California's 'Open Access' Fiber Broadband Plan Is Making Telecom Giants Like AT&T Nervous

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Back in 2009, the FCC funded a Harvard study that concluded (pdf) that open access broadband networks (letting multiple ISPs come in and compete over a central, core network) resulted in lower broadband prices and better service in numerous locations worldwide. Of course when the Obama FCC released its "National Broadband Plan" back in 2010, this realization (not to mention an honest accounting of the sector's limited competition) was nowhere to be found. Both parties ignored the data and instead doubled down on our existing national telecom policy plan: letting AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast do pretty much whatever they'd like. Something, of course, taken to ridiculous new heights during the Trump era.

Since then, "open access" has become somewhat of a dirty word in telecom policy, and even companies like Google Fiber -- which originally promised to adhere to the concept on its own network before quietly backpedaling -- are eager to pretend the idea doesn't exist. Why? Because having ISPs compete in layers over a centralized network may improve service, boost speeds, and reduce prices (see: this community-run network in Ammon, Idaho), but it would eat into the revenues of the regional monopolies bone-grafted to our intelligence gathering apparatus, and you simply can't have that.

Which is why it was surprising to see California recently pass a $6 billion broadband infrastructure bill that does something unique: it mandates the creation of a massive "middle mile" fiber network that will be open access, which should encourage increased competition. The original announcement breaks down the spending this way:

$3.25 billion to build, operate and maintain an open access, state-owned middle mile network – high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at higher speeds over longer distances between local networks.

$2 billion to set up last-mile broadband connections that will connect homes and businesses with local networks. The legislation expedites project deployment and enables Tribes and local governments to access this funding.

$750 million for a loan loss reserve fund to bolster the ability of local governments and nonprofits to secure financing for broadband infrastructure.

That's a lot of money that could be potentially going somewhere other than entrenched telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast. That means increased competition, something AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and others fight tooth and nail (rather successfully) to avoid. You can tell AT&T in particular is nervous about it, because the new bill's passage forced the company to recently launch this silly astroturf website claiming to represent "Californians for broadband equity." The website is chock full of stock photos of children, and lots of empty lip service to "fixing the digital divide":

Only if you look at some of the materials posted in the page's resources section do you see the site is backed by AT&T and Frontier Communications.

To be very clear, dominant regional monopolies in California like AT&T and Frontier love the decades-old US telecom policy approach to broadband. Namely, throw billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies at incumbent monopolies, which then fail to deliver what was promised, refuse to give back the money, and then pretend they're not part of the problem.

There's an entire universe of AT&T-linked orgs and individuals that suffer an absolute embolism anytime taxpayer resources are used to build local community broadband efforts. But those same groups and individuals are nowhere to be found every time AT&T gets a $42 billion tax cut for doing absolutely nothing. Or gets billions in subsidies and regulatory favors in exchange for fiber networks that are always, mysteriously, half deployed.

In short, AT&T and Frontier want the focus to remain exclusively on giving them yet more money to shore up access in areas they've neglected for years. What they don't want is any money going toward competition within their existing footprint. Despite the fact that high prices due to limited competition are one of the highest barriers to access for many communities (something particularly pronounced during COVID). US broadband is expensive and mediocre thanks to regional monopolization and the state/federal corruption that protects it. There's a lot of time and money spent trying to ignore or deny that fact.

If you didn't understand this context you might stumble into this new AT&T website thinking it's a well intentioned group just super interested in helping poor toddlers get broadband. But it's really just incumbent monopolies trying to ensure more of California's new broadband budget goes to them, and less goes to pesky competitors that might force them to (gasp) compete on price. Should AT&T and Comcast not get their adequate slice of California's planned broadband budget, you can expect a lot more lobbying and policy theatrics of this sort in the fall.

Filed Under: broadband, california, competition, fcc, fiber, open access
Companies: at&t, frontier

ISPs Give 'Netflow Data' To Third Parties, Who Sell It Without User Awareness Or Consent

from the more-of-the-same dept

Back around 2007 or so there was a bit of a ruckus when broadband ISPs were found to be selling your "clickstream" data (which sites you visit and how long you're there) to any nitwit with a nickel, then basically denying they were even doing that. Concerns about that now seem quaint.

