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

A Tale of Two Titles

from the correct-the-record dept

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a reliable broadband connection is a health and safety necessity. Families need the internet to connect to remote work, virtual classrooms, election information and telehealth care while maintaining social distance.

But roughly 60 percent of low-income parents say their students will experience digital obstacles when attending online school this fall — including 40 percent who say they will have to seek out public WiFi because they don’t have a reliable internet connection at home. And students aren’t the only ones who need internet access to learn, work and thrive at home — at all times, but especially now.

More than half of all low-income internet users say they are worried about paying their internet and cellphone bills during this crisis. And we know that even before the pandemic, the digital divide disproportionately impacted poorer families and people of color due to high prices and systemic racism (in sectors like credit, banking and housing) that depresses internet adoption too. These are the same communities bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 health and economic crises in all aspects of life.

Yet FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and his industry-lobbyist friends say U.S.broadband networks are responding well to the pressures of the pandemic, all thanks to Pai’s ideology and radically deregulatory agenda. To support this counter-intuitive notion that everything’s going great, they point to the FCC’s tremendously unpopular decision to toss away its authority over broadband service, scrapping broadband’s common-carrier status under Title II of the Communications Act and all the legal tools and protections that law provides.

Their twisted logic suggests that the Obama-era FCC’s decision to properly classify broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II somehow burdened internet providers, leading to stifled broadband deployment and less robust infrastructure. They claim that since Pai got rid of Title II, U.S. internet providers have been motivated to invest more heavily, and consequently have been better able to withstand the stress of increased traffic as COVID-19 has driven more of our daily lives online. And they claim that U.S. networks have fared far better than have European networks, which Pai and friends describe as more heavily regulated.

The only trouble with these claims is that they’re plainly false, in every respect.

First, there’s scant evidence to suggest that U.S. networks responded materially better than others to the pressures of increased usage at home during the pandemic. A report by Cisco-owned ThousandEyes found that broadband networks across the North American, European and Asian Pacific regions all did fairly well with increased traffic loads, and that North America actually experienced one of the highest spikes in broadband outages as lockdowns and stay-at-home orders swept the region in March.

Independent researchers in the United States saw much the same result: a mixed bag at best. Speeds ticked up in some cases, based on tests run by internet users themselves. But more counties and states saw slower median speeds by the end of March, with everyone staying at home, than they had seen at the end of February before the nation started to shut down.

On the other hand, even the research touted by the USTelecom lobby suggests that speeds in the United States and the European Union dipped early on in the pandemic, and then recovered on both sides of the Atlantic as carriers added more capacity.

But cherry-picking data and blowing their conclusion out of proportion is just one of the many sins committed by Chairman Pai and his industry backers. The bigger sin is when they outright get the performance data and the causes for that performance all wrong, as they do with this FCC’s preposterous claim that the agency’s regulatory choices are the primary drivers of broadband-network investment and performance. That is, Pai and company don’t just blur and misstate the numbers; they take false credit for anything they see as a positive trend and ignore any bad news altogether.

As our research at Free Press has shown time and time again, broadband investment and deployment have nothing to do with the fight over Title II. Specifically, there is no evidence to suggest that Title II depressed investment — or that repealing it boosted investment.

Let’s look at the facts.

When fighting strong open internet rules as a commissioner in 2015, and then repealing them when he became Chairman after Trump won, Pai has always claimed that Title II stifles broadband investment. Yet aggregate capital expenditures actually increased during the two-year period when strong Net Neutrality rules and Title II authority were in place. Since Pai’s Title II repeal, aggregate investment has subsequently declined.

Aggregate investment is a bad metric, because it oversimplifies important details about expenditures made by individual firms. However, since Chairman Pai still insists on using incorrect calculations of this metric, it’s worthwhile to set the record straight — and to hold him to the same test he’s tried to use for his predecessors.

Plus, we see the same patterns of increased investment under Title II, and decreased investment after its repeal, when we look at the stories of individual firms. In fact, approximately 92 percent of the fiber deployments made since 2017 — for which Chairman Pai is so eager to take credit — were actually planned and announced during the Title II era. The same is overwhelmingly true for high-speed cable deployments made during Pai’s tenure.

The reality, as internet providers have repeatedly told their investors, is that other factors (like demand, competition and tax treatment) have a far greater impact on companies’ broadband investments than broadband’s regulatory classification as a Title I or a Title II service has.

So Chairman Pai is often taking credit for imaginary deployment gains, or else for expected improvements that he only imagines he caused.

If we look past Pai’s happy talk and his lies about broadband-investment impacts, we can see how the loss of Title II authority has actually harmed internet users during the COVID-19 pandemic. If the Trump FCC hadn’t gone ahead with its ill-advised repeal, the Commission would have had many more tools to get and keep people connected, both during and after the crisis.

Without the tools needed to mandate continuous, just and reasonable service during an unprecedented economic crisis, the centerpiece of the FCC’s response was its voluntary “Keeping Americans Connected” pledge, which called on internet providers to temporarily suspend their data caps, open Wi-Fi hotspots and stop service disconnections for people who couldn’t pay their bills due to the pandemic.

While this pledge was certainly a positive move, it was also toothless, unenforceable and — in the end — temporary. After only two months, Chairman Pai decided that even this inconsistently applied, spotty and voluntary pledge was too burdensome for internet providers.

With Title II, we could have faced the pandemic head on by outright prohibiting disconnections instead of meekly asking ISPs not to cut people off. And the FCC could have strengthened and modernized its Lifeline program, built on a strong legal foundation. That program offers low-income families a modest subsidy to make basic communications services more affordable. By scrapping Title II, this FCC jeopardized its legal authority to extend that subsidy to cover broadband services in the long run, and in the short term largely sat on its hands rather than exploring ways to make the program more useful to people who are disconnected or running out of data.

The D.C. Circuit court also highlighted this authority pitfall in its remand of portions of Chairman Pai’s Title II repeal order — but just this month, the FCC announced it’s planning to stick to its guns. Pai’s latest proposal said that even if a court decided the agency could not use Lifeline to cover broadband without Title II authority, the FCC’s Republican majority would be fine with that. They’d rather kill Lifeline for broadband at a time when record numbers of people are out of work and struggling to afford their internet bills.

In a pandemic, internet connectivity is a life-and-death issue, and it’s one this administration has failed to address. Chairman Pai’s Title II repeal didn’t set the industry up for a strong COVID-19 network response: It just left marginalized people high and dry during a historic crisis without protections from exorbitant broadband prices and corporate abuses.

It’s high time we got the facts straight about Title II and started using all the tools at our disposal to bridge this unconscionable divide.

Dana Floberg is the policy manager for digital-rights group Free Press.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, competition, fcc, net neutrality, title ii

We Do Not Have the Internet We Deserve

from the a-better-future dept

Nothing that currently exists can compete with fiber. Nothing replicates the future growth fiber networks will deliver, simply because nothing that moves data has the inherent capacity of a fiber wire. It isn’t even close by any technical measurement. However, barely 30 percent of Americans have access to fiber infrastructure, despite the fact that 100 percent of Americans have become dependent on high-speed access during the pandemic.

