Telecom Monopolies Are Exploiting Crappy U.S. Broadband Maps To Block Community Broadband Grant Requests

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

We've noted repeatedly that despite a lot of breathless rhetoric about America's "quest to bridge the digital divide," U.S. government leaders still don't actually know where broadband is or isn't available. Shoddy broadband mapping has generally been a good thing for regional U.S. telecom monopolies, who not only have been allowed to obscure competition gaps (and the high prices and poor service that result), but hoover up an endless gravy train of subsidies and tax breaks for networks that...mysteriously...always wind up half deployed. Our failure to measure deployment success has been painfully, repeatedly exploited.

But there are other ways that incumbents exploit our ongoing failure to map broadband to their advantage. Case in point: roughly 230 U.S. communities have applied for broadband grants being doled out as part of the National Transportation Infrastructure Agency (NTIA)'s $288 million Broadband Infrastructure Program. But when a town or local cooperative/utility/public-private partnership looking to build its own, better broadband network applies for the grant, they're facing baseless challenges by ISPs which claim they already serve these areas.

Grafton, New Hampshire, for example, is looking to build its own fiber network after years of market neglect. It had 3,000 of the 4,000 census blocks they applied for grant money for falsely challenged by regional giants Comcast and Charter Spectrum:

"Of the 4,000 census blocks covered by Grafton’s grant application, Coates said that incumbent ISPs challenged 3,000 of them, even those dominated by cemeteries. In the majority of the challenges, telecom giants overstated available speeds and existing coverage, he noted. “My immediate response was that this was them telling us to go boil water,” Coates said. “Here you go, prove that you can do this in these three thousand census blocks. Have fun figuring it out.”

As we've noted, there's a big lobbying push afoot by entrenched monopolies to ensure as little government stimulus money as possible goes toward building out competition to their regional dominance, no matter what that competition looks like (cooperatives, utilities, local governments, smaller private ISPs, private/public partnerships). To justify their obstruction to local community grants, big ISPs like Comcast and Charter point to FCC broadband maps they know aren't accurate to insist nothing needs to be done. That perpetuates the sub-par service and high prices created by monopolization.

Except the FCC's maps routinely overstate both coverage and speeds, and have for decades. The FCC's methodology also declared (until only recently) that an entire census block is "served" with broadband, if an ISP claims it can serve just one home in that census block. While there have finally been some meaningful improvements to FCC mapping pushed through Congress, it's still going to be several years (and significantly more funding) before most of those fixes can be properly implemented. Some states have developed their own alternative mapping solutions, but for many, engaging in a bureaucratic battle with deep-pocketed monopolies to disprove their coverage claims isn't financially viable.

While the NTIA has made some progress of its own on mapping, it's still being tasked with doling out $42 billion in additional broadband grants as part of the recently passed infrastructure bill -- despite still not having an entirely accurate picture of the problem it's trying to fix. That is, and will continue to be, exploited by entrenched monopolies like AT&T, Comcast, Charter, or Verizon which have not only fought against better mapping for years (knowing more accurate data would only spur calls for reform), but have a vested interest in fighting tooth and nail against any effort to disrupt the uncompetitive status quo.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband maps, community broadband, digital divide, fcc, grants, ntia, telecom

Many Digital Divide 'Solutions' Make Privacy And Trust A Luxury Option

from the First-do-no-harm dept

We've noted a few times how privacy is slowly but surely becoming a luxury good. Take low-cost cellular phones, for example. They may now be available for dirt cheap, but the devices are among the very first to treat consumer privacy and security as effectively unworthy of consideration at that price point. So at the same time we're patting ourselves on the back for "bridging the digital divide," we're creating a new paradigm whereby privacy and security are something placed out of reach for those who can't afford it.

A similar scenario is playing out on the borrowed school laptop front. Lower income students who need to borrow a school laptop to do their homework routinely find that bargain comes with some monumental trade offs; namely zero expectation of privacy. Many of the laptops being used by lower-income students come with Securly, student-monitoring software that lets teachers see a student’s laptop screen in real time and even close tabs if they discover a student is "off-task."

But again, it creates a dichotomy between students with the money for a laptop (innately trusted) and lower income students who are inherently tracked and surveilled:

"Hootman says she and other parents wouldn’t have chosen school-issued devices if they knew the extent of the monitoring. (“I’m lucky that’s an option for us,” she says.) She also worried that when monitoring software automatically closes tabs or otherwise penalizes multitasking, it makes it harder for students to cultivate their own ability to focus and build discipline."