In the years since, technologies like deep packet inspection have allowed ISPs to collect and sell details on every aspect of your online life, then, through obfuscation, proxies, and empty promises of "anonymization," insist they're not doing exactly that. Or, as the wireless industry's location data scandals have shown, collect and sell your daily movement habits, initially with only a fleeting concern about user privacy and security.

Now, sources in the infosec community tell Motherboard ISPs are also (again, via proxies) selling access to "netflow data." As the name suggests, netflow data details the day to day broader stroke network traffic (pdf), whether that's overall network loads, which servers are talking to one another, network topology, etc. The data is generally beneficial to researchers to understand network and user behavior, and to security experts to help mitigate network attacks. But it's also valuable, and increasingly, it's being offloaded to businesses who are then turning around and selling it:

"I'm concerned that netflow data being offered for commercial purposes is a path to a dark fucking place," one source familiar with the data told Motherboard. Motherboard granted multiple sources anonymity to speak more candidly about industry issues."

Recall that modest FCC broadband privacy rules designed to give users a little more transparency into this stuff were killed by the GOP in 2017 (using the Congressional Review Act at telecom industry behest) before they could even take effect. And recall that, thanks to a cross-industry coalition of lobbyists, the United States still doesn't have even a basic privacy law for the internet era. As a result, any shred of data that can be collected and sold is, securing that data is often an afterthought, and consumers more often than not have absolutely no transparency into anything.

The data provides comprehensive insight into not just what's happening on the originating ISPs network, but everybody's network, including what data is being pushed through VPNs. ISPs offload this data to security vendors in exchange for security threat analysis work. Those vendors then turn around and act as data brokers, selling access to this data to a wide variety of third parties... without consumer awareness or consent. ISPs then can tell reporters "we don't sell access to user data" because, technically, they aren't directly "selling" it:

"The continued sale of sensitive data could present its own privacy and security concerns, and the news highlights that ISPs are providing this data at scale to third parties likely without the informed consent of their own users.

"The users almost certainly don't [know]" their data is being provided to Team Cymru, who then sells access to it, the source familiar with the data said.

Again, there's always a lot of hand-wringing about the potential impossibility of privacy legislation given the potential for harm. But it remains entirely possible to craft comprehensive, basic federal rules that, at the very least, mandate absolute transparency with the end user. Instead of doing what we've created with a wild west like ecosystem of app makers, phone makers, software giants, telecoms and others selling every shred of data they can find, often failing to adequately secure it, and with consumer protection (or even awareness) a distant, belated afterthought.

Filed Under: broadband, clickstream data, fcc, isps, netflow data, privacy

Cable's US Broadband Monopoly Continues To Grow

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

We've noted a few times how US regulators often simply refuse to acknowledge that the US broadband sector is heavily monopolized. Regional cable and phone monopolies are the number one reason US broadband is patchy, expensive, and slow with routinely terrible customer service. But when you see folks in both parties discuss US broadband, industry dysfunction is always framed in this extremely nebulous way (we must "fix the digital divide!"). Largely because nobody in government wants to offend deep-pocketed campaign contributors also bone grafted to our domestic surveillance apparatus.

The latest broadband data from Leichtman Research illustrates the scope of the problem. The firm notes that the broadband industry added 890,000 subscribers last quarter. Cable companies added 840,000 of that total, while phone companies added just 50,000:

"The top cable companies added about 840,000 subscribers in 2Q 2021 – 60% of the net additions for the top cable companies in 2Q 2020. The top wireline phone companies added about 50,000 total broadband subscribers in 2Q 2021 – compared to a net loss of about 140,000 subscribers in 2Q 2020."

Phone companies (Windstream, AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, Centurylink) have effectively given up on residential broadband across much of the country. In many areas that means not just refusing to upgrade aging DSL lines, but often refusing to repair them. That's effectively creating a bigger broadband monopoly than ever for entrenched cable giants (usually Charter (Spectrum) and Comcast), which now dominate roughly 70 percent of the fixed line broadband market. No competition means no incentive to expand, compete on price, or shore up terrible customer service.

