Just why the government needs to subsidize universal broadband service was made clear in a press release Friday (Sept. 23) issued by Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Alaska Republicans trumpeting money their state got for high-speed internet.

The money came from the Agriculture Department's ReConnect Program, one of many broadband subsidy programs totaling tens of billions of dollars.

Alaska Telephone Co. got $33 million and Arctic Slope Telephone got $30.9 million. Alaska Telephone's money went to deploy fiber to the premises for 211 people and five businesses, while Arctic Slope's $30.9 million is being used to connect 476 people and 15 businesses.

Or put another way, it is costing over $90,000 dollars per sub or business to get high-speed access to rural Alaska.

USTelecom has said that one of the biggest roadblocks to universal service in rural communities is the cost of installing fiber to the premises. "[S]teep installation cost[s] can scuttle even the most optimistic business case for expanding broadband in sparsely populated regions," USTelecom said when arguing for "Dig Once" policies.

The Biden Administration clearly recognizes that the business case for rural service needs a boost from the big pockets of government/taxpayers, as do the Senators trumpeting their home state funds.

“It’s great to see the USDA continuing to award significant resources to assist with delivering high-speed internet access to rural Alaska—an essential component of 21st century infrastructure,” said Sen. Sullivan. ■

Taking a couple of pages from the Biden administration’s parameters for some $65 billion in broadband deployment subsidies, Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel has proposed upping the agency’s minimum definition of high-speed broadband availability and making "affordability, adoption, availability, and equitable access" part of that definition.

Rosenworcel put that high-speed stake in the ground Friday, circulating a notice of inquiry launching its annual state of broadband review.

Also: FCC Seeks Input on Coordination of Broadband Subsidy Bucks

Rosenworcel is proposing to increase the minimum definition of high-speed broadband availability from 25 Megabits per second for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads to 100 Mbps/20 Mbps and setting its sights on speeds of 10 times that number.

“The needs of internet users long ago surpassed the FCC’s 25/3 speed metric, especially during a global health pandemic that moved so much of life online,” Rosenworcel said. “The 25/3 metric isn’t just behind the times, it’s a harmful one because it masks the extent to which low-income neighborhoods and rural communities are being left behind and left offline.”

The NOI proposes to increase the national broadband standard the FCC uses to determine broadband availability to 100/20, which is the baseline for new buildouts being funded by the Biden Administration's infrastructure subsidies.

Rosenworcel pointed out that the FCC set the previous baseline way back in 2015, which to put into perspective predates the creation of TikTok and Snapchat's IPO.

The NOI also proposes setting a goal of 1 Gbps/500 Mbps “for the future.”

It is no surprise that Rosenworcel, now that she is chair, is moving to up the baseline.

Back in 2018, when she was a minority commissioner under Republican chair Ajit Pai, she said 25 Mbps was “insufficiently audacious.” That, too, came as the FCC was launching its annual broadband deployment report. “It is time to be bold and move the national broadband standard from 25 Megabits to 100 Megabits per second,” she said at the time. It didn't happen.

The lower the speed that qualifies as broadband availability, the higher the percentage of Americans considered served by broadband.

Now, rather than audacious, Rosenworcel is suggesting that 100 Mbps is table stakes, and 1 Gigabit per second is the prize the FCC’s eyes should be on. 

NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association CEO Shirley Bloomfield applauded the proposed speed change.

 “NTCA has long advocated that, as a nation, we need to aim higher and do better when it comes to setting broadband objectives," she said. "From proposing higher speed targets for universal service policy, to advocating for better broadband in the development of infrastructure funding grant programs, NTCA has consistently urged longer-term perspectives rather than short-term incremental views of what represent efficient investments and the ever-evolving level of services that consumers will need over time. We applaud Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s announcement today that she is proposing to increase the national standard for minimum broadband speeds and to set a long-term objective as well.”

Bloomfield did not specifically address the proposal to add "affordability, adoption, availability, and equitable access" to the definition of available broadband. 

“We are pleased to see Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel taking this important first step toward increasing internet speed benchmarks, and we encourage the entire FCC to think bigger and bolder by setting gigabit goals today that unleash a faster, better future for all American families and businesses," said Chip Pickering, CEO of INCOMPAS, which represents competitive carriers and some edge providers.▪️ 

Senate Commerce Committee members Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) have re-introduced a bill that would standardize the definition of high-speed fixed broadband in government subsidy programs. 

