access to broadband now, during the pandemic, when they need it most. Instead of Navajos having to wait years for carriers to deploy new technologies first in urban areas and then ever so slowly into more rural areas, Tribes get to jump to the “front of the line” with 2.5 GHz spectrum. For once, Tribes get to be early-adopters.

If ever there was a win-win-win story in these bleak times, the 2.5 GHz spectrum is it. FCC Commissioners were willing to take the risk of providing spectrum directly to Tribes now, instead of just auctioning it off to the highest bidders sometime in 2021. The FCC staff then moved swiftly to grant the STAs needed to begin deployment. And Tribes responded by leveraging all the assets they could come up with to provide broadband to their students, many of whom had been in continued lockdown since March. We should congratulate everyone in this virtuous cycle. It’s a model to which the FCC, and the entire federal government, should look. Get assets into the hands of those at the local level who can make use of them most quickly, and watch what happens when those with the most need, and most “skin in the game” have a seat at the table.

Oh, and the icing on the regulatory cake? Pilot projects such as that on the Navajo Nation are clearing the path for future deployment of this spectrum. Indeed, the value of the remaining 2.5 GHz spectrum which goes up for auction next year, may well increase significantly based on these test cases, netting the federal government more money than if they’d held back the spectrum and auctioned it off without any real understanding of its technical capabilities. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a true return on investment!

James E. Dunstan is General Counsel to TechFreedom. In his private practice at Mobius Legal Group, PLLC, he represents the Navajo Nation in matters before the FCC

Filed Under: 2.5ghz, broadband, competition, covid-19, fcc, open spectrum, spectrum, wireless

The Trump FCC Has Failed To Protect Low-Income Americans During A Health Crisis

from the moral-imperative dept

As America struggles with a deadly and historic health crisis, millions of Americans risk getting kicked offline due to economic hardship. At a time when stable access to power, broadband, and water are essential for survival, government agencies tasked with representing and defending the public welfare have been asleep at the wheel.

Millions of Americans risk losing access to essential utilities as overdue bills pile up thanks to the COVID-19 crisis. With only 21 states prohibiting utilities from disconnecting impacted users, roughly 179 million Americans risk losing these essential lifelines as bills pile up and their economic woes accelerate.

It’s a problem that extends to broadband connectivity. Data suggests Americans pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for broadband. The pandemic has exacerbated the problem, forcing countless students and teleworkers to huddle around fast food restaurants because broadband isn’t available, or isn’t affordable, in their neighborhood.

While millions of Americans face a mountain of growing utility bills — they’ve seen little help from the federal government.

Back in March the Trump FCC announced with great flourish that it had solved the problem with its “Keep Americans Connected” pledge, an entirely voluntary agreement with broadband providers who agreed they wouldn’t impose late fees or kick users offline during the crisis - at least temporarily.

Despite signing the pledge, some of the nation’s largest ISPs proceeded to ignore it entirely, kicking struggling and some instances even disabled users offline, despite repeated assurances this wouldn’t happen. There was little effort by the FCC to confirm ISPs were living up to the pledge or other pandemic-related promises, such as making Wi-Fi hotspots available to the public, suspending arbitrary bandwidth usage caps and overage fees, and creating or expanding low-cost broadband offerings for low-income Americans.

Despite an accelerating pandemic, the hollow pledge came and went quickly, expiring quietly at the end of June with little fanfare and no substantive FCC action. When pressured by Congress as to why the agency hadn’t done more, the agency punted the problem back to Congress, stating it could only act if lawmakers gave broadband providers more money.

So what were the results of the Keep America Connected pledge and the other promises ISPs made to address the pandemic? Nobody knows. The FCC doesn’t bother to collect data on how many broadband subscribers have been kicked offline during the pandemic due to non-payment. It doesn’t have a clue how many Americans have been disconnected as they face economic collapse, and there’s little to no indication that the agency under Trump has any intention of learning.

Nor does the FCC know whether any of the promised low-cost broadband offerings have made a dent in the tens of millions of Americans who lack broadband either because they can’t afford it, or because they don’t have access to a broadband network at all.