People like to pretend that stuff like satellite broadband and wireless will come in and disrupt this busted paradigm, but that's simply not true. Satellite broadband ventures like Elon Musk's Starlink lack the capacity to truly break this logjam at any real scale. And while 5G is also bandied about as a miracle solution to the problem, US wireless isn't a real substitute for for traditional fiber, usually comes with bizarre restrictions and caveats, and is generally expensive (something that will likely get worse thanks to recent industry consolidation).

The way you fix US broadband dysfunction is by targeting the regional fixed-line monopolies enjoyed by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter. One way to do that is to drive most subsidies toward smaller private competitors. Another way to do that would be to embrace and support the growing tide of community broadband efforts growing up around the country, whether they be municipal broadband, cooperatives, public/private partnerships, or utility-based.

But because AT&T, Comcast and friends are so politically powerful, efforts to do that usually get largely stripped away from any new broadband bills, as we just witnessed with the Biden broadband plan (in fact, community broadband support was the very first casualty). Often these compromises, at the direct behest of monopoly lobbyists, are then framed as "bipartisan compromise." But because the proposals aren't tackling the real reasons for US broadband dysfunction (regional monopolization and the state and federal corruption that protects it), nothing truly changes.

Filed Under: broadband, cable, competition

AT&T CFO Wants A Cookie For Screwing Up The Time Warner, DirecTV Mergers

from the fail-upward dept

We've noted more than a few times how the AT&T Time Warner and DirecTV mergers were a monumental, historical disaster. AT&T spent $200 billion to acquire both companies thinking it would dominate the video and internet ad space. Instead, the company lost 9 million subscribers in nine years, fired 50,000 employees, closed numerous popular brands (DC's Vertigo imprint, Mad Magazine), and basically stumbled around incompetently for several years before recently spinning off the entire mess for a song.

I just got done noting how the US press' total failure to adequately outline the scope of this mess ensures that the executives, regulators, and various megamerger cheerleaders will never be held accountable for it. That, in turn, all but guarantees it will happen again. And again. And again. America's obsession with "growth for growth's sake" and megamergers is built on the inherent promise that no matter how many times a megadeal results in layoffs, chaos, and no benefits for anyone other than executives and investors, we'll simply refuse to learn anything from the experience.

That requires a lot of revisionist history. So, as if on cue, AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches this week complained that AT&T didn't get enough credit for turning HBO Max into a successful streaming brand. AT&T was forced to spin off this mess because the doddering telco sucked at running a media company. But Desroches is trying to claim the recent spinoff of its media ventures occurred because AT&T didn't get enough credit for building HBO:

"AT&T CEO John Stankey was “keenly focused on” the company being in the early stages of a “significant evolution in connectivity,” 5G and fiber, with management knowing it needed to invest there and in HBO Max, he told the Oppenheimer Annual Technology, Internet & Communications Conference.

“One of the things we realized (was that), even though we were succeeding in our launch of HBO Max, the market wasn’t giving us the appropriate credit for it,” Desroches said.

This is a weird rewriting of history. Ex-AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was literally shoved into early retirement because instead of focusing on the company's core competencies (running and building networks; spying on Americans; lobbying the government to hamstring competition), AT&T blew an absolute ocean of money trying to elbow its way into the TV business. But like so many telcos (see: Verizon Go90), decades as a pampered government telecom monopoly leaves you ill-suited toward making adequate inroads in creative, competitive industries.

To be clear, AT&T's path post-merger was pretty obvious. It had to take the HBO brand, not fuck it up, and shovel it into a functional streaming experience. But the company struggled for the first several years to do that. It released so many conflicting, confusing AT&T and HBO streaming brands that they even managed to confuse their own support employees. Meanwhile, AT&T executives, obsessed with engagement over quality, have taken the HBO brand and watered it down. Now you can see a lot of quality HBO fare like Six Feet Under intermingled with AT&T concepts like "Fuckboy Island," which kind of speaks for itself.