The Broadband Parity Act, which the pair introduced in the last Congress, would tell the FCC to get together with other federal agencies to establish a baseline level broadband service ISPs must provide when tapping into federal broadband subsidy programs.

Also Read: Need for Video Speed

"The pandemic has shown us that far too many families lack adequate internet connectivity--limiting their ability to learn virtually, telework, and access services,” said Rosen. "By removing inconsistencies in service and improving broadband access, this bill takes an essential step toward equal access to health care, education, and economic opportunity."

Last year, the bill would have set the bar at the FCC's 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload speed, but the current FCC is likely to set a higher target.

Specifically, the bill would require the FCC and any other agency that provides broadband assistance money--HUD, USDA and Commerce among them, to establish a baseline definition for high-speed broadband service. 

The bill would not apply to the billions of dollars in emergency COVID-19-related broadband subsidy money for telehealth, remote learning and low-income residents already being handed out by the FCC. But the Biden Administration has proposed an additional $100 billion in broadband infrastructure investment in his American Jobs Plan, though it has also signaled that price and competition, as well as speed, should be in the definition of broadband availability. 

AT&T has told the FCC that thousands of census blocks the company had previously told the commission were getting high-speed broadband from the company at 25/3 Mbps weren't getting that high-speed broadband after all. 

That came in a filing last week letting the FCC know that if nobody else was providing high-speed to those blocks (defined as 25 Mbps/3 Mbps), they could be eligible for the new multi-billion-dollar rural broadband subsidy program the FCC is launching. 

"[I]f no other carrier has reported broadband deployment at speeds of at least 25 Mbps downstream/3 Mbps upstream for this list of CBs, they may be eligible for the RDOF Phase I auction," AT&T pointed out. 

"The updates to the census blocks address an issue with a third party’s geocoding software," an AT&T spokesperson said. "There has been no change to our service area and this doesn’t affect the service we provide our customers," adding: "Our filing is part of the FCC’s effort to improve broadband mapping so that more Americans can get broadband. This is an effort that we have long supported. The updates to the census block data reflect the areas that currently have and do not have 25/3 broadband service since our June 2019 filing, which is a routine exercise with the FCC’s Form 477 process.”

The FCC has launched a program to improve the accuracy of the data it collects on where broadband is and isn't, a deficit the FCC has conceded, as have numerous unhappy legislators on both sides of the aisle. AT&T's over-reporting of high-speed availability was not inspiring confidence in critics of that collection, per the tweet by Public Knowledge's Harold Feld: 

[embed]https://twitter.com/haroldfeld/status/1251204412955123719[/embed]

The FCC is preparing to give out up to $16 billion in the first phase of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).   

That effort has taken on new urgency in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic-driven shelter-in-place populace and the Trump Administration plan to try and make sure all kids K-12 have access to broadband for remote learning.  

The Pai FCC's decision to review what qualifies as high-speed broadband has drawn a crowd of critics armed with smartphones and other devices.

Almost a dozen groups including Public Knowledge, New America’s Open Technology Institute, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) have launched the #MobileOnly challenge. Between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31, participants will spend an entire day only accessing the internet via a mobile device. The idea is to demonstrate that mobile has various limitations that make it not a sufficient substitute for wired broadband.

FCC Chairman AJit Pai in August proposed to, potentially, adjust the sights on the agency’s annual assessment of whether advanced telecommunications is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion, including counting wireless broadband as competitive with wired.

That cam in a request for information on the state of competition in the video marketplace for the FCC’s 19th video competition report, as well as for input on its 13th Section 706 report.

Internet service providers have long argued, along with Pai, that the FCC had been putting a thumb on the scale for regulation by concluding that because deployment was not 100%, that deployment was not reasonable and timely.

CWA to FCC: Wireless is No Substitute for Wired 'Net

In seeking comment on the next reports, Pai proposed considering other factors in that determination, including asking whether the FCC’s definition of high-speed should be adjusted.

But fans of the previous reports cried foul, and have been characterizing the proposal as lowering the definition of high speed as 25 Megabits per second downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.

At a congressional hearing and in a letter to Congress, Pai downplayed concerns about downsizing the high-speed benchmark, saying the letter that the item “clearly proposes to maintain the [25 Mbps downstream/4 mbps upstream] standard.”