In a few short years, more than one billion fiber-to-the-home gigabit Internet connections will have been deployed in Asia. That fiber infrastructure will be capable of reaching symmetrical ten gigabits, 100 gigabits, and well into the terabit era of broadband access in a cost-effective basis as applications and services continue to evolve and advance. Deployment at a large scale is possible, but the U.S. still lags far behind.

Here is how bad our high-speed access market is today: every big American ISP has stopped deploying fiber services at any serious scale. This leaves a vast majority of Americans stuck with inferior cable Internet service. When you factor in the monopoly power held by the ISPs—preventing Americans from switching to better service—it becomes a perfect storm. That storm broke with the pandemic, where we all suddenly found ourselves needing quick and reliable Internet access.

Only small private and local public providers are connecting folks to the future, but their efforts are stymied by incumbents and not sufficiently supported. That means most people can’t switch from cable when they opt to throttle uploads or are unable to deliver the speeds they’ve advertised if we all use the Internet at the same time. You still have landlords getting away with keeping fiber competitors out of apartment complexes in exchange for a kick back from companies like Comcast.

The remaining Americans who don’t even have access to cable are dependent on obsolete copper lines for communications held by companies like the now-bankrupt Frontier Communications and AT&T. In Frontier’s case, their overreliance on its slow Internet monopoly led to their downfall as they systemically avoided the necessary investments needed to transition to fiber leaving countless rural communities in dire straits. As for AT&T, they are trying to figure out how to cut people off the copper network and just give them cell phones to make more money with a less reliable connection. And the wireless industry spent precious years hyping 5G at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress only to now come to admit that 5G everywhere does not happen without dense fiber networks everywhere.

Now the good news: this is all fixable. If we change our telecom policies and how we invest in telecom infrastructure, fiber to the home (FTTH) is already economically feasible in a super-majority of communities if the right policies and government efforts are in place. A recent study by the Fiber Broadband Association found that FTTH is commercially feasible up to the 90th percentile of population density. For the remaining 10 percent, the Americans in the most rural of territories, we are seeing successful models led by the public sector such as rural cooperatives on long-term capital investments in FTTH.

For example, a rural cooperative in Missouri today can deliver gigabit service at $100 a month at a population density of 2.4 people per square mile. The demand is there but it is being suppressed by the slow Internet monopolists through bans on local governments building fiber and incumbent industry efforts to have the FCC hinder competition. If we break down the barriers that are suppressing the parties most ready to deploy fiber, 21st century infrastructure will come.

First, if the large private ISP model has failed (and it has), we need to start exploring our alternatives. One such alternative is simply having the government build the infrastructure and make it open to all comers. This “open access fiber” approach, fiber that is available on a shared infrastructure, is starting to take off. Utah’s “Utopia” network is leading the way, connecting more and more households in the area to an expanding open-access fiber network run by local cities. Residents within Utopia’s service area enjoy 11 private options for gigabit service, compared to whatever the majority of Americans have one or two high-speed services.

This type of approach to broadband infrastructure, where the government builds the wires and shares its capacity to broadband providers, holds tremendous promise. In essence, the government builds the roads and allows commerce to follow. One study predicts a structurally separated network deployment could connect rural homes to fiber without subsidies and through long term low-interest financing.

Other shared approaches are bearing fruit. In Alabama, the state legislature passed a law clarifying that electric utilities could leverage their easements and private rights-of-way to enable telecommunications services over their fiber assets. In response, Mississippi’s C Spire arranged an exclusivity agreement with Alabama Power in exchange for deploying fiber to the home to communities throughout the state through the utilities network. The exclusivity gave C Spire the confidence that their investments in the utility’s fiber network to make it broadband-ready could be recovered from newly connected customers, while Alabama Power was assured that C Spire would try to attract as many customers as possible to provide a stable and growing revenue base to the electric utility, resulting in lower rates. Joint ventures that leverage interdependent needs for fiber can help make more markets accessible because the demand is already there.

Lastly, the only way we are going to get everyone connected to 21st century ready access is the same way we did it with the roads, electricity, and water: the government needs to lead. Internet access needs to be part of its infrastructure policy, especially light of the private sector failing to deliver to all people.

Estimates are that nearly $100 billion is needed to deliver 100 percent coverage with FTTH in America, with the majority of that cost being associated with the most rural parts of America. That sounds like a lot, but here is the important thing to know about fiber: once you lay that line, you are done building broadband infrastructure for potentially 70 years or more. To put that in context, the publicly available commercial Internet hasn’t even existed for 70 years. All of the advancements in speed and capacity (that will far exceed satellite, cable, and wireless) will come from inexpensive hardware upgrades, not high cost labor and construction work. This is why countries like China are aggressively building fiber infrastructure at a rate nine times faster than the United States.

This reality has prompted Rep. James Clyburn to draft legislation to create an American universal fiber program. It has already passed the House, and now we must force the Senate to understand the breadth of this problem and simplicity of this solution. If we can get an electric line to everyone, we can get a fiber line there too.

The bill emphasizes open-access fiber networks that would replicate the success demonstrated by Utah’s local governments. Building these types of networks would shatter the nearly 15-year decline into the giant monopolies or duopolies that most Americans experience when trying to get high-speed Internet access. Instead, you could get Internet access from your local businesses, non-profits, and even your local schools and libraries.

The bill will also free up local governments and cooperatives to pursue community broadband. The removal of state laws advocated by the major national ISPs that ban local communities from building their own broadband access network is long overdue. The local public sector has proven to be an essential part of the solution to reach universal fiber as rural cooperatives, small cities, and townships are building fiber networks in areas long ago skipped by the private sector.

The bill also fixes a small-seeming, large-impact, and long-standing problem of Internet access in the United States by updating what we mean by broadband. Today’s federal definition of broadband was established in 2015 and stands at 25 megabits per second download and 3 megabits per second upload. This 25/3 standard makes it appear as if there are more broadband options than there truly are, hiding the monopoly. In other words, it is both useless and harmful. To fix this, the bill would establish that communities lacking 25/25 broadband are “unserved” and establish a minimum standard of 100/100 megabits per second for federally funded projects. These higher metrics would avoid wasting money on legacy networks that are unable to deliver relevant speeds and focus on future proof networks that have fiber at their core.

We have to fix our Internet, and soon.

The pandemic has not resulted in as much of an explosion of Internet usage as it has a bump in usage that is within normal parameters of what was coming—that is, pandemic usage is roughly in sync with projections for Internet usage in around 2022. The future, as they say, is now.

If your Internet access is failing you now, you have just been given a sneak peek of what 2022 looks like for your home. Broadband consumption has been on the rise as long as we’ve tracked it, and as the billion gigabit fiber connections are activated globally, the applications and services that use that capacity will come to market. If the United States government, the states, and the local governments do not actively tackle this infrastructure problem soon, we will just be unable to access the latest advancements. Not only that, but our economic competitiveness will decline as China continues to rise and the 21st century technology industries will begin to find their homes where the infrastructure is available. The next Silicon Valley may not be in America if we continue on this trajectory.