If you actually talk to any of the creatives at places like DC or HBO (the ones who weren't fired, anyway), they're quick to point out that AT&T brass really had no idea what they were doing. It was like having an alleyway brawler run an opera house. Telcos aren't good at adaptation, creativity, competition, or innovation, because as government-pampered monopolies, they've never had to be. I'm not sure how many times we have to watch a telco fall on its face in this fashion before that becomes clear to people.

The reality is that AT&T screwed up, then had to spin off the entire mess because it screwed up. For AT&T's CFO to suggest the spin off was because the "market didn't give us a cookie" for building HBO Max is some weird, revisionist history. Revisionist history that once again ignores the 50,000 post-merger(s) layoffs, the fact AT&T received billions from government to make all of this work (the $42 billion Trump tax cut, merger approvals, the death of net neutrality), and still somehow screwed it up. There is absolutely no scenario in which any AT&T executive involved in any aspect of this mess gets a cookie.

Filed Under: acquisitions, broadband, content, hbo, john stankey, mergers, pascal desroches
Companies: at&t, directv, time warner

US Telcos Continue To Embrace Apathy As A Business Model

from the blatant-disinterest-isn't-a-strategy dept

For more than a decade we've noted how the US broadband industry's biggest problem is a lack of healthy competition. In countless markets consumers either have the choice of a terrible phone company or a cable giant. The nation's phone companies have spent the last decade refusing to upgrade (or in some cases even repair) their aging DSL lines, because they don't see residential broadband as worth their while. That, in turn, is giving giants like Comcast and Spectrum an ever greater monopoly in many markets, reducing the already muted incentive to compete on price or shore up comically terrible customer service.

While that may be great for cable companies, execs, and investors, it's not so great for consumers whose only choice of broadband is aging DSL from an apathetic telco. Instead of upgrading its customers to fiber across more than 20 states, US telco CenturyLink (recently rebranded "Lumen") announced it would be selling much of the company's copper DSL and phone network to private equity firm Apollo. Under the $7.5 billion dollar deal CenturyLink will keep the customers it actually cares about, then throw the (mostly rural) customers it doesn't care about at a private equity firm that isn't likely to upgrade them either.

Apollo, primarily famous for acquiring old newspapers, lobotomizing them, then stripping them for parts, claims it will upgrade many of these users to fiber. But that doesn't seem particularly likely given their track record, or the track record of similar deals like this, which basically involves shuffling ownership of aging DSL lines nobody wants to actually upgrade, then milking the assets until the next sale. Many of these customers have been stuck on expensive, slow DSL for the better part of fifteen years as they get shuffled from disinterested owner to disinterested owner:

"It will be interesting to see if Apollo can do better than other past forays with buying copper networks. I can’t think of one of these mega-deals where buying copper networks has gone well. I think back on the purchases by Frontier, Fairpoint, Iowa Telephone, Windstream, Citizens, and others that never panned out – and those deals were for copper that wasn't as ancient as is coming in this sale. Some of the rural customers in this sale have seen the name of the incumbent telco change several times – but they haven’t seen improvements in copper for decades."

The cycle of apathy is directly responsible for the surging interest in local community and municipal broadband networks, often run by people who actually give two flying shits about the communities they're dealing with. Of course instead of embracing those alternatives as a productive way to shore up overall broadband access (during a plague, no less), many US policymakers have instead demonized and tried to ban them.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, dsl, rural broadband, upgrades
Companies: centurylink, lumen

Dish, Cornerstone Of The Trump DOJ's 'Fix' For The T-Mobile Merger, Continues To Bleed Wireless, TV Subscribers

from the this-is-going-well dept

If you recall, economists repeatedly warned the $26 billion Sprint/T-Mobile merger would kill jobs, harm competition, and ultimately raise prices for consumers. To "fix" the problem, the Trump DOJ and FCC concocted an elaborate and cumbersome plan to create a replacement fourth wireless carrier out of Dish Network, despite the company's lack of experience in the sector and history of empty promises. So far none of this is going particularly well, with 5,000 and counting lost jobs, Dish and T-Mobile clearly unable to get along, and Dish... the cornerstone of the entire plan... continuing to bleed both TV and wireless subscribers.