To make matters worse, the Trump FCC has eliminated FCC legal authority over broadband providers and popular consumer protections that would have protected U.S. consumers from bogus fees, surprise surcharges, and predatory behavior during the crisis. Without legal authority over broadband providers, the agency can’t hold any of those companies to their promises — they can simply walk away without penalty. Many already have.

Pinky swears simply aren't adequate to ensure that struggling Americans can work, learn, have access to health care, and communicate during an historic crisis.

The Communications Act of 1934 gives the FCC ample flexibility to ensure the public is protected during a national emergency. But when it comes to broadband internet access, this FCC is powerless by choice, leaving consumers crippled by debt facing the loss of essential services.

The Biden FCC must make restoring the FCC’s authority over broadband providers its first priority. It is essential to ensuring that all Americans remain connected during this crisis and the inevitable crises to come. It is also essential to protect consumers from price gouging, account termination, privacy violations and unfair market practices.

The next FCC must also collect more accurate data about who does and doesn’t have broadband and why they don’t have it. The FCC’s current data grossly overstates the number of Americans who have access to broadband and doesn’t take into account the principal reason many don’t adopt broadband - cost. When the broadband industry makes promises to protect consumers and close the digital divide, the impact should be documented and made public.

Press releases and promises won’t close the digital divide - effective policies and strong oversight will. The American people deserve an FCC that’s committed to ensuring that everyone has access to affordable and robust broadband.

Gigi Sohn is a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy and a Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate. She served as Counselor to Former FCC Chairman from November 2013-December 2016.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, covid, covid-19, digital divide, fcc

10 Years Of U.S. Broadband Policy Has Been A Colossal Failure

from the can't-fix-what-you-don't-understand dept

November 18^th, 2020 marked 3900 days since the Federal Communications Commission launched its heavily-hyped "National Broadband Plan." 400 days ago, I penned an op-ed for the Benton Foundation which assessed how the FCC had been unable to achieve any of the benchmarks or meet any of the six stated goals of the plan. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that another year didn’t fix very much of the shortcomings I identified then.

Nominally, the U.S. National Broadband Plan was designed to run for 10 years. The mandates expired, unfulfilled, back in mid-March, just as the Covid-19 Pandemic was beginning. Now, eight months later, concerns over the digital divide have only grown louder, while the FCC commissioners crow about statistics on broadband deployment and hand out additional subsidies for telehealth.

While the National Broadband’s Plan included a goal for universal access, (Goal 3: “Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.”) the FCC employs creative math to cover up the fact that 10 years of broadband policy has been a colossal failure.

As 2020 has unfolded, the agency continues to tout anecdotal successes in broadband “growth” using measurements of the subsidies being handed out to connect homes left behind by the FCC’s economic centric theories of regulatory implementation. Just over a month ago, Commissioner Carr went on the road to tout a subsidy for rural broadband in Pennsylvania to the tune of $690 Million dollars:

While anything that actually solves the gaps in broadband coverage that have resulted from the FCC’s negligent policy approach over the last decade is good, and even setting aside the potentially partisan electoral implications of handing out this subsidy in a critical battleground state just weeks before the Presidential election, the lack of scrutiny given to these routine subsidy announcements can be found in the cost. In this recent example, $690 Million to hook up 190 thousand new customers breaks down to a real bargain, at a mere cost of $3631 per household.

At that inflated price point, a subsidy to connect the roughly 125 Million homes in the country to broadband would have cost a bit North of $4.5 trillion.

Yet, even in the face of these targeted subsidies, we continue to see a large gap in access to broadband in many places in the U.S. Despite the fact the FCC adopted a slower broadband speed definition of 25 Mbps downstream, 3 Mbps upstream, when it was clear the 100 Mbps downstream, 50 Mbps upstream target for 100 Million Homes in the National Broadband Plan could not be met. So not only has the FCC missed it targets for access, it even had to reduce what counted as access to get to the numbers it is now routinely writing press releases about.

To be fair, the FCC is correct when it says that the fact that only 14.5 Million people remain without access to broadband is an improvement (though third party organizations estimate this is a massive underestimate), but that’s like a football team who is being shut-out while down by four touchdowns late in the game takes time to celebrate that meaningless field goal they just kicked. It is an improvement, sure, but nowhere close to getting the job done, and frankly on broadband deployment we should be well past the end of the game.