We will also start to see the creation of a new type of digital divide where Americans live with either 1st class or 2nd class Internet. Fibered networks are getting cheaper to operate yet are delivering larger amounts of data while legacy networks are quickly getting more expensive to maintain. That means low income neighborhoods and rural areas stuck on the legacy 20th century network are going to pay more for less, while high-income users connected to fiber will enjoy the benefits of lower prices. Efforts to subsidize access to the Internet for low income people will become more and more difficult on decaying lines, while free Internet zones will become more normalized in wealthy communities as the costs continue to decline on fiber.

None of this is set in stone. We have the market we choose and if we start making the right choices soon, we can solve these problems. But that takes everyone collectively demanding more from our policy makers and the industry and adopting a new approach.

Ernesto Falcon is Senior Legislative Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation with a primary focus on intellectual property, open Internet issues, broadband access, and competition policy.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, covid-19, digital divide, fiber, infrastructure, open internet

WISPs Are Helping Communities Stay Connected And Safe During The Crisis... And Beyond

from the buy-local dept

Almost universally, COVID-19 and its associated stay-at-home orders challenged networks with crushes of Internet traffic. Big, medium and small networks; urban, suburban and rural – all experienced a massive shift in use as Americans, locked into a single spot for an indefinite amount of time, depended on the Internet to communicate with friends and families, go to work, learn, get healthcare, and generally ride out the storm.

Fixed wireless providers (a.k.a. WISPs) were no exception in serving the public’s needs during the health safety crisis. These generally small, rural companies use primarily unlicensed spectrum to deliver broadband to nearly 7 million residential and business customers throughout America. Not to be confused with mobile wireless technology, WISPs purchase Internet access, run that to a tower or other vertical structure (such as a grain silo or water tower), then shoot that data wirelessly to fixed receiver-antennas on houses and businesses, connecting a robust, two-way broadband connection.

Not surprisingly, WISPs have been busy during the crisis, seeing an average change of download traffic at peak of 43%; and upload at peak of 70%. To support this, 83% of WISPs upgraded their networks to better manage the new traffic dynamics. Importantly, no WISP buckled, as users changed their favorite apps from streaming and email to “Zoom” teleconferencing and distance learning. During the pandemic, WISPs were also on the frontlines of keeping their communities connected.

Some of this work was recently highlighted by FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks in his inaugural Digital Opportunity Equity Recognition (DOER) program. WISPA members Midco, Starry and Triad Wireless were lauded by the Commissioner for demonstrating “a true commitment to serving communities through acts of substance and consequence, big and small, generosity and selflessness both during the pandemic and prior to the recent events that have changed our nation.”

What did they do?

Midco worked with the State of North Dakota and local school districts to deliver free Internet service for families to help kids stay “in” school. Starry created a budget $15 a month package, connecting communities across Boston, New York City, Denver, and Los Angeles with 30 Mbps service and no data caps or long-term contracts. And Triad Wireless launched its “Education Everywhere” program, which for $10 per month brought needy families Internet access in communities across Arizona.

All told 75% of America’s 2,000 plus WISPs helped out with some sort of free access, Wi-Fi hotspots, community connectivity or other broadband deployments to keep their local communities online and safe during the pandemic.

An example of the industry’s other “doers” include companies like Byhalia.net in Bellefontaine, OH, which set up a free Wi-Fi location at their local public school so kids in their rural area with limited or no Internet could get assignments via drive-up Wi-Fi. And, BPS Networks, located in Bernie, MO, which deployed nine free Wi-Fi hotspots for local school districts in SE Missouri, as well as a dedicated high-speed link for the local hospital’s COVID-19 pre-screening tents. Or, Portative Technologies in Corydon, IN, which deployed 10 free hotspots in the area’s parks, fire houses, parking lots and elsewhere in their county.

The FCC played an integral part in many of these connectivity efforts, too. More than 100 WISPs applied for and received an innovative, temporary 45 MHz assignment of 5.9 GHz spectrum from the Commission to rapidly boost and promote broadband connectivity. That band was “reserved” for the automotive industry two decades ago, but has gone essentially fallow, seeing little to no use since its inception. Because the spectrum sits adjacent to unlicensed providers in the 5 GHz band, it represented a perfect candidate to quickly increase capacity, alleviating some of “COVID-crunch” on WISP and Wi-Fi networks.

To this end, Amplex in Luckey, OH, used its 5.9 GHz spectrum to increase bandwidth by 50% across its suburban and rural network of 8,000 subscribers, greatly improving capacity not only for the equipment using the new spectrum, but also reducing congestion on the existing spectrum. And Nextlink, based in Hudson Oaks, TX, achieved less network interference by utilizing the 5.9 GHz band, allowing over 2,000 of its subscribers to upgrade their speed plans to higher levels than possible before.

WISPs’ underlying nimbleness made the effects of C-19 less devastating. But it also hints at something more powerful and lasting at work. While the U.S. economy significantly contracted during the crisis, WISP networks grew. Over 80% of WISPs added customers during the pandemic. Interestingly, however, COVID didn’t create this. Rather, it only accelerated the velocity of growth, which for the past several years has been about 15% annually.

How can this happen when other sectors remain flat or experience only meager growth?

First, WISPs often serve broadband-neglected communities in the digital divide – areas that have been left behind by legacy providers because they’re deemed too unprofitable to serve. Perhaps tragically, there’s a huge, nearly 20 million strong untapped market there, representing a lot of room to grow.

Second, though many WISPs provide fiber connectivity, too, the fixed wireless model can be rolled-out almost overnight and at about 15% of the cost of fiber, quickly providing a cost-effective and evolutionary tool to connect to the Internet where it was absent or deficient.

And third, they’re not beholden to a “mother-may-I” regulatory regime, enabling them to innovate without permission, more nimbly extending services to those who need it. It is the exact opposite of monopoly and franchise-driven plays, which work to limit service options, innovation and regulatorily mandated “growth.”

For many individuals in the rural and urban digital divide, WISPs are an essential lifeline, built to evolve, expand and scale to meet the needs of the markets they serve. This flexibility and industry “get ‘er done” ethos have allowed WISPs across America to help their communities stay connected and safe during the crisis. And beyond.

The WISP model helps more and more Americans thrive in good and in challenging times. Policymakers would do well to promote their broadband deployment model to continue this good and vital work.

Claude Aiken is WISPA’s president and CEO. A leader on broadband policy, Aiken joined WISPA in 2018 after nearly a decade at the FCC. While there, he served as a trusted advisor to Chairman Wheeler and Commissioner Clyburn. He held senior leadership positions in the Wireline Bureau and Office of General Counsel, as well key staff attorney roles throughout the FCC.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, covid-19, fixed wireless, wireless, wisps

The Enormous Cost Of Digital Inequality

from the everybody's-problem dept

Both unintentionally and by design, we have reinforced a digital caste system that continues to divide communities into the “haves” and “have-nots.” What still remains unclear is not whether we can reverse engineer the disparate impact, but whether we, as a nation, believe that every resident in every community deserves equal access to a digital society.

It is hard to argue with the facts. While remote learning mandates remain in place, six in ten low-income students have to attend online classes via cell phone or search for a public WiFi access point, while others have simply disappeared from their class rosters because they do not have a device to get online. Approximately half of Americans living on Tribal lands and one-third of those living in rural areas still do not have reliable connections. Their job opportunities, online businesses, and remote access to health care have suffered accordingly.