Of all the pay TV providers dealing with "cord cutting," Dish has indisputably been hit the hardest, losing another 67,000 pay TV subscribers last quarter. It technically added 65,000 Sling TV streaming video subscribers, but it wasn't enough to offset the 132,000 customers that cancelled Dish's traditional satellite TV service. With absolutely no plans to build new satellites and users shifting increasingly to streaming, Dish knows satellite TV is a dead end.

That's where the company's wireless business is supposed to come in.

As part of the DOJ/FCC deal, Dish obtained billions in spectrum and the Boost prepaid mobile brand from Sprint. The idea is that Dish is supposed to operate a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) as it builds out its own, full 5G wireless network.

But, there too, things aren't going particularly well. Dish lost 201,000 Boost subscribers in the last quarter. And while it added 200,000 subscribers last March by buying a small wireless company named Republic Wireless, a research note by Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett indicates the overall trajectory isn't a great one:

"Their Q2 loss of 201K wireless subscribers (about 2.3% of their Q1-ending subscriber base, or almost exactly the size of Republic Wireless) means that they have now organically lost 9.7% of their subscribers in their first year of ownership."

The Trump DOJ and FCC "fix" for the Sprint T-Mobile merger was always a bit dodgy. It was hand-crafted by a DOJ "antitrust enforcer" in Makan Delrahim who was completely disinterested in data showing the deal should be blocked. Delrahim was far more interested in working as a glorified life coach for Sprint, T-Mobile, and Dish executives looking for regulatory approval. The deal itself always felt like flimsy theatrical cover to justify rubber stamping the Sprint T-Mobile deal, instead of a real fix for any genuine problems.

Now the whole mess is in the lap of the Biden DOJ, who this week sent a letter to Dish urging Dish and T-Mobile to start getting along. The DOJ is particularly concerned about the fact that T-Mobile's shutdown of its 3G CDMA network could leave millions of Boost mobile customers stranded January 1. Dish says the shutdown was earlier than promised, violating merger guidelines. T-Mobile says Dish is simply being too cheap to give Boost users discounted 4G or 5G phones. Either way, the DOJ isn't impressed:

"After careful consideration of the Parties’ submissions and arguments, the Division is left with grave concerns about the potential for a nationwide CDMA shutdown to leave a substantial proportion of Boost’s customers without service. While it cannot reach any conclusions today regarding events that have not yet transpired, the Division believes that the Final Judgment may be violated by one or both Parties if the network shutdown strands a substantial proportion of Boost customers, particularly if either or both Parties have not taken all appropriate steps to affirmatively alleviate any such harms in the leadup to implementing the network shutdown. If that situation manifests—and we sincerely hope that it does not—the Division may act pursuant to its authority under the Final Judgment or seek relief from the Court against one or both Defendants."

But again, the real problem is this deal was always a stupid, unworkable mess from the get go. Numerous experts noted so, and they were all ignored. Largely because the deal provided useful if flimsy cover for merger approval, which is all that really mattered.

To make any of this work Dish, a company with no real experience in the sector it's trying to disrupt, needs to remain financially viable as it attempts to meet guidelines attached to its deal with the DOJ and FCC (providing wireless to 70% of the country by 2025). But Dish is a company with a long history of empty promises in wireless (just ask T-Mobile circa 2018), run by a guy (Charlie Ergen) people traditionally say is hard to work both for and with, purportedly building a new wireless network whose details remain hard to come by.

l still tend to think it seems entirely possible Dish strings feckless U.S. regulators along for years then, once the six year restriction on selling its spectrum expires, cashes out, hoovers up billions of dollars, then throws a relative pittance at any remaining legal or regulatory penalties. The U.S. wireless sector gets even more consolidated, and all the folks who pushed this dodgy fix for a bad deal (that should have been rejected outright) simply forget any of this ever happened.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, cord cutting, doj, fcc, tv, wireless
Companies: dish, sprint, t-mobile

US Press Softsells The Real Scope Of AT&T's Merger Incompetence, Ensuring It Will Happen Again

from the not-with-a-bang-but-with-a-whimper dept

Under former CEO Randall Stephenson, AT&T spent nearly $200 billion on mergers with DirecTV and Time Warner, hoping this would secure its ability to dominate the pay TV space through brute force. But the exact opposite happened. Saddled with so much debt from the deal, AT&T passed on annoying price hikes to its consumers. It also embraced a branding strategy so damn confusing -- with so many different product names -- it even confused its own employees.