While we can debate metrics when assessing successes and failures of the FCC’s policymaking, the events of the last eight months have put a spotlight on how important the FCC’s failure to achieve its goals has been. As millions of Americans were forced to go virtual for work and school the clear requirement for affordable universal broadband access has never been clearer.

Gaps in coverage and the cost of broadband have put kids in parking lots outside of fast food places so they can do their school work on open Wi-Fi because the availability of broadband in an area does not guarantee one’s actually ability to access it. Broadband is expensive, and even in the areas where broadband is widely available, people suffering the economic strains of the last eight months may not have the resources to have broadband at home. So, at the same time we’re handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to cover up a problem that was supposed to be fixed already, we’re leaving even more people on the wrong side of the digital divide. Unfortunately, the current leadership of the FCC seems more interested in trying to invent ways to regulate internet speech that they object to.

With the indications that COVID-19 is going to be sticking around like an unwanted houseguest, the new incoming leadership at the FCC has to redouble the efforts to cover the gaps in the broadband maps. Universal access to broadband was not an unreasonable goal, and the FCC has had more than 10 years to make it happen. Kids on the wrong side of the divide have found ways to get their homework in on time, maybe we should hold the FCC to the same standard?

Christopher Terry spent 15 years as a producer in broadcast radio and six years as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before becoming an assistant professor of Media Law at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research includes policy, regulatory and legal analysis of media ownership, media content and political advertising.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband plan, covid-19, digital divide, fcc, national broadband plan, subsidies

How Our Biggest ISPs Are Failing Students During COVID-19

from the with-friends-like-these dept

Early in the pandemic, one of our MediaJustice Network members reached out to us in hopes we could support a group of high school students in Baltimore who were trying to amplify their campaign. The students are leaders in a Latinx and immigrant student organization called Students Organizing for a Multicultural and Open Society (SOMOS), and this was their first time organizing for digital equity.

When school ended last year, SOMOS realized that many of their fellow Baltimore city schoolmates who’d relied on Comcast’s Internet Essentials discount program didn’t have a connection fast or reliable enough for online school. Whenever they could get into virtual classes, they’d often get kicked off multiple times a day and sometimes multiple times during a single class. Households with multiple students or family members working from home had to schedule who could be online, when and for how long. Families were put in impossible situations, forced to negotiate whose education or work was more important, and who would have to sacrifice and fall behind.

Philadelphia MediaJustice Network member Movement Alliance Project (MAP) had been working with allies and students on a #ParkingLotWifi campaign highlighting stories that have become all too familiar in 2020: parents and students sitting in parking lots (like Taco Bell) just to get access to WiFi for online school. MAP’s campaign targeted Comcast, demanding the telecom giant open up their residential wifi hotspots to the public so students and community members could access the Internet during the pandemic from the safety of their homes. The SOMOS students adopted this demand and added two of their own addressing Comcast’s Internet Essentials plan:

1. Expand the two free months of Internet Essentials to make the program free for the duration of the pandemic and 60 days beyond the full resumption of in person schooling.

2. Increase the speeds of Internet Essentials from 25/3 Mbs to 100/20 Mbs so students can actually participate in school.

Soon, another MediaJustice Network member joined Baltimore and Philadelphia in their campaign against Comcast. The Detroit Community Technology Project (DCTP), a Black women-led organization of community technologists, was also facing a new school year with the majority of Black, Latinx and immigrant students stuck on the wrong side of a growing digital chasm, with Comcast to blame. Even worse, the Detroit group revealed that Comcast was funding a plan to build out a video surveillance network of broken and racist facial recognition technology to be placed in Detroit’s majority Black and immigrant communities.

Each of these local campaigns were facing the same villain. Corporate leviathan Comcast was holding mafia-like control over each of the cities’ internet infrastructures and markets. We joined our respective campaigns into one common purpose and brought in other national groups like Free Press and Color of Change, because we knew that Comcast’s internet hold over cities wasn’t limited to Philadelphia, Baltimore and Detroit. We also knew that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and cable companies like Comcast strengthen their hold through their wealth, grotesque size and political influence. This means they aren’t very worried about what communities think about them. And, they’re most likely the only player in town (if they serve your neighborhood). So to challenge a corporation like Comcast, we would need to get national attention and tell a story not about three cities, but about a pattern of harms committed by Comcast and other monopoly-ish, mafioso-like ISPs specifically impacting Black, Latinx and immigrant students and their families.