Roughly one-third of African American and Hispanic households struggle with digital access, adoption, and literacy. Deutsche Bank estimates that “76% of Blacks and 62% of Hispanics could get shut out or be underprepared for 86% of jobs in the US by 2045.” Meanwhile, over forty percent of adults at or below the poverty line do not have reliable broadband of any kind.

This is everyone’s problem. And how we arrived here is less mysterious than it seems.

Since the National Broadband Plan was introduced in 2010, we have learned that when the market rewards providers with profits and control, they will come. However, relying on market forces alone cannot ensure that every community has access to broadband, a vital public good as important as electricity or clean water.

Federal policy designed to support broadband deployment strategies were based on the assumption that local and state entities would carry the mantle on increasing adoption. But, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, local and state governments are strapped for resources. Even if they are able to scrape together investments for digital infrastructure and adoption programs, few have adequate resources to do both well.

The digital divide has been relentless and unforgiving in the most under resourced communities, which have concurrently had to combat the threats from the COVID-19 pandemic, economic instability, and food insecurity. Ironically, being able to get online remains most elusive for those in the greatest need of digital pathways out of poverty.

The internet has increasingly become the public square just as high-speed connectivity has become the lifeblood of our economy. In a post-COVID landscape, when Americans need broadband to work and learn from home and medical attention requires making an appointment online, access impacts our quality of life. It also determines who and how households will recover from the pandemic and its economic fallout.

What’s more, the internet has introduced once unimaginable possibilities for the most disenfranchised voices among us. Standing Rock. Flint. Minneapolis. These movements are a part of our lexicon, in part, because organizers had access to a universal platform, then dared the nation to collectively say her name – equality.

We need a plan, the kind that reaches every corner of the U.S. We need a nationwide strategy for broadband access that recognizes the importance of high-performance digital infrastructure and supports widespread adoption.

Above all, this needs to be a priority for every level of government, working together to encourage interagency participation and public-private partnerships that fuel innovation. Otherwise, we will continue to miss out on the productivity and imagination of the millions struggling with access.

Francella Ochillo is an attorney and digital rights advocate who has worked on a variety of technology and telecommunications issues. Her work often highlights how policy proposals impact unserved and underserved communities.

Filed Under: broadband, covid, inequality

Time to Treat Broadband Like the Essential Service It Is

from the essential-utility dept

Let’s stop ignoring the obvious: broadband internet access service is a public utility and needs to be regulated as one.

American consumers agree. A Consumer Reports survey from earlier this year found that four out of five (80 percent) consumers believe broadband service is as important as water and electricity. Indeed, broadband has become the essential service in the daily lives of 21st century consumers. The COVID-19 crisis has thrown this fact into sharp relief as many of us depend on an internet connection to work from home, attend virtual classrooms, receive medical care via telehealth services, stay connected with friends and family, and for entertainment.

The pandemic has proven just how critical a reliable, fast and affordable internet connection is today. However, unlike water, electricity, or even phone service, broadband internet service is neither universally available, nor is it regulated to guarantee access, ensure fair prices, or promote competition in the marketplace.

As a result, there exists a deeply troubling “digital divide” between those Americans who have and can afford internet service, and those who cannot. The divide is two-pronged, as both access and affordability determine whether consumers are able to get online. Access is meant as a home wired for broadband internet, and affordability is determined by whether a consumer can pay the price for service demanded by the internet service provider (ISP).

Unfortunately, those in charge at the Federal Communications Commission have proven incapable of bridging this divide. In fact, the decision a few years ago to reclassify broadband as an “information service” instead of what it obviously is, a “telecommunications service” has practically removed the Commission from any meaningful oversight role over ISPs. The next Congress needs to rectify this wrong and enact a new framework to govern broadband service, ensuring that it is both accessible and affordable to consumers.

To be sure, the FCC could restore its regulatory authority over broadband by reclassifying it as a telecommunication service. The 2005 Supreme Court decision in Brand X established that the Commission has the flexibility to make such classification decisions—decisions with real consequences for consumers that extend beyond esoteric legal exercises.

The very question of whether broadband is an information service versus a telecommunications service has been at the heart of the current net neutrality struggle for almost two decades. At the risk of gross oversimplification, an information service classification roughly translates into fewer regulations. Conversely, a telecommunications service designation avails the FCC of a stronger set of tools rooted in common carrier authority, with powers to better foster competition, ensure non-discriminatory access, and put a cap on rates that are too expensive for consumers.

The FCC correctly classified broadband as a telecommunications service in 2015 as part of its Open Internet Order, enabling the issuance of common sense net neutrality rules. This action was approved by a federal court in the 2016 USTelecom ruling. Unfortunately, all that was discarded when the current Commission reversed course a year later and decided to reclassify broadband once again, this time as an information service, as a fundamental part of its repeal of the 2015 net neutrality rules. Though obvious to us that broadband is a telecommunications service, the classification debate—read the lengthy justification for declassifying broadband in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order—has descended into a medieval exercise to determine how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

The back-and-forth war over net neutrality fought time and time again at the FCC must end. Make no mistake, ensuring an open internet is an important policy struggle, but the FCC’s failures reveal a deeper problem: how can we best regulate internet service supplied by ISPs, which is NOT to be conflated with regulating the internet, as is so often the lament from the anti-net neutrality crowd.

The current status quo cannot be allowed to stand and it will not increase more broadband access at an affordable price. Absent much more than flimsy transparency requirements, ISPs are free from any real rules imposed by the FCC or Congress. Moreover, ISPs like Comcast and Charter are mostly insulated from competition—a study published this past summer revealed that these two companies alone maintain a monopoly over 47 million American consumers, and even more (an extra 33 million) if we disregard DSL as a real competitive choice in 2020. Adding to the misery, the rates charged by ISPs are totally inscrutable. Prices vary from neighborhood to neighborhood within the same city, and yet there’s no clear sense how prices are determined or if they’re consistent.

Though FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and others ridiculed the 2015 Open Internet Order as “utility-style” regulation, consumers now recognize broadband service as exactly that: a utility. It should be governed as such to benefit consumers. Not ISPs.

A new Congress will be sworn in next January. It can settle this debate once and for all. We can no longer endure the seesawing classification debate at the FCC, the winner of which depends upon a Presidential election every four years. Therefore, legislation must be passed to grant the FCC new, clear authority to govern broadband service as a telecommunications service, an essential utility.

Emboldened with the power to regulate broadband like a utility, the Commission can ensure affordability by applying price caps, especially where there is not effective competition and prices are too high. Alternatively, the FCC could spur competition by requiring ISPs to unbundle their networks to allow new entrants to offer service. Utility-style regulation could also be used to require deployment to underserved areas and to standardize service offerings to make sure consumers can afford a package to meet their everyday needs of remote work and online learning. Finally, as demonstrated by the 2015 Open Internet Order, utility regulation permits the FCC to require non-discriminatory access to ISP networks, the foundation for re-establishing strong net neutrality rules.

Additionally, Congress must fund a massive internet infrastructure project to get broadband into the home of every American family. Estimates that 42 million Americans lack access to fixed broadband service is unacceptable in 2020. Kids trying to attend class online shouldn’t have to drive to a parking lot to use free WiFi offered by libraries, sports arenas, or fast food restaurants. And though rural areas typically suffer a lack of broadband access, it is also an urban problem. The Gotham Gazette recently reported that: “According to city data, 40% of households in the city -- home to roughly 3.4 million people -- don’t have both home and mobile internet connections, and 18% have neither.”