All told, AT&T lost 9.5 million customers in just over four years. Not exactly the kind of "domination" the company envisioned. Meanwhile, employees also paid the price. Despite billions in regulatory favors (killing net neutrality and broadband privacy rules) and a $42 billion tax break from the Trump administration for literally doing less than nothing, AT&T has also laid off more than 50,000 employees since 2017. The company also took an axe to several well-loved brands (Mad Magazine, DC's Vertigo Comic imprint) as its executives crashed and bounced their way around unfamiliar businesses.

Last week AT&T finally completed its spinoff of DirecTV. Kind of a sad little whimper to the company's original vision. Yet somehow, much of the sterile news coverage of the whole mess doesn't capture the real scale or scope of the failure.

The New York Post, for example, can't be bothered to mention a single layoff or a cite a single AT&T misstep. The same thing over at CNET, where the final chapter in AT&T's ugly saga is framed in this detached, oddly clinical way, completely avoiding pointing out AT&T incompetence or the human wreckage these deals left behind. This is how spending $200 billion on mergers that resulted in massive layoffs and utter organizational chaos is described by the outlet:

"The DirecTV transaction is just one of two major media shake-ups at AT&T, which is in the process of restructuring itself after spending billions of dollars acquiring media companies in recent years."

This is kind of the status quo in American megamerger business coverage. Many major outlets are simply terrified of offending advertisers or sources at these companies. So they'll happily parrot most pre-merger promises of "synergies," but when things go south (as they usually do in mindless telecom and media consolidation) they just... don't mention the real world human impact at all, then hope nobody notices. I tend to notice having covered telecom and media for 20 years, and witnessed more bungled, regulator rubber stamped megadeals than I care to remember.

A little side irony: the hundreds of billions of dollars (often taxpayer subsidized) AT&T and Verizon repeatedly throw at bungled mergers and doomed projects (crappy app stores, Go90, mobile payment platforms with the same names as terrorist organizations, news outlets that ban reporters from talking about important things) could have funded fiber to every home in America (a consistent, massive revenue source) several times over. That just gets forgotten as Congress bickers over whether $65 billion in broadband investment is wasteful.

Of course the press isn't the only one who will rabbit hole AT&T's failures. The regulators, politicians, judges, pundits, and think tankers that cheered on these deals will pretend none of this ever happened, and will never have to reckon with the real world harm of mindless consolidation and a "growth for growth's sake" mindset. In part because the US press generally won't require them to. If journalism is really about clearly explaining the truth to people, avoiding essential context because it might make your event donors, advertisers, and sources mad is... not that.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, content, mergers, spinoffs, telcos
Companies: at&t, directv, time warner

FCC Blocks Elon Musk From Getting Millions In Subsidies For Delivering Broadband To Traffic Medians

from the actually-paying-attention dept

Late last year consumer group Free Press released a report showing how numerous broadband providers had been gaming the FCC's RDOF (Rural Digital Opportunity Fund) subsidy program to get money they didn't really deserve. The program doles out roughly $9.2 billion in subsidies paid for by money paid by consumers into the Universal Service Fund (USF). The study clearly showed that during the last RDOF auction a long list of ISPs gamed the system to gain millions in subsidies to deliver broadband to areas that didn't make any coherent sense.

This ISP, for example, nabbed millions of dollars to deploy service to places that already had it -- like five feet outside of Apple's $5 billion new campus. Elon Musk's Starlink also managed to nab $886 million in subsidies to deploy broadband service to places like airport parking lots and traffic medians.