Teachers and school administrators may be well intentioned, but they're not thinking particularly large picture. But the creation of this bifurcated treatment of privacy wasn't lost on the Center for Democracy and Technology, which issued a report last month that found, unsurprisingly, wealthier kids that can afford their own devices are subject to less surveillance and are inherently trusted more overall. Sometimes just by nature of the laptop surveillance systems, but also thanks to school district concerns about liability:

"LEAs (local education agencies) with wealthier student populations reported that their students are more likely to have access to personal devices, which are subject to less monitoring than school-issued devices...LEAs feel compelled to monitor student activity to satisfy perceived legal requirements and protect student safety."

So in trying to "help" kids, by not thinking broadly enough you're teaching them that they're inherently inferior and less deserving of overall trust. Combine that with the overarching problem that less expensive computer and phone hardware is often inherently less private and secure, and it's not particularly hard to see how efforts to "bridge the digital divide" could make some aspects of it worse if they're not particularly well thought out.

Filed Under: digital divide, luxury, privacy, school laptops, schools, security, students, surveillance, tracking

The 'Digital Divide' Didn't Just Show Up One Day. It's The Direct Result Of Telecom Monopolization

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

We've noted for a while that the entirety of DC has a blind spot when it comes to discussing the U.S. broadband problem. As in, U.S. broadband is plagued by regional monopolies that literally pay Congress to pretend the problem isn't happening. That's not an opinion. U.S. broadband is slow, expensive, patchy, with terrible customer service due to two clear things: regional monopolization (aka market failure), and state and federal regulatory capture (aka corruption). That the telecom industry employs an entire cottage industry of think tankers, consultants, and policy wonks to pretend this isn't true doesn't change reality.

But notice when regulators, politicians, and many news outlets discuss the problem, it's usually framed in this nebulous, causation free way. About 90% of the time, the problem is dubbed the "digital divide." But the cause of this broadband divide is always left utterly nebulous and causation free. It's almost pathological. Seriously, look at any news story about the "digital divide" in the last three months and try to find one that clearly points out that the direct cause of the problem is regional telecom monopolies and the corruption that protects them. You won't find it.

This phenomenon again showed up this week in a CNET interview with Jessica Rosenworcel, who appears to be the top candidate in the Biden Administration's glacial pursuit of a permanent FCC boss. In the article, CNET talks repeatedly about the U.S. broadband problem without once mentioning that telecom monopolies exist, and are the primary reason U.S. broadband is painfully mediocre:

"According to a study last year by the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the US has the highest average monthly internet prices when compared to other countries in North America, Europe and Asia. On average, the monthly bill in the US is $84.37, which includes $68.38 for internet service and $15.99 for equipment rental fees.

"What's become clear is that affordability is a really big issue in the digital divide," she said. "And we're going to need programs like the EBB to help solve it."

Again, please notice how expensive, shitty broadband is just this thing that exists for some nebulous reason. That Comcast, Charter, Verizon, and AT&T have lobbied for thirty years to create a favorable policy environment that harms competition and prioritizes their bloated revenues doesn't even get a sentence. It's just this bizarre act of omission driven by, you'd have to imagine, a fear of upsetting sources and advertisers. Or in the case of politicians and regulators, powerful telecom lobbyists that can make or break your career.

Please notice the word "competition" isn't even used once in an interview with a top U.S. telecom regulator about the state of U.S. broadband, where the primary issue remains a lack of competition. The article almost acknowledges the U.S. telecom monopoly problem when it discusses "digital redlining," or the documented tendency of regional telecom monopolies like AT&T to refuse to upgrade low income or minority neighborhoods (while simultaneously lobbying for laws preventing them from building their own broadband networks). But even here the problem is addressed in this causation-free, nebulous way:

I think the fact that we're having a conversation about digital redlining is a good thing. We've got communities in this country that for too long have been overserved or underserved and overlooked. We've got to figure out how to address that.

Clearly and accurately calling out regional telecom monopolies is just viewed as...impolite in DC and much of the "he said, she said," access-motivated U.S. press. But you can't fix a problem you refuse to even acknowledge. And when it comes to regional telecom monopolization and the corruption that protects it, we're not even beginning to ask the right questions, much less acknowledge the real origins of the problem.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, digital divide, regional monopolization

Glitches And Greed Mar Effort To Bring COVID Relief To US Broadband Users

from the band-aids dept

As part of a recent COVID bill, the government announced that folks struggling economically during COVID would be getting some temporary help. Under the EBB (Emergency Broadband Benefit program), U.S. consumers can nab a $50 discount off their broadband bill, or $75 if you live in tribal areas. The program ends when its $3.2 billion in federal funding expires, or six months after the government has declared an end to the pandemic.