Congress should further consider measures to make broadband affordable for all Americans. A CR survey from earlier this year found that consumers paid an average of $66 per month for internet service. Coupled with other costs and the hardships posed by the pandemic, this is simply too expensive for many families. Borrowing from a very old cable law, Congress could require ISPs to offer a “basic service” package for all consumers that provides affordable, reliable broadband at speeds that are required for today’s bandwidth-heavy applications. Comcast is already doing this in some fashion (originally as a condition to its acquisition of NBC Universal in 2011), so the idea is not exactly a stretch.

These are but a few ideas to increase broadband access and affordability. This isn’t rocket science and it should not be a partisan issue. The internet has proven obvious and essential for Americans to succeed in the 21st century economy.

With Congressional funding and a new grant of authority and purpose at the FCC to treat broadband like the essential utility service that it is, the government can—and must—connect many more Americans to the internet and to each other.

Jonathan Schwantes is a senior policy counsel in Consumers Reports’ Washington DC office where he focuses on telecommunications issues affecting consumers in the broadband, television, media, and wireless markets.

Filed Under: broadband, essential, fcc, internet access, public utility

In New York City, We've Taken The Digital Divide Into Our Own Hands During Covid

from the if-you-want-something-done-right dept

Broadband is in a state of disarray in America. This was the case long before COVID-19 brought the world to its knees earlier this year. Roughly a third of Americans have no access to broadband internet, with the majority stating cost as the most important obstacle. Even in highly connected urban areas, such as New York City, a lack of connectivity impacts millions of residents. According to Mayor de Blasio’s Internet Master Plan, 40% of New Yorkers lack access to home or mobile broadband, including roughly 20% who lack access to both.

Many of these internet black out zones are in low income and minority communities. As the coronavirus pandemic set in, internet accessibility became more crucial than ever. However, as schools transitioned to online learning, many children were unable to participate – and continue to face the same challenge today, months later. Our community at NYC Mesh is fighting to bring digital equity to all communities of NY, and our solution is simple: provide internet to everyone. As COVID makes our society ever more digital, I believe our solution provides a meaningful model for how grassroots movements can shape the connectivity landscape.

At NYC Mesh we are developing strategies to improve internet accessibility, by creating an open Wi-Fi wireless and fiber network in three boroughs – and more to come. Since NYC Mesh was founded in 2014, it has nearly doubled in size every year. However, like many other organizations, COVID took a toll on our ability to expand the network and service members.

At the beginning of the year, NYC Mesh had about 500 successful nodes on the network – rooftop antennas connecting residents online and further expanding the reach of our community infrastructure in the city. The network was blanketing lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, with plans to begin connecting residents in Queens. Community meetings were filling rooms and teams of volunteers were at the ready to carry out seven installs a week, update our supporting webpage, participate in hackathons, perform maintenance and keep the network running, or any other of the many tasks involved in bridging community organizing and connectivity.

As with the rest of New York, COVID forced NYC Mesh to adapt, and quickly. We did so by acting locally: the weeks before New York’s shelter in place order entered into effect, volunteers attempted to connect immediate neighbors, anyone in walking distance that we could connect. Ultimately, however, COVID forced the organization to limit its work to only emergency maintenance or circumstances when a new member had no other means to get online.

Despite these limitations there were other ways we could help. NYC Mesh operates almost entirely on the suggested contributions of its members. We don’t speak the language of “service cutoffs,” billing, fees, or other creations of for-profit ISPs. When members of our community lost a job or simply had to prioritize other expenses in their life, they could rest assured that they wouldn’t lose their connection online. Of course, as with groups across the nation, our monthly community meetings transitioned online; PPE became a requirement for all in-person site visits and installations; and we added digital training videos and maintained an extensive online doc to help educate our new members.

We started taking in requests for new installations again in June and the number of install requests have once again reached about seven a week. While some of our regular volunteers have had to step back as a result of the COVID shutdown, new volunteers have stepped forward, who have brought with them amazing contributions to help continue the expansion of the Mesh. While COVID may have slowed down NYC Mesh’s operations, we still continue to pursue our goal of bringing digital equity to all New Yorkers.

Digital learning was an integral part of education long before the coronavirus and its importance is only increasing. As the need for broadband access rises, the gap in internet access has become more evident, and the consequences more severe. Coronavirus provided the perfect example of how the lack of broadband access can put many, especially children at risk. Children, especially children of color, are receiving less days of instructed learning than their more privileged peers. Prior to COVID, a child could go to an after-school program or library to get online. Now, most of these facilities are closed, limiting the options of those without internet at home to receive an education.

NYC Mesh is here to organize, empower, and connect, which is why we’re partnering with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to expand the mesh network into public housing and enable free, fair, and community-based internet access to residents. The people of these communities face many obstacles, a lack of broadband access being one of the most severe yet overlooked. Having access to the internet at home means it will be easier for residents to apply for jobs online, work remotely, and access safety net benefits. Most importantly, it allows children to receive a full education during this pandemic. With this partnership, some of the most vulnerable members of our population will gain access to the internet, bringing us one step closer to digital equity for all New Yorkers.

As we face yet another potential wave of COVID, it is clear that digital equity must be the goal in order to ensure that all New Yorkers can be successful. Employment opportunities, safety net access, and education, will increasingly become dependent on having internet access. Without stable broadband access, the gap between rich and poor widens, and the circle of poverty will continue for the next generation of children of color. Thanks to the efforts of NYC Mesh and other community-run and community-first organizations who have stepped up to tackle this challenge like Silicon Harlem or The Point, we are closer to bringing digital equity to the City of New York and ensuring that no child receives a lesser education, because of their parents' inability to pay a monthly internet bill.

Terique Boyce is an organizer with NYC Mesh and resident of NYCHA housing. He works towards achieving greater representation of people of color in the tech industry and bridging the digital divide in NYC.

Filed Under: broadband, covid-19, digital divide, internet connectivity, mesh, mesh networks, nyc, nycha
Companies: nyc mesh

Community Broadband In The Age Of Covid

from the home-grown dept

When it comes to the goal of ensuring all Americans have affordable and reliable Internet access, we are pretty much stalled. Sure, the FCC will make noise every year about our quest to bridge the digital divide, but it has focused solely on for-profit private solutions. And while there are many hundreds of good local companies making important local investments, the FCC has tended to throw the most money at the few extremely big ones (the same big ones that are on the other side of the revolving door at the FCC for most employees, whether staff or political appointees.)

In response to the pandemic, companies like Charter and AT&T have been on their best behavior and done their best to extend connections more widely than they did in normal times. It was far from good enough, and culminated in AT&T asking for billions more in subsidies than it was already getting. Tens of millions of Americans are not particularly attractive to the big ISP monopolies, either because they live in more rural areas or low-income neighborhoods of cities.

We need better broadband policies — but we have to learn from what is actually working. Second, we should never write another check to AT&T or bankrupt disasters like Frontier and Windstream. Third, thoughtful, practical solutions moving ahead will need to address the broadband gap in whatever form it takes. As NDIA notes, broadband policy that focuses solely on the infrastructure challenge is structurally racist — it ignores the needs of millions of families of color in urban areas that face other obstacles to getting online.