Mozilla (Firefox) is adding two cities to its Gigabit Community fund.

The fund is awarding $300,000 in grants to leverage gigabit fiber networks in Eugene, Ore., and Lafayette, La., the company said.

The money will go to things like ultra-high definition in the classroom and VR field trips, taking a page or two from existing Mozilla gigabit cities Austin, Tex.;Chattanooga, Tenn., and Kansas City.

The fund is a collaboration with the National Science Foundation and U.S. Ignite.

The two cities were added based on various criteria, including widely deployed high=speed broadband and a "critical mass" of anchor institutions.

“Mozilla is committed to supporting promising projects in gigabit-enabled U.S. cities — projects that use connectivity 250-times normal speeds to make learning more engaging, equitable and impactful," said Chris Lawrence, VP, leadership network, for Mozilla.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada's version of the FCC, has declared that high-speed broadband Internet access is now a "basic" telecommunications service that should be available to all Canadians and announced a plan to try and achieve that goal.

The FCC has been pretty much treating broadband as a basic service, migrating its Lifeline and high-cost area phone subsidies to broadband, and upping its speed targets.

CRTC is upping its targets as well, saying that 50 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream the table stakes to participate in the digital economy. CRTC is also setting the target of unlimited data options for fixed broadband and wireless available along "major Canadian roadways." as well as in homes and businesses.

Canada is putting its money where its targets are, pledging to invest $750 million to help meet those goals via funding infrastructure upgrades where service currently falls short of those table stakes, what CRTC is calling "underserved" areas.  

The CRTC is also making sure consumers know what they are getting in Internet access plans.

"No later than six months from today, service providers should ensure that contracts are written in clear and plain language, and should make available online tools so consumers can easily manage their data usage," CRTC declared.

According to CRTC, 82% of Canadians have access to 50 Mbps download/10 Mbps upload fixed broadband speeds, but there are many, particularly in rural and remote areas without access to broadband at comparable "speed, capacity, quality and price."

"Access to broadband Internet service is vital and a basic telecommunication service all Canadians are entitled to receive," said CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, sounding like he was channeling FCC Chairman Tom wheeler. "Canadians who participated during our process told us that no matter where they live or work in our vast country — whether in a small town in northern Yukon, a rural area of eastern Quebec or in downtown Calgary — everyone needs access to high-quality fixed Internet and mobile services. We are doing our part to bring broadband services to rural and remote communities."

He said that all players have to participate in leveling that access playing field, but signaled that price was best left to the marketplace.

"All levels of government must address gaps in digital literacy," he said, but added: "ffordability concerns are best addressed by the emergence of a dynamic market place where service providers compete on price for telecommunication services, in conjunction with social responsibility programs of telecommunications carriers and different levels of government."

“I think the sentiments expressed here by the Canadian officials is fairly ubiquitous worldwide,” said Mark Alrutz, Senior Director, service provider solutions, for broadband services provider CommScope. “Connectivity across entire national populations is recognized as a goal in most countries.  The achievement of that goal will likely require a blend of technologies including copper wireline, optical wireline and wireless. CommScope is well positioned to support what we anticipate will be continuing growth in all these technology and connectivity sectors worldwide.”

CHIGAGO — Even as the faithful began to filter into the McCormick Place Convention Center here there was a feeling that this show would be different, and not just by the change of name from now retired “The Cable Show” to the inclusive new INTX: Internet & Television Expo.

Cable TV companies, the original disruptors, are being disrupted.

New “over-the-top” competitors are forcing deep trepidation and profound business strategy shifts for multichannel-TV distributors, who are creating new “skinny” bundles of TV with Internet to respond to the threat. To draw — and retain — customers, cable’s biggest operators are accelerating upgrades to make broadband speeds top out at 1 Gigabit per second and more.

And they are spending furiously — hundreds of millions of dollars, in the case of giant Comcast — to fortify the issue that despite genuine advances, stands today as the Achilles’ Heel of the entire industry: customer service.

Cable networks are seeking new metrics to measure the millennial shift to viewing on new devices, and they’re fretting over a more Darwinian ecosystem that will surely kill off the weaker networks, a certain result if new “slimmer” bundles take hold. Upstart channels won’t have a chance on linear television, and it’ll be harder for entrenched networks to show growth. Welcome to the jungle.