To be clear the program is bringing some helpful aid to struggling consumers, with more than 2.3 million users signed up through the voluntary program's 825 participating ISPs. But this being the busted US broadband industry overseen by fairly feckless federal leadership, the efforts aren't going without a hitch.

For one, some ISPs like Verizon exploited the program to force consumers onto even more expensive plans (not too surprising for a company that thought it would be a good idea to cap, throttle, then upsell firefighters during an historical California wildfire). Other ISPs like Charter Communications, Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T greatly restricted which plans qualified for the program. A few ISPs, like Charter, rejected users who didn't agree to sign up for more expensive broadband tiers once the program ends. This violated FCC rules designed to prevent bill shock among poor people, but it's not clear the agency did much about it.

Charter and Comcast also appear to be rejecting qualified applicants based on incompetence and some dumb database issues. One qualifying Comcast user, for example, was rejected four times by Comcast despite being approved for the program by the FCC:

"Over the last several weeks, Corsaro said he's reapplied and been rejected by Comcast another three times. He's followed the circuitous trails of automated FCC phone lines that all lead to dead ends and appealed to the kindness of mystified Comcast agents, who have told him again and again that he needs to finish the FCC's verification process. "I keep telling them, 'I've been approved. There's nothing to finish,'" Corsaro said."

Such complaints are common over at Reddit for both Comcast and Charter. Some of the problems stem from something as simple as "street" versus "St." not matching between FCC and ISP databases, something it took several months to notice:

"It turns out even the smallest differences in how people enter their data into the different systems can trip them up — for example, writing Elm St. in one and Elm Street in the other. "We've learned in these early days of the program that the information consumers provide to an Internet provider must exactly match, to the letter, abbreviation, and number, the information they enter in the National Verifier," Comcast spokesperson Joel Shadle said in a statement. He noted that Comcast is "continually working with the FCC and USAC to make the process easy to navigate."

Again the EBB program is certainly a useful, if temporary, band aid, providing immediate relief to millions of Americans. But the program doesn't really do much to address the regional monopolization and lack of competition that makes US broadband so mediocre and expensive in the first place. Nor does it address the fact the Trump FCC gutted its own consumer protection authority because a bunch of telecom monopolies asked them to, using completely bogus justifications (something the Biden administration seems in absolutely no rush to remedy).

Instead of fixing the real causes of US broadband dysfunction (monopolization and the state and federal corruption and regulatory capture that protects it), we seem intent on applying layers of cumbersome bureaucracies on top of the problem. It's like applying a dozen band aids upon a severe arm wound, then wondering why a bunch of plastic strips aren't truly fixing the problem.

Filed Under: broadband, covid, digital divide, discounts
Companies: at&t, charter, comcast, t-mobile, verizon

FCC Gives ISP $8,000 To Deliver Broadband Five Feet From Apple's $5 Billion Campus

from the wasted dept

We've noted repeatedly that there are two major reasons US broadband is slow, spotty, and expensive: regional monopolization (a lack of competition), and the state and federal regulatory capture (corruption) that protects it. On the latter front, there's been an absolute army of telecom industry aligned folks, who, for decades, have relied on dodgy broadband availability maps and dubious data to not only pretend there's no real problem that needs fixing, but also to slather companies with subsidies without ensuring that money actually goes toward fixing the problem.

Last fall, the FCC held a reverse auction doling out nearly $9 billion from the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), paid into via Universal Service Fund (USF) contributions affixed to your broadband and phone bills. To be very clear: some of this money will absolutely help shore up access in underserved communities. But after digging into the FCC maps of the winning bidders, consumer groups found a long list of examples where we were throwing billions of dollars at companies for deployments that make no sense.

For example, Free Press noted that Elon Musk, the second wealthiest man on the planet, managed to game the FCC system and nab $886 million in ratepayer subsidies for his Starlink system. And he did it by promising the FCC that his company would bring broadband to essential US areas like... already connected airports and highway traffic medians:

"As we have documented in our previous two posts, however, this effort to close the rural-broadband digital divide looks more and more like one of the most wasteful projects in FCC history."