Community networks are commonly assumed to be best at connecting those neglected families, and many are showing their worth during this Covid-19 pandemic. But Covid-19 is just the latest piece of evidence that these types of networks should play a much larger role in expanding competition more generally — whether they take the form of municipal networks, cooperative-owned networks, or take some other non-profit form.

For those living in areas covered by electric cooperatives, there are plenty of recent examples which can provide local leaders inspiration and offer lessons learned. For example, 15 out of 25 electric co-ops in Mississippi are currently pursuing fiber projects that will connect tens of thousands over the next handful of years. 35% of residents in the state lack basic broadband, but $65 million in CARES funding is bringing fiber to folks with nothing today.

Other electric cooperatives have also stepped up to the plate. OzarksGo, based in Arkansas, responded to the public health crisis by wiring fiber to Wi-Fi hotspots on parked school busses last spring to help community members with no access get online. The New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, after a rousing local organizing campaign by local residents citing COVID, in part, saw its board vote unanimously to create a separate entity to pursue broadband after previously refusing to.

City-owned networks also provide an abundance of examples. North Carolina’s Greenlight network, operated by the city of Wilson, has developed several programs to connect those commonly left behind. This includes offering 40 Megabit per second (Mbps) symmetrical connections to families in public housing for $10/month, and a flexpay program to give anyone a pay-ahead option that is essential for families with bad credit or irregular income. Greenlight also accepts cash, essential for the unbanked. All of these programs have remained in place or expanded since last spring. When the pandemic hit, Greenlight also accelerated its lifeline approach, keeping people connected with a basic option for $10/month.

Chattanooga again made national news in July when it unveiled an initiative called HCS EdConnect to provide free 100Mbps symmetrical Internet access to every student in the Hamilton County School District on free or reduced lunch. That’s 17,700 homes and 32,000 students, and the initiative has pledged to keep those connections free for the next ten years. The $15 million project serves as a case study in decisive action, thoughtful municipal leadership, local investment, and fundraising by all involved: Hamilton County Public Schools, municipal network EPB Fiber, nonprofit The Enterprise Center, and city and county governments. The first large chunk of students has already been connected.

Covid-19 has amped up growth in community networks. In San Rafael, California, a coalition between local government, Marin County, and the nonprofit Canal Alliance came together initially in a bid to get students online for the upcoming school year, but the effort quickly turned into a free Wi-Fi network for the entirety of the Canal neighborhood. Residents there make up the backbone of the area’s service economy and have some of the worst Internet access options in what is otherwise among the wealthiest counties in the state. The city plans to keep it online and free indefinitely.

The same thing is happening in McAllen, Texas, with the city’s IT department spearheading an effort to put 5,000 access points around the city of 140,000 on water towers and power poles, with dozens of neighborhoods already blanketed in free Wi-Fi. Like in San Rafael, all residents of McAllen will enjoy the benefits of the public network forever, with the city committing to maintaining it with a regular budget appropriation from here out.

And over the summer in Champaign, Illinois, when it became clear that hundreds of District 4 students on the north side of town in Shadowwood Mobile Home Park were unable to attend classes because they lacked Internet access, the city partnered with local broadband provider i3 and wireless hardware manufacturer Mesh++ to solve the problem. Solar-powered Wi-Fi routers were installed on power and light poles to create a free, neighborhood-wide wireless network so that more than 250 students could log on and access course content and join live classes via Zoom. Champaign, too, plans for their network to be permanent, and is pursuing similar projects in apartment housing in other parts of town.

San Rafael, McAllen, and Champaign are by no means alone, with similar efforts unfolding in Cleveland, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, San Antonio, Texas, and elsewhere. These should be celebrated, but we can still do better. The networks can be more ambitious - like Wilson and Chattanooga — and more numerous.

The Barriers to Community Broadband Today

First, 19 states have laws on the books which significantly restricts the ability of communities to build networks responsive to their needs, even though we know this results in slower broadband adoption. The HEROES Act would eliminate these barriers, but it remains stalled in the U.S. Senate. If Democrats take the Senate, they say they will wipe out these barriers, but the big monopolies are undoubtedly undermining that determination as you read this.

Second, the federal government should invest more money, more intelligently in the effort. While a good chunk of the first round of the USDA’s ReConnect Program grants went to cooperatives and other municipal networks working to expand Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks, it’s not enough. ReConnect has given out a little more than $800 million in funds, but the need is far greater and it is focused solely on areas where no broadband is physically available. Far more people are stuck in areas with networks that are too expensive for their income. The upcoming RDOF auction will give cooperatives a shot at billions in subsidies, but there is no program for the millions of low-income families that need affordable options.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, we see a lack of ambition, commitment, and imagination by local communities in solving the problem. AT&T demands more subsidies while withdrawing its services in rural areas, and Mississippi asks why nearly $300 million in subsidies didn’t improve access for most. But most local government officials still think AT&T or their state or the federal government will suddenly recognize decades of failure and swoop in to connect local businesses and residents.

Communities have to step up. Recognizing the value of local action alone isn’t enough. Elected officials and community stakeholders will have to confront the above obstacles and an array of others as well. If the states or federal government actually offer help, it will most likely be financial aid to local efforts, not a magic button that doubles the rate of connectivity in the United States.

There are a wide variety of models, and the Covid-19 pandemic has provided renewed popular support for better networks. In some cases, local officials have recognized the need for, at the minimum, a local plan. But in most cases, local residents need to push their local government to investigate the options. The Michigan Moonshot effort offers both a playbook and plenty of background information, templates, and more. There is no better time to start organizing locally for better networks.

Christopher Mitchell is the Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative whose work focuses on telecommunications — helping communities ensure the networks upon which they depend are accountable to the community. He is a leading national expert on community broadband networks.

Ry Marcattilio-McCracken is a Senior Researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative, where he writes about municipal networks, cooperatives, and broadband policy around the United States.

Filed Under: broadband, community broadband, competition, covid-19, digital divide, municipal broadband

Safety in Name, Commercial in Fact: The Auto Industry Spectrum Squatting Campaign on 5.9 GHz Widens the Digital Divide

from the not-helping dept

Here’s an idea for a business model. Instead of using valuable spectrum to close the digital divide by opening it for everyone to use, get the FCC to give us exclusive use for free. Next, convince states and the federal government that rather than build broadband networks to the disconnected in rural America, they should build out our network (also at no cost to us). Then we will use this network to harvest everyone’s driving information while serving up advertisements and other commercial services. In order to persuade taxpayers to support it, we’ll pretend the network is “absolutely essential” to preventing car accidents, despite the recent development of superior technology. To really sell the idea, we’ll label this piece of spectrum the “Safety Band.”

Welcome to the auto industry business plan for the 5.9 GHz band, 75 MHz of spectrum originally allocated to the auto industry for free back in 2004. However, the FCC is now proposing to reclaim 45 MHz of this for much-needed rural broadband and Wi-Fi 6 to better connect America. This would leave 30 MHz for intelligent traffic management and auto safety technologies, but would not leave any space available for the auto industry’s commercial applications.