The whole mess was just completely ignored by previous FCC Boss Ajit "what broadband competition problem" Pai. After months of withering criticism from numerous fronts, the FCC under interim boss Jessica Rosenworcel has stepped up and fired off letters to several of the worst offenders, giving them a second chance to apply for funding with proposals that actually serve the public interest:

"The Federal Communications Commission told SpaceX and other companies on Monday that the billions in rural broadband subsidies it doled out last year can’t be used in already connected areas like “parking lots and well-served urban areas,” citing complaints. The commission, in an effort to “clean up” its subsidy auction program, offered the companies a chance to rescind their funding requests from areas that already have service."

Granted the problems with the RDOF subsidy process is just one small part of a much bigger problem. For years the government has doled out billions of dollars to telecom giants for fiber networks they then routinely half deploy. Inaccurate maps and availability data then mar the process further, obscuring not only the lack of access (up to 42 million Americans still can't access broadband) but the way a lack of overall competition harms consumers and raises rates (83 million Americans live under a broadband monopoly).

Thanks to the immense political influence giant telecom providers have over Congress and regulators, efforts to improve the entire mess comes glacially, when they come at all. That's not to ignore the huge benefit subsidies can have on less affluent and disconnected areas of the country when applied correctly, but, for decades now, regional monopolies have dictated US telecom policy. And the result has generally what you'd expect: namely billions in pointless tax breaks and subsidies thrown at companies like AT&T in exchange for layoffs, pipe dreams, and perpetually half completed networks.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, competition, elon musk, fcc, jessica rosenworcel, rdof, rural digital opportunity fund, starlink, subsidies, usf
Companies: spacex, starlink

Telecom Lobbyists Easily Weakened Language In 'Bipartisan' Broadband Infrastructure Bill

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

So we've already noted how the broadband component of the "bipartisan compromise" infrastructure bill was still helpful, but much weaker than many wanted it to be (pretty much the common theme across the infrastructure package). While there are some useful grant funds for underserved "middle mile" and other networks -- as well as the continuation of a helpful but flawed COVID broadband discount program -- the proposal itself doesn't really do much of anything about the core reason US broadband is so expensive: namely, regional telecom monopolization or the corruption that protects it.

Other aspects of the proposal started off well but were steadily eroded throughout the "negotiations" process. For example, many lawmakers wanted the country to boost its standard definition of "broadband" to symmetrical 100 Mbps to better represent modern realities. But the final package implemented a 100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps standard -- and only as it pertains to who can get funding for broadband expansion. The overall definition of broadband remains unchanged.

As Ernesto Falcon at the EFF notes, this weakened standard was courtesy of fixed wireless and cable industry lobbyists, who know that much of their infrastructure can't actually do much better than 10-20 Mbps on the upstream. So we basically lowered the bar to make them happy:

"By defining internet access as the ability to get 100/20 Mbps service, the draft language allows cable monopolies to argue that anyone with access to ancient, insufficient internet access does not need federal money to build new infrastructure. That means communities with nearly decade-old DOCSIS 3.0 broadband are shielded from federal dollars from being used to build fiber. Copper-DSL-only areas, and areas entirely without broadband, will likely take the lion’s share of the $40 billion made available. In addition to rural areas, pockets of urban markets where people are still lacking broadband will qualify. This will lead to an absurd result: people on inferior, too-expensive cable services will be seen as equally served as their neighbors who will get federally funded fiber."

Ernesto has routinely pointed out that fiber broadband is future proof (and feeds most cellular towers in the first place), so if you're going to throw billions of dollars in subsidies at companies, you probably should be encouraging fiber as often as possible. Of course, the government rarely adheres to his advice, frequently throwing countless subsidies at wireless companies for service they don't deliver, or hundreds of millions of dollars at Elon Musk to bring inferior broadband to a couple of traffic medians and airport parking lots.

There were other nonsensical sacrifices made to the broadband component of the infrastructure agreement made under the banner of "bipartisan compromise," including the elimination of any attempts to lend a hand to the popular community broadband efforts taking root across the country out of frustration. Again, not based on any hard data or factual reality, but because telecom lobbyists don't really like anything that could potentially erode regional monopoly revenues.