While some of this grift will be cleaned up in a second round of FCC application review, you can't blame this on "we didn't know," or "the system just needs tweaking." We've thrown countless billions of dollars at telecom incumbents for fiber networks routinely only half completed. It's a policy choice. Now we're giving billionaires who don't need the money, even more money to deliver service that's inferior to the fiber networks most of you already paid for.

The problem is pervasive. Light Reading, for example, noticed this week that a small wireless ISP by the name of LTD Broadband is poised to get $8,000 from the FCC to deploy 1 Gbps service five feet outside of Apple's $5 billion new headquarters:

"RDOF funds will go to serve areas adjacent to the brand-new Apple Campus in Cupertino," complained the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) to the FCC in a recent filing. "Far from 'unserved,' the Apple Campus is one of the most connected places in the entire world."

LTD nabbed $1.3 billion in promised federal payments to build broadband across 13 states. But the company is one of several that's getting FCC funds that don't make sense, for service it's not clear they can even successfully deploy:

"LTD is one of several major RDOF winners that has faced withering criticism that it will not be able to meet its RDOF obligations. "There is no indication that LTD [Broadband] has the technical, engineering, financial, operational, management, staff or other resources to meet RDOF build-out and service obligations," wrote the Minnesota Telecom Alliance and the Iowa Communications Alliance in a recent joint filing to the FCC."

And while there have been spotty efforts to improve both mapping and subsidization, they always seem just around the next corner or a few years down the road. So when you see guys like the FCC's Brendan Carr whine about how "big tech" needs to give billions of dollars to "big telecom" for no coherent reason, notice how he excludes the fact that fixing the money trough that is US telecom subsidization should probably be tackled first. As Ajit Pai showed, pretending you care about the "digital divide," while simultaneously making the corruption and monopolization that created it worse, remains very fashionable.

Again, many subsidies have certainly gone to very promising projects that provide direct and immediate aid to underserved areas neglected by regional giants. But at the same time, federal and state US taxpayers have likely paid enough in subsidies over the last few decades to deliver fiber to every home in America several times over (not that we'd ever bother to do a comprehensive audit). Instead of getting that fiber, Americans get a very expensive hamster wheel that's about 40% incompetence and grift.

Filed Under: broadband, corruption, covid, digital divide, fcc, oversight, rdof, rural digital opportunity fund, subsidies, universal service fund, usf

FCC's Carr Thinks 'Big Tech' Should Subsidize His Pals In 'Big Telecom'

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

Way back in 2005, former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre whined incessantly about how Google was getting a "free ride" on his company's "pipes," and that they should be charged an additional toll (you know, just because). As we've discussed countless times in the years since, Whitacre's argument made absolutely no sense, given that Google not only pays plenty for bandwidth, but the company owns billions in international and oceanic fiber runs, data centers, and network infrastructure. Despite making no sense, this idea that Google was some kind of free ride parasite and should be throwing millions in additional money at telecom giants has been a talking point for global telecoms for years.

While the feeble argument had taken a vacation for a while after the net neutrality debate, it popped up again this week in a clumsy, logic-optional op-ed over at Newsweek by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. In it, he argues that we should do away with existing flawed but important low-income and school broadband subsidy programs like E-Rate, and instead have "big tech" pay for everything:

"It is time to fundamentally rethink how we fund our high-speed networks. That is why I am proposing a third way. We should start requiring Big Tech to pay its fair share. Big Tech has been enjoying a free ride on our internet infrastructure while skipping out on the billions of dollars in costs needed to maintain and build that network. Indeed, one study shows that the online streaming services provided by just five companies—Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Microsoft—account for a whopping 75 percent of all traffic on rural broadband networks.

So, as we've noted the last fifty times this flimsy argument has been trotted out, streaming video giants like Google, Amazon, and Netflix pay millions of dollars for connectivity. Not only that, they run vast fiber routes that stretch around the planet and operate their own massive content delivery network hubs to ensure it's all delivered as efficiently as possible. For Christ's sake, Google is an ISP. The fact their popular video products make up the majority of overall internet traffic is an utterly meaningless stat in this context, thrown in there by Carr (or more likely his intern) to make his argument sound semi-coherent and scientific.

But the reality is these companies aren't getting anything even vaguely resembling a "free ride." When it comes to the heavily regionally monopolized US telecom market, nobody gets a free ride. Consumers, schools, and enterprise customers alike often pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for bandwidth thanks to limited competition and regulatory capture. But for literally 20 years the telecom industry has employed a rotating crop of sock-puppets and dollar-per-holler experts who employ the "free ride" argument for one reason: big telecom wants an even bigger handout.