On top of these challenges, there will be little help from Washington, as Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler made clear to the flummoxed crowd in Chicago, who sat, literally and figuratively, in the dark on his intentions. Unlike the last few glory years of the industry, federal regulators’ eyes will be trained hard on Internet distribution, with the ability — if not the intent — to control pricing.

Greater scrutiny was the point of the FCC’s lengthy suffocation of the $67 billion Comcast- Time Warner Cable merger, which was summed up by Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts not with any verbal explanation, but by cutting his speech to a clip of an explosion from the movie Fast & Furious 7 (released, of course, by Universal Studios).

But the convention’s host — National Cable & Telecommunications Association president and CEO Michael Powell, cable’s articulate and admired general — reassured the assembled troops that cable’s long collective history of innovation wouldn’t stop soon.

For readers who couldn’t make to Chicago, following are five takeaways from the staff of Multichannel News.

1.A New Gold Standard for Broadband Speed: 1-Gig Is Here

Despite the specter of Title II hanging over the future of U.S. broadband, regulators aren’t slowing cable’s push to bring speeds of 1 Gigabit-per-second and more to residential customers.

Among MSOs, Cox Communications and Comcast last week trumpeted news of the new gold standard of Internet speed.

Cox said its 1-Gig “G1GABLAST” residential service has been launched in parts of four markets: Phoenix; Orange County, Calif.; Omaha, Neb.; and Las Vegas. Cox, which first launched G1GABLAST in Phoenix in October 2014, is also in the process of extending that fiber-based service to systems serving Arkansas, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Oklahoma and Virginia, and expects to light up service in those markets sometime this summer.

Comcast, meanwhile, said it had begun to roll out “Gigabit Pro,” a 2-Gbps residential service delivered via fiber-to-the-premises technology, in Nashville and other systems in middle Tennessee, as well as the greater Chicago region, including northwest Indiana. All told, Comcast expects to make Gigabit Pro available to 18 million homes that are within “close proximity” (about one-third of a mile) to its fiber network.

Much-smaller Mediacom Communications is preparing a 1-Gig trial in the university town of Columbia, Mo., using DOCSIS 3.0 technology.

While those services are being rolled out on a limited and targeted basis, cable operators aim to bring gigabit broadband to its more broadly deployed hybrid fiber/coax networks using DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging CableLabs-specified platform that will be capable of delivering up to 10 Gbps downstream and at least 1 Gbps in the upstream.

At INTX, Comcast offered a glimpse at its D3.1 strategy, showing off a fancy-looking “Gigabit Home Gateway” slated to go into production later this year and become available to customers in early 2016.

Although competition from Google Fiber and AT&T’s fiber-based “GigaPower” appears to be accelerating cable’s advances, it’s still not clear what apps and services will require such lofty capacities.

“I still think a Gigabit is overkill for some time,” Tony Werner, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Comcast, said on a panel last Tuesday (May 5) covering innovation and the future of media.

For now, it’s about future-proofing the network as apps and services develop that will require gigabit speeds.

“We think 1-Gig is about enabling the next generation of the Internet,” Philip Nutsugah, Cox’s vice president of access product development and management, said Thursday (May 7) on a panel dedicated to the gigabit topic. “As a service provider, we need to stay ahead of the demand curve.”

— Jeff Baumgartner

2. Cable Stops Worrying and Learns to Love OTT

INTX amplified the idea that 2015 will be the year cable learned to stop worrying and love over-the-top video. Instead of fearing OTT and considering it an enemy to the traditional pay TV ecosystem, operators are starting to embrace it.

That became increasingly apparent after a handful of cable operators, including Cablevision Systems and Mediacom Communications, struck distribution deals with Hulu, the OTT subscription video-on-demand service (see “Distribution: Hulu Antes Up” in Next TV).

Mediacom last week also became the latest in a growing group of pay TV providers to sign agreements that enable them to bring Netflix to MSO-leased set-top boxes. In Mediacom’s case, it will offer Netflix as an app on its TiVo-powered platform. But instead of signing on for Open Connect, Netflix’s private content delivery network, Mediacom and Netflix agreed to an interconnection deal under which the MSO will build fiber directly to Netflix’s facilities.