Needless to say, the auto industry opposes this tooth and nail, and has enlisted the help of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to block the FCC’s effort to help close the digital divide. Additionally, the auto industry has consistently opposed efforts by consumer groups to have the FCC prohibit commercial uses and impose privacy protections on the band. Americans will be far better served -- and much safer on the road -- if the FCC follows through on its plan to repurpose the commercial part of the auto industry’s “safety band” for other uses.

A Brief History of 5.9 GHz – From “Safety Band” to $afety Band

For nearly two decades, the auto industry has pushed the idea of wireless “intelligent traffic” systems as a means of promoting safety. At the same time, however, the auto industry has made it equally clear to investors and equipment designers that the industry intends to use this network for commercial purposes as well. In 2004, the FCC adopted the auto industry plan to take 75 MHz of spectrum and reserve it exclusively for “Dedicated Short-Range Communications” (DSRC) for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) (and generically “V2X”) communications. However -- unlike other bands reserved for public safety purposes at the time -- the FCC permitted the auto industry to use these reserved frequencies for commercial purposes as well as safety purposes. The FCC restricts only two channels (totaling 20 MHz) to “collision avoidance” and “safety-of-life” applications, leaving the bulk of the spectrum available for commercial use.

Despite support from the auto industry, DSRC technology failed to catch on in the market.

There were many reasons for this. For one thing, V2X technologies only work to avoid collisions if the other car has a compatible V2X technology. This makes it absolutely useless against existing cars, pedestrians, bicyclists, or even stray deer. Other technologies, like LIDAR, do a much better job avoiding collisions, which is why these technologies caught on in the market and DSRC remains virtually undeployed. The auto industry responded to this market rejection by persuading the NHTSA to start a rulemaking to require DSRC in every new car whether consumers wanted the technology or not, and convincing federal and state agencies to invest hundreds of millions of dollars building DSRC “safety networks” for the auto industry to use for free. (The Trump Administration killed the DSRC rulemaking as part of its general deregulatory agenda in 2017.)

Reclaiming 5.9 GHz for Rural Broadband and Gigabit Wi-Fi to Connect America

The FCC began a set of proceedings in 2013 to expand the spectrum available for unlicensed uses with a particular eye toward expanding the 5 GHz band generally. For technical reasons, expanding existing bands creates huge advantages for increasing available bandwidth. The FCC hoped to expand the unlicensed portions of the 5 GHz band to enhance the ability of rural wireless internet service providers (WISPs) using the existing 5.8 GHz unlicensed band to offer real broadband in rural America, and creating the capacity for gigabit Wi-Fi in people’s homes. The FCC initially tried to work with the auto industry and NHTSA to find a way for unlicensed sharing to co-exist on a non-interfering basis with DSRC. That, to put it mildly, did not go well.

After nearly 20 years of waiting for the auto industry to make use of the 5.9 GHz band, and spending five years trying to work with the auto industry on a win-win solution, the FCC finally had enough. A unanimous FCC voted last December to propose simply taking away the 45 MHz of spectrum that the auto industry wants for commercial uses, leaving the auto industry with the 30 MHz needed to do actual safety and collision avoidance. (As the FCC noted, this 30 MHz is approximately what both Japan and the European Union allocate for similar technology.) The FCC proposal would also open the 30 MHz safety band to other V2X technologies, such as LTE-based V2X, that use existing mobile networks.

Needless to say, the auto industry did not take this lying down. Lobbyists have pressed the “safety band” argument consistently, while acting offended whenever someone points out that 30 MHz leaves them plenty of spectrum for actual highway safety uses if the industry just drops the commercial aspect. Of course, the auto industry says it’s “not about the money.” The industry claims it just expects even more awesome safety features at some indefinite time in the future and therefore requires all 75 MHz of spectrum for when that magical day arrives. In the meantime, though, the auto industry argues it might as well use the extra 45 MHz of spectrum for collecting people’s personal driving information and serving them personal ads -- solely in the name of efficiency, of course.

For the Auto Industry, It’s About the Money -- Not Saving Lives

As the old adage goes, when someone says, “it’s not the money, it’s the principle,” you know it’s about the money. In 2016, Public Knowledge -- joined by a number of other public interest organizations -- asked the FCC to prohibit commercial operation on the entire DSRC service and to impose privacy rules preventing the auto industry from using the information it collects from consumers for commercial purposes.

For the last four years, the auto industry has refused a non-commercial condition on a band that the industry itself claims is strictly for safety, arguing that it’s the “principle of the thing” that forces them to reject the condition. Likewise, while repeatedly affirming a deep and sincere commitment to protecting customer privacy, the auto industry refuses to accept any limitations on information collected outside the dedicated public safety channels. As one lobbyist for the industry put it: “On the commercial side, it’s whatever the privacy policy of the application provider is. . . . like Facebook.”

Furthermore, although publicly defending the V2X as a life-saving technology, the auto industry has pressed developers to include commercial applications in equipment and as an explicit part of the business case for adopting the technology. Even NHSTA, the regulator-turned-advocate for the auto industry, touts the commercial uses of DSRC and other V2X technologies.

As the FCC draws closer to a decision, expect to hear more from the auto industry and its surrogates about how the “safety band” saves lives while Wi-Fi just streams Netflix and cat videos. As hopefully everyone has learned in the current pandemic, access to broadband absolutely saves lives. Reclaiming 45 MHz from the 5.9 GHz band will help bring real broadband to rural America and to everyone dependent on Wi-Fi hotspots for access. The auto industry will still have plenty of dedicated spectrum for an actual safety band -- it just won’t be a $afety band.

Harold Feld is Public Knowledge’s Senior Vice President. For more than 20 years, Feld has practiced law at the intersection of technology, broadband, and media policy in both the private sector and in the public interest community. Feld has an undergraduate degree from Princeton University, a law degree from Boston University, and clerked for the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Filed Under: 5.9 ghz, automotive industry, digital divide, fcc, nhtsa, rural internet, safety band, spectrum, wifi

How To Fix Online Education In The Covid-19 Era

from the from-the-ground-up dept

It goes without saying that the current pandemic has altered our national broadband conversation. What it has not changed, as those of us who have been working in this space are painfully aware, is the reality which existed long before COVID-19. Nor has the virus undone any of the decisions made over the last few decades which have lead us here — a moment epitomized by a viral image of two girls attending classes from a Taco Bell parking lot.

What is particularly difficult to accept are the limited options which can provide immediate relief. There are some quick fixes, like the hotspot the school district provided for those two girls, but these stopgap measures are imperfect and, often, ineffective. Mobile hotspots have limited coverage areas, often come with data caps, can be unsustainably expensive and provide access at sub-broadband speeds. Rather than closing a divide, they shift and mask it while creating two different classes of internet user — yet hundreds of millions of dollars are being expended on them. In a moment like this, we must employ every tool we have; we must also not lose sight of what else is possible.

In Chattanooga, The Enterprise Center has been working to close this divide for some time. We have a program, Tech Goes Home, that provides devices, help in finding low-cost home access and digital skills training to those who need the assistance. We have supported more than 4,900 individuals and worked with over 100 partner organizations through the program, but we still have a lot of work to do. After years of research and hard work by local governments, anchor institutions, and nonprofits across the country, we have made progress, yet the digital divide persists.