It looks like the GOP tried to make this lame argument go viral yesterday, but be well aware, this is an AT&T message being parroted through the mouth of their most trusted, captured regulators:

That's not to say we shouldn't be reforming our existing and often quite broken subsidy programs. But something Carr (coincidentally, for sure!) forgets to mention is that if anybody is getting a free ride in this equation, it's regional telecom giants. They've received countless billions from taxpayers over the years for networks that always mysteriously wind up half deployed. Time after time after time after time, "big telecom" nabs billions in subsidies, regulatory favors, tax breaks, and other perks in exchange for half ass, half completed fiber networks.

Not only does Carr intentionally avoid mentioning the telecom industry's long and obvious history of taxpayer fraud, waste, and abuse, he attempts to flip everything on its head and suggest only large tech companies are the beneficiaries of "corporate welfare":

"Ending this corporate welfare is more than fair. It is consistent with the network compact that has prevailed since the earliest days of the Ma Bell telephone network. Historically, the businesses that derived the greatest benefit from a communications network paid the lion's share of the costs. For instance, the fees that businesses paid for local and long-distance calls provided the key funding stream to build the traditional telephone network."

Big tech has ample issues that need addressing, but that's not really what's happening here. What's happening here is the telecom lobby is trying to piggyback on valid complaints about Silicon Valley giants just so they can grab a chunk of their ad revenues. Revenues AT&T, Comcast, Verizon had friend have coveted for years. The problem is we're talking about broadband, and when it comes to broadband as it pertains to "free rides," the problem is these telecom giants themselves.

Carr must have forgotten about how AT&T got a $42 billion Trump tax cut in exchange for big promises of boosted network investment and jobs that never happened. Not only did they not happen, AT&T has laid off an estimated 54,000 employees since 2017. I think folks are smart enough to see through Carr's arguments here. After all, this is a guy that has never seen a giant telecom merger, handout, regulatory favor, or subsidy he didn't like. He's about as clear of a captured regulator as you're likely to see in the wild, and the idea he's interested in genuine reform given his track record should be laughed at.

Telecom giants like AT&T have always lusted after the immense advertising revenues Silicon Valley has enjoyed, and have always somehow believed they're owed a slice of those revenues just because much of this traffic touches their own networks. But "big technology companies should pay us billions in additional dollars for no reason" has never been a real argument. It's just a flimsy telecom monopolist pipe dream repeatedly propped up by captured regulators and corrupt politicians who lost the plot years ago.

So why is it popping up suddenly now? My wager is telecom lobbyists want to provide their trusted DC allies with talking points to help them justify their opposition to Biden's $100 billion $65 billion broadband plan. Messaging along the lines of: "spending money to expand broadband competition isn't really necessary! Wouldn't it just make more sense to have Google, Netflix and Amazon throw billions of dollars at AT&T for no reason?" But Google, Netflix, and Amazon are already paying for it. We're all paying for it. Over, and over, and over again. And the reason we're still paying for it in 2021 is because too few DC officials have the courage to stand up to regional telecom monopolists in the first place.

Filed Under: brendand carr, corporate welfare, digital divide, e-rate, fcc, free ride, subsidies
Companies: at&t, facebook, google, netflix, verizon

Big Telecom Sues New York State For Trying To Bring Cheap Broadband To Poor People

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

If there's one thing that the U.S. broadband industry is terrified of, it's price regulation. The idea that the government might eventually cap the rates regional monopolies can charge in the absence of meaningful competition keeps a lot of executives up late at night. But despite a lot of fear mongering by telecom industry folks on this front, the U.S. has never really gotten even close to that reality. Repeatedly, even the most modest of non-price related regulatory telecom oversight efforts (from net neutrality to privacy) are routinely and easily dismantled by powerful lobbyists either before they can take effect or not long after.

Recently New York State passed a new law (pdf) demanding that regional broadband providers (Verizon, Charter Spectrum, and Altice) provide low-income consumers $15, 25 Mbps broadband tiers to help them survive COVID. The goal: to try and help struggling Americans afford the high cost of broadband. Under the proposal ISPs are also allowed to offer $20, 200 Mbps tiers, with any price increases capped at two percent per year.

Regulators engaging in anything even close to price regulation of regional monopolies is, again, said monopolies' worst nightmare. As a result the broadband industry quickly sued New York, insisting that the state is forbidden from passing such a law thanks in part to the Trump administration's net neutrality repeal. While many folks think that repeal just killed net neutrality rules, that was never true. It also killed much of the FCC's consumer protection authority, including its ability to adequately respond to billing fraud (which happens a lot in residential broadband thanks to misleading surcharges and fees).