Comcast, meanwhile, is pushing hard on X1, a next-generation, Internet protocol-capable platform. So far, though, Comcast has not been nearly as aggressive with integrations of Internet-fed OTT video apps on the set-top. At this juncture, access has been largely limited to services such as Pandora, Instagram and Facebook. But Comcast’s platform is technically capable of supporting integrations with just about any OTT service.

TiVo has been preaching the value of TV-plus-OTT for years, and the message appears to be getting through, at least among its pay TV partners.

But Tom Rogers, TiVo’s president and CEO, said cable operators should be pushing even harder to blend their traditional TV service with increasingly popular over-the-top options.

“The cable guys can own that; they should own it,” Rogers said. “Instead, what is going on is programmers are creating individual streaming services. People are then thinking they can put together their own bundles, and that’s happening outside the integration and single experience that the cable operator can offer.”

The cable industry, he suggested, needs to be even more aggressive.

“It is amazing to me that they aren’t just putting their stamp on it,” Rogers said. “The best possible way to get it all and get it on a great interface … is the integration of traditional and over-the-top TV the way that only cable can do it.”

— Jeff Baumgartner

3. Bundles Are Gettiing ‘Skinnier’

Could 2015 be “the Year of the Skinny Bundle?”

Big multichannel distributors operators are creating “skinny” TV packages with Internet service, an effort to attract millennials and retain subscribers.

Peter Chernin, the former top Fox executive turned producer and online video entrepreneur, told the INTX crowd on Tuesday (May 5) that rather than destroy traditional channel packages, skinny bundles would “rationalize” them. “We’re going to see a tremendous explosion of new alternatives, largely IP-delivered,” he said. “That will ultimately force the bundle to justify itself, which is not the worst thing in the world.”

Later that day, a trio of seasoned execs offered similar predictions that the bundle is officially going on a diet. “I think you’re going to see more experimentation around this from programmers as well as operators. It’s in all of our best interest not to lose customers,” said Kathy Payne, senior vice president and chief programming officer of Suddenlink, during the panel session “Thin to Win: Choice, Change & the Rise of Skinny Bundles.”

Citing company survey findings, she added that market forces, especially OTT offerings, are making “people say, ‘Gosh, why am I paying this much to my cable operator when I have other choices?’ So we have to be nimble.”

Conversation and open diplomatic channels are key, the panelists agreed. Verizon’s bold move was preceded by virtually “no conversation” with programmers, Tonia O’Connor, president of content development and corporate business development for Univision Communications, said. “That was a head-scratcher for us because we’re more than happy to work with our partners to understand what the best option is for the consumer.”

Given the expectation of more OTT services, including some from traditional players (a la CBS All Access or HBO Now), O’Connor added ominously, “The launch of new linear channels as we know them today, there’s probably not a real future there.”

Mike Biard, distribution president for Fox Networks, declined to address his company’s legal fight with Verizon over its skinny bundle when asked by panel moderator Mark Robichaux, editorial director of NewBay Media’s TV Group. Later, though, he took issue with Verizon’s “touting” of a Nielsen study that found pay TV subscribers watch no more than 10 channels. While that notion “gets repeated ad-nauseum,” Biard said, “our research doesn’t back it up. What we hear from third parties doesn’t back it up. The idea that people have different tastes is absolutely true. But those tastes can cross over to a lot of different channels.”

— Dade Hayes, Broadcasting & Cable

4. Cable Ops Spend Big, Will Keep Spending on Customer Service

Comcast made the biggest splash on the customer care front, unveiling plans to spend $300 million on customer service, with several initiatives aimed at what Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit called “productizing the customer experience.”

Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts unleashed a flurry of product and service announcements ranging from voice-activated remotes, 4K-enabled set-tops and sleek high-speed routers to customer-facing initiatives like an “Always on Time” pledge that will take effect in the third quarter, launching modern updates to its retail stores and hiring 5,500 new customer service reps over the next three years to handle calls.

Roberts demonstrated the voice activated remote at the INTX opening session last Tuesday; it finds shows and information intuitively — he found Forrest Gump by merely speaking a line from the movie: “Life is like a box of chocolates.”

In a moment of levity, Roberts aid into the remote, “show me the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger,” into the remote, which brought up a scene in Vin Diesel’s