Our collective goals evolved as we grew as a group, connected with more communities and added more voices to our collective story. Local campaigns continued local actions that were now amplified by national digital campaigns. We worked together on creating op-eds and connecting to national press. We began organizing a national press conference bringing together all of the stories and voices from around the country demanding that Comcast just be decent and serve the communities to which they’d positioned themselves as the sole savior in a crisis like COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Comcast was scheming and strategizing a new national plan of their own. Apparently it wasn’t enough for the multi-billion dollar corporation to offer failed service to the Black, Latinx and immigrant communities where they’ve monopolized Internet access during a time of natural and manmade disaster. It wasn’t enough that Comcast’s Internet business was breaking quarterly records during an economic crisis with millions losing their jobs. Comcast saw an opportunity to build what they are calling ‘partnerships’ out of the disastrous digital divides that they are uniquely responsible for.

Comcast realized with the new school year looming, it could approach already under resourced, majority Black and Brown school districts to make the schools and cities an offer they couldn’t refuse. These partnerships are in essence Internet Essentials at scale, with school districts on the hook for single payer agreements.. Now, Comcast pressures school districts already under financial distress into signing long term contracts for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In some cities, millions of dollars.

At this point in the story, even the mafia comparison isn’t cartoonishly villainous enough. This new partnership program is less like a mafia protection racket and more like a bully literally demanding lunch money from students...and their entire school system.

By the time we held our national press conference, our numbers had grown along with our collective story. We had students and teachers from Baltimore and Philadelphia telling the world how frustrating online school has become thanks to Comcast and Internet Essentials. City council members and a school board treasurer spoke out about the impossible situation they had been put in. School and city finances have been decimated by COVID-19, yet Comcast was still holding students’ internet access, slow and insufficient as it may be, hostage.

We’ve also expanded our targets beyond Comcast. One educator and advocate from Louisiana joined the press conference to demand their ISPs do a better job connecting communities in South Louisiana and to stop blocking people in need from accessing emergency discount plans. Others demanded the FCC make E-Rate funds available for offsite learning and increase high speed broadband’s minimum speed. Policy experts unpacked how Congress and the FCC have historically failed Black, Latinx, tribal and rural connectivity, and how ISPs engineered the mafia/monopoly driven digital divide with FCC and Congressional help. A nation-wide question was emerging: why (and how) is it that we’re in a position during a national crisis where the only possible solution is that individual cities, school districts and students groups must negotiate with one of the largest corporations in our country in order to get online?

Comcast continues to see the pandemic as an opportunity to practice disaster capitalism. Despite multiple meetings with SOMOS students and allies, including a Baltimore city council subcommittee hearing, they still refuse all of our groups’ demands. It’s difficult to overstate how these failures by Comcast, other ISPs, Congress, state legislatures and the FCC are putting people’s lives in danger and failing a generation of primarily Black and Latinx students. We still believe that we can pressure Comcast to stop exploiting students and communities of color, but it’s going to take a lot. Although we know that getting students connected to online school would be a victory, it’s still only a partial victory. Our ultimate goal must be even broader.

Looking forward, we’re going to keep growing our collective, keep adding stories, keep bringing people into the fight with us to get there. We’re going to keep pushing back against the corporate propaganda that Comcast is trying to spread now, spending mad money in advertising blitzes talking about what a wonderful job they’re doing connecting students during the pandemic. Part of what victory looks like is you reading this right now. Another part of that victory could look like you taking action, right now. You can sign our petitions, you can add your community’s stories and you can find out how to get involved by visiting our new website, InternetIsEssential.org. We’ve lost most of a semester already waiting for bad actors to do the right thing, but our fight isn’t finished. We’re only beginning and we are unstoppable.

Brandon Forester is a national organizer at MediaJustice and is fighting for a just and liberated world where everyone has the opportunity to seek out safe community and live out the full expression of their inherent dignity. He’s also a member of the Global African Worker editorial collective.

Filed Under: broadband, covid-19, students