The repeal even went one step further in claiming that states also aren't allowed to protect consumers from telecom industry shenanigans. The problem: the courts haven't been looking too kindly upon this argument so far. In part because once the FCC abdicated its regulatory authority over telecom, it lost any authority to tell states what they can or can't do. The industry has used similar arguments to try and attack state-level net neutrality rules, and it hasn't gone particularly well for them:

"An agency that has no power to regulate has no power to preempt the states, according to case law,” Stanford Law Professor Barbara van Schewick told Motherboard. “When the FCC repealed the 2015 Open Internet Order, it said it had no power to regulate broadband internet access providers. That means the FCC cannot prevent the states from adopting net neutrality protections because the FCC’s repeal order removed its authority to adopt such protections."

Basically, the broadband industry has spent four years having its cake and eating it too, demanding that nobody on either the state or federal level has any authority to tell broadband providers what to do, whether we're talking about basic rate regulation or even the most basic of consumer protections. While the Trump and Ajit Pai FCC thought that was just nifty, it's an argument that's not being taken particularly seriously by the States, which have simply doubled down on their own regulatory efforts to fill the giant consumer protection void left by Trump-era apathy:

"I knew giant telecom companies would be upset by our efforts to level the playing field, and right on cue, they're pushing back," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. "Let me be abundantly clear—providing internet in the Empire State is not a god-given right. If these companies want to pick this fight, impede the ability of millions of New Yorkers to access this essential service, and prevent them from participating in our economic recovery, I say bring it on."

Keep in mind New York is simply trying to force ISPs to offer low-cost service to low-income families. Despite the posturing here by Cuomo, the state likely lacks the political courage to take this idea one step further and regulate prices for all New York State residents truly upsetting deep-pocketed campaign contributors.

Again, none of this would be necessary if we had adequate competition in residential US broadband. But because pushing policies that increase competition upsets AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter, a corrupt Congress and captured regulators aren't willing to really do that. Meanwhile, the US telecom sector continues to whine about a "fractured landscape of state-level requirements," hoping you'll ignore the fact that they created this entire mess by repeatedly, brutally attacking absolutely every effort at even the most modest federal consumer protection oversight.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, digital divide, fcc, low income, new york
Companies: altice, charter, verizon

US Press Continues To Pretend The 'Digital Divide' Just Mysteriously Appeared One Day

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

So if you've read Techdirt for any amount of time, you should be pretty well clued in to the fact that US telecom is a heavily monopolized, feebly regulated mess. Regional cable giants like Comcast and Charter absolutely dominate the market, resulting in 83 million Americans being stuck under a monopoly (see this ILSR report). The result of regional monopolization and captured, feckless regulators is obvious and has been for a good thirty years: high prices, comically bad customer service, spotty coverage, and slow speeds. It's not really a debate, though some telecom-allied policy folks like to pretend otherwise.

Yet every time broadband and the digital divide is trending in headlines, the cause of US broadband dysfunction simply isn't mentioned. For example, as the Biden administration released its new broadband plan this week, numerous news outlets once again dipped their toe into trying to cover the digital divide. And time after time after time, news outlets explain that the digital divide exists, but they somehow never inform readers why. When the subject is covered it's just some thing that appeared one day, like Godzilla out of the ocean.

Over at USA Today, for example, the problem was framed like this:

"About 30 million Americans do not have access to broadband, according to the Federal Communications Commission. But another report puts that at about 42 million. And about 12 million students are impacted by the digital divide, according to a report from Common Sense, Boston Consulting Group and the Southern Education Foundation."

Technically, the number of folks without access to any broadband is closer to 42 million, but whatever. But heavily monopolized broadband access isn't just some thing that popped up one day. It's the direct result of 40 straight years of US policy that prioritized the interests of entrenched giants like AT&T and Comcast at nearly every opportunity. But reading outlets like USA Today, a reader would never know that.

On any given day, go peruse the broadband related news feed and try to find an article that clearly shows readers that telecom monopolies and state and federal corruption are the primary cause of America's mediocre showing in nearly every broadband metric that matters. You'll be hard pressed to find any. Even when outlets like the New York Times publish good articles clearly demonstrating the real world impact of substandard broadband, the problem is presented as something completely detached from any real world causality:

"Longtime advocates of universal broadband say the plan, which requires congressional approval, may finally come close to fixing the digital divide, a stubborn problem first identified and named by regulators during the Clinton administration. The plight of unconnected students during the pandemic added urgency."