It feels callous to point out the opportunity we have, with more than 216,000 Americans now dead of this disease — but the pandemic has shone a light on systemic inequities, and we cannot look away. For particularly those of us who have worked around digital access and inclusion, there is a (perverse) sense of hope that our neighbors may be able to face whatever comes next on more equal footing.

So what else can we do about it? Partners in Chattanooga and Hamilton County recently launched HCS EdConnect, an initiative to ensure every student will have the home access they need to succeed during the pandemic, and beyond; in addition, we’ve worked to expand access to public WiFi across the county. Below, we will tell you how this response became possible while offering both some local best-practices and policy recommendations which can have an impact on other such initiatives.

A New Chattanooga Story

HCS EdConnect, powered by EPB will provide home broadband access to every economically disadvantaged family in our school district — roughly 17,700 families or 28,500 students — for at least the next decade and at no cost to them. This access is fiber-backed, offering a minimum 100Mbps symmetrical connection; any family receiving financial assistance through programs like SNAP or the Federal School Lunch Program are eligible, as is any family with a child attending a CEP (Community Eligibility Provision) school.

HCS EdConnect represents a $15.3M commitment to the fundamental reality that the Internet is integral to a 21st century education, and that any equitable public education requires equitable access to the Internet. In utilizing municipal broadband to ensure not just access, but high-speed connectivity sufficient for students and their entire families, EdConnect is truly a first-of-its kind initiative — and our future depends on it being the first of many.

It has been a true community effort. Funding partners for HCS EdConnect include Hamilton County; the City of Chattanooga; BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Foundation, private donors, the Smart City Venture Fund, representing numerous local philanthropies, and CARES, funded under a grant project with the State of Tennessee. Numerous community organizations, public and private, have played vital roles in implementation.

Chattanooga has an advantage stemming from EPB’s investment in municipal fiber more than a decade ago, and it is worth noting that timeline because we want to be clear in saying that this project could not have taken place overnight. Getting started, however, happened almost that quickly. From our perspective, municipal fiber isn’t the only reason we were able to make this commitment, but investment in infrastructure, public, private or some partnership thereof must be part of any long-term solution.

What Made Our Response Possible?

Community Leadership: EdConnect could not have happened without the leadership of the partners at the core of this work: Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Bryan Johnson, EPB CEO David Wade, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke and Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger. From rapid deployment of public WiFi to this decade-long commitment to home access, our community leaders banded together to see this project through; this has not been the work of one organization, buoyed by others, but an all-in approach. Our community, cemented by a mid-size city, often tells the story of “working together works” — this is an instance of living that story.

Multi-stakeholder Partnership: Our multi-stakeholder collaborative has numerous advantages: There has been, from a high level, a commitment to not stopping when confronted by barriers, but going over, around or through them. Because each partner brings differing resources and capacities to the table, navigating challenges (and developing creative solutions) is that much easier. Trust in the community, we have learned again and again, is essential. For families who feel they have been let down by program after program, promise after promise, a relationship, like that with the teacher their child sees every day or a pastor from their church, offers an opportunity to build trust in something new.

Creativity in Funding: This multistakeholder approach extends to funding, as well: Funds for EdConnect and our expansion of public WiFi have come from the public sector (The City of Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Hamilton County Schools and EPB), the private sector (BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee), philanthropy (The Benwood Foundation, Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, The Footprint Foundation, The Robert L. and Katherina Maclellan Foundation and the Lyndhurst Foundation) and individual donors, as well as through State CARES funding. There was no single source of support available for this initiative, but we treated that as an opportunity for community ownership rather than a reason to scale back.

A Commitment to All Meaning: All An ‘if you build it’ strategy rarely reaches everyone, and it’s impossible simply to make connectivity happen to a community: You’ve got to build with them. For an initiative truly focused on equity, we knew that it could only be as successful as connecting those hardest to reach. This ethos was at the heart of building the tracking system for eligible families, to ensure decisions could be informed by data (Were certain geographies or schools lagging in connection rate? Was a specific demographic not opting in or scheduling service?), as well as in adapting outreach and communication strategies.

A Multi-Pronged Approach: And, finally, knowing that no single solution could work for everyone, we invested in multiple strategies. This includes long-term investment in public WiFi, which offers emergency connectivity now and potential unanticipated benefits later, from neighborhood walkability to test-bed infrastructure, for environmental censors and the like. And, as we explore more sustainable solutions with local co-ops and other ISPs, it also includes mobile hotspots for those few hundred families who live outside of the footprint EPB is, per state policy, legally allowed to serve.

What Else Can Make a Difference?

Local Control: As noted above, EPB cannot provide service to all of Hamilton County; this has not stopped us from finding creative solutions, but not every community can draw on our breadth of providers. (Tennessee, for example, has expanded the authority of co-ops to offer internet service.) There are numerous, successful models for how public interests and private sector opportunities align around broadband, but restrictive preemption laws are a barrier to ensuring universal access.

Access to Funding: Infrastructure is expensive, but we are witnessing the devastating cost of failing to invest play out in real-time. Chattanooga was creative in response to the pandemic, but we had to be. As a city of fewer than 500,000 residents, despite an MSA of that size, Chattanooga did not have access to dedicated CARES funds, while larger municipalities like Nashville and San Antonio were able to draw on single funding streams to invest in connectivity solutions. Tennessee does fortunately have a state broadband office, and, working with state officials, our local delegation was able to secure more than $3 million in CARES funding to help bridge the digital divide for students locally — but not every state or community has these resources. Additional dedicated funding, for more than an emergency response and with a timeline beyond December 30th, is essential.

Modernizing E-Rate: Schools should be able to utilize E-Rate funding to provide or subsidize home access. The very existence of homework supposes that essential learning happens outside of the classroom. Schools, underfunded as they are, make incredibly difficult budget decisions every day; continuing to hamstring their ability to operate and equitably serve students with funding already available will have needless and devastating consequences.

Accurate Mapping: Finally, we need better mapping — not just of where service is available, but at what speeds and at what cost. Our current digital divide is not just a question of access, but of affordability. That we largely use FCC maps which only illustrate a partial story (and which overestimate coverage) to determine funding for deployment leads to families going unserved. In preparing both our public WiFi deployment and EdConnect outreach, we often relied on proxy data to inform decision making, like food insecurity mapping, from our United Way and 211; information from the school district on families who had not been in touch following the March closures; and modelling from Esri and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s GIS department.

Where We Go From Here

We firmly believe Chattanooga’s model is a replicable one, but we also know that the digital divide impacts more than K-12 students and their families. College students, the rising number of unemployed Americans, seniors and other medically vulnerable populations are just a few groups for whom affordable access to broadband is a dire necessity. COVID-19 has highlighted decades of systemic redlining, underinvestment and restrictive policy decisions, but it has also led to a newly shared understanding and experience of this digital divide. Closing it, though, is possible; we’re proving it.

Deb Socia is President and CEO of The Enterprise Center, a nonprofit that nurtures innovation in Chattanooga with the goal of connecting people to resources and building an inclusive community. Geoff Millener serves as senior program and operations officer for The Enterprise Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband access, chattanooga, covid, devices, digital divide, education, tech goes home
Companies: the enterprise center