As noted previously, these kinds of downgrades are uniformly framed in beltway DC coverage as a "bipartisan compromise." In reality, it's really only the people who want decent baseline standards and the barest levels of sector oversight who are having to compromise. And more often than not the press helps politicians frame their decisions to pander directly to sector lobbyists as simply being principled spendthrifts.

Filed Under: broadband, definitions, infrastructure plan, lobbyists

Judge Shoots Down ViaSat's Quest To Stall Starlink Launches

from the star-wars dept

For a few years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk's Starlink low orbit satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but not eliminated. Another problem is there are simply so many low orbit satellites being launched, the resulting space junk is creating navigation hazards. US regulators, so far, have done little to nothing about either problem.

Enter ViaSat, which clearly isn't keen on having its captive business market disrupted by new competition. Back in January, the company urged the FCC to conduct an environmental review of SpaceX’s low-orbit Starlink constellation, arguing that the fledgling system poses environmental hazards in space and on Earth. Since the 80s, satellite systems have had a baked in exemption from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), excluding their businesses from environmental review. But the sheer scale of what Starlink and Amazon are doing (more than 50,000 low orbit satellites in orbit) should change that equation, ViaSat argues:

"...given the sheer quantity of satellites at issue here, as well as the unprecedented nature of SpaceX’s treatment of them as effectively expendable, the potential environmental harms associated with SpaceX’s proposed modification are significant,” the company stated.

“Relying on the Commission’s decades-old categorical exemption to avoid even inquiring into the environmental consequences of SpaceX’s modification proposal would not only violate NEPA, but also would needlessly jeopardize the environmental, aesthetic, health, safety, and economic interests that it seeks to protect, and harm the public interest,” Viasat continued."

The thing is, ViaSat is most certainly only really interested in its own revenues here, even if the concerns it's pushing are legitimate ones. But after petitioning for change saw no reaction at the FCC, ViaSat sued the agency last May, demanding a pause of Starlink satellite broadband deployments. This week, judges made it clear that wasn't going to happen. Though the court's order (pdf) did grant a motion to expedite the appeal, which should speed up the legal feud somewhat.

The FCC and Space X have largely been aligned on this issue, insistent that any environmental harms can be mitigated. Space X, meanwhile, quite correctly notes that ViaSat's environmental concerns are likely performative and its arguments not entirely consistent:

"Viasat's newfound environmentalism is belied by its actions at every turn. Viasat failed to raise any environmental concerns in connection with any other satellite authorization, including SpaceX's authorization to operate Starlink satellites at a different altitude and its prior request (nearly identical to the one at issue here) to lower many of those satellites. To the contrary, Viasat—a non-US licensee that has previously sought to escape Commission regulation altogether—ultimately relies on "competitive harm" to support its stay request. But stifling competition and protecting profits is not what NEPA is about."

But again, ViaSat is correct that the concerns about space junk and light pollution are legitimate ones that aren't being taken particularly seriously at the FCC. But the solution to that problem likely isn't going to come at the hands of a company predominately and transparently only looking out for its own best interests.

The FCC under both Trump and Biden has been very eager to give Musk's Starlink pretty much anything it wants, including some extremely dubious subsidies. All of this favorable treatment and subsidization comes despite the fact Starlink isn't going to have quite the innovative impact many assume. As noted previously, the service will only have the capacity to reach 400 to 800,000 subscribers in its first few years (a max of 6 million several years from now), a small drop in the bucket when you consider upwards of 42 million Americans lack broadband access, and another 83 million live under a broadband monopoly.

So there are still legitimate questions here about whether Starlink will really be worth the cost(s), and whether Starlink will be able to remain financially viable (the majority of past efforts on this front have not). And while a self-interested competitor like ViaSat may have been the wrong messenger for worries about space junk and light pollution, the concerns themselves likely aren't going anywhere.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, light pollution, satellite broadband, space pollution, starlink
Companies: spacex, starlink, viasat