Why does America have some of the most expensive broadband in the developed world? Why does the digital divide persist despite the fact we've thrown billions upon billions at the problem? Why do kids in the wealthiest country in the history of the planet have to huddle outside of Taco Bell to attend school during COVID? Why is the United States utterly mediocre in nearly every meaningful broadband metric that matters after decades of this shit? Hint: it's not because the US is big or because stringing fiber is all that hard (though both do make fixing the problem moderately more difficult).

As somebody who's covered the sector for twenty years, the answer is monopolization and corruption. Telecom monopolies literally ghost write terrible state and federal laws that hamstring competition. And because these already politically powerful giants are effectively tethered to our intelligence and first responder communities, they rarely see much in the way of genuine accountability. Again, this isn't a debate or some errant opinion; there's fifty years of concrete data that clearly make this point. Corruption and monopolization are the primary reasons US broadband is painfully mediocre.

This is a choice the US is making and has made for generations. The data are clear. But instead of working furiously to weaken the policy and political stranglehold of companies like Comcast, Charter, Verizon, and AT&T, the US "solution" has been to blindly rubber stamp competition and job eroding megamergers, throw unaccountable billions at monopolies (often in exchange for absolutely nothing), and effectively lobotomize the regulators in charge of making sure the telecom sector functions properly. All under some alt-reality claim this would "restore internet freedom." It's madness and idiocy.

You can't fix a problem you're incapable of even acknowledging. And it's pretty clear most media outlets, stuck under a "both sides" or "view from nowhere" paradigm easily exploited by industry, lack the courage to call a duck a duck. And when the press can't be bothered to frame the problem correctly with essential context, policymakers not only feel far less urgency to do much about it, but the public winds up usually blaming the wrong people. You'd like to think that the press figures this out someday, but it's abundantly clear it's not going to be anytime soon.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, digital divide

The House Has Proposed An Excellent Broadband Bill. Telecom Lobbyists Will Make Sure It Never Passes.

from the round-and-round-we-go dept

Last week the House unveiled (a previous version of this story incorrectly stated the bill had been passed) the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act. The bill, which died last year after Mitch McConnell's Senate refused to hold a vote on it, includes a lot of great things, including spending $94 billion on expanding broadband into underserved areas. There's a ton of other helpful things in the proposal, like boosting the definition of broadband to 100 Mbps down (and upstream), requiring "dig once" policies that deploy fiber conduit alongside any new highway bills, and even a provision requiring the FCC to create rules forcing ISPs be transparent about how much they actually charge for monthly service.

A summary (pdf) of the bill offers some additional detail, such as the fact the bill includes a mandate that the government (specifically the Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth within the NTIA) more fully study the impact of affordability on broadband access. In the wake of allegations that the FCC's subsidy auction process is a corrupted and exploited mess, the law also lays down a lot of groundwork to make the subsidization of broadband access more transparent, equitable, and accountable to genuine oversight with an eye on affordability (instead of exclusively focusing on access, which is the DC norm):

"The section also establishes certain requirements for projects funded under the program, including offering broadband service that provides at least 100/100Mbps with sufficiently low latency, offering broadband service at prices that are comparable to, or lower than, the prices charged for comparable service, and offering an affordable service plan. All bidders must meet objective, transparent criteria upfront that demonstrates technical and operational capacity to implement winning projects."

There's several other common sense proposals in the bill, like giving schools and libraries more leeway to use E-Rate funding to help shore up broadband access during the pandemic. I remain nervous about throwing billions in additional subsidies at the industry when the government still can't accurately map where broadband is or isn't available. Many of the same folks who view subsidization as a silver bullet (Democrat and Republican alike) still can't even acknowledge that the two major contributors to US broadband sucking is monopolization, and state and federal corruption. Problems we seem intent on barely acknowledging, much less addressing.

Still, this is a genuinely good bill that includes a lot of common sense solutions for a problem that has taken on greater urgency during a public health crisis. Much like the last time the bill is likely to pass the House, then get blocked in the Senate. It seems unlikely this would win a straight 60 vote majority without demolishing the filibuster or burying it in some broader, much larger infrastructure bill, which seems increasingly possible.

For one thing, broadband monopolies will fight tooth and nail against any effort to increase the standard definition of broadband, just like the last few times the FCC has considered it. Sharing more data on pricing, and boosting the definition of broadband to symmetrical 100 Mbps will only highlight how feckless regulators and monopolization have muted competition, resulting in spotty coverage, high prices, and slow speeds. Make that data far more transparent and accessible, and somebody might just get the kooky idea to genuinely do something about it, and we can't have that.

There's several other things included in the bill that the telecom lobby will simply never allow, like a more competitive and transparent grant and subsidy process, which might (gasp) result in more federal funding going to smaller competitors. There's also some language that requires paying a competitive rate and not scuttling unionization efforts the industry (and its congressional BFFs) will never tolerate. I guess the Democrats assume that because Covid is adding historic pressure on lawmakers to do more about broadband, they can somehow get the GOP (and centrist Democrat) votes needed to push this across the finish line.

But that seems to ignore forty years of history showing that the GOP --and more than a few Democrats-- are opposed to absolutely anything that genuinely holds trusted intelligence partners like AT&T accountable, anything that brings transparency to advertising or pricing, anything that genuinely protects consumers from monopoly harms (be it privacy violations or net neutrality), or anything that even remotely risks hurting incumbent revenues and regional dominance by driving more competition to market. I don't see that suddenly changing here, though I'd love to be surprised.

Filed Under: broadband, congress, digital divide, funding, house, senate

$3.2 Billion FCC Program Helps The Poor Afford Broadband, But...

from the unfinished-business dept

Last week the FCC took the wraps off a new $3.2 billion program designed to help struggling Americans afford broadband during the pandemic. The program was required by Congress as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, and will, once fully operational, dole out $50 a month for broadband service to lower-income American families that qualify. That number jumps to $75 on Tribal lands (a stark reversal from the Trump/Pai era, where the FCC was interested in pulling back on tribal broadband subsidies). The program also doles out up to $100 for a tablet or computer.

With COVID-19 showcasing broadband's essential nature in more ways than one, it's a welcome program that should deliver some immediate relief to the estimated 42 million Americans with no broadband whatsoever, and the estimated 18.5 million households that lack broadband access specifically due to the high cost of service. There's no reason children in the wealthiest country in the history of the planet should have to huddle in the dirt outside of Taco Bell, something interim FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel was quick to highlight:

"This is a program that will help those at risk of digital disconnection,” Acting FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel said of the new program. “It will help those sitting in cars in parking lots just to catch a Wi-Fi signal to go online for work. It will help those lingering outside the library with a laptop just to get a wireless signal for remote learning. It will help those who worry about choosing between paying a broadband bill and paying rent or buying groceries."

That said, there could still be a few issues here if the FCC doesn't do a good job monitoring the program. Under the new broadband benefit system, the money first goes to the ISPs, who'll then be tasked with making sure the money goes to the appropriate individuals. That hasn't always worked out that well with the FCC's existing Lifeline program, which doles out a measly $9.25 monthly benefit that low-income homes have to use on phone, broadband, or wireless service. Companies from AT&T to Sprint have been repeatedly dinged for taking money for people that, well, didn't actually exist.

The other problem is that this is a temporary fix for a permanent, and much larger issue. An issue that the United States repeatedly doesn't even acknowledge, much less do anything about. It's the primary reason why US broadband is so pricey and mediocre on nearly every metric that matters: corruption and monopolization. 83 million Americans have the choice of just one ISP (aka a monopoly). Tens of millions more only have the choice between a fairly apathetic cable giant (usually Comcast), and an even more apathetic telco that (usually) refuses to meaningfully upgrade or repair its aging DSL lines.

Republican administrations are literally incapable of acknowledging this is even a problem. Democratic administrations are more likely to acknowledge this problem, but not often, and usually not clearly. It's much more politically advantageous to discuss the problem in generalities with terms like the "digital divide," as not to offend companies like AT&T that are not only holding the purse strings, but are literally tethered to our law enforcement and intelligence gathering systems and therefore largely immune from any serious culpability for 100 years of monopolistic behavior.

Again it's great that the FCC is doing something to tackle the immediate needs of desperate Americans. And the agency in many ways is prevented from doing much more due to the fact the Biden administration still hasn't appointed a new FCC boss (breaking the current 2-2 Commissioner deadlock). But even when at full power, keep an eye on those willing to acknowledge why US broadband is so expensive and aggressively mediocre, and those (including many in the press and Congress) who enjoy pretending that this problem exists in a miraculous vacuum free of any direct causation.

Filed Under: broadband, digital divide, fcc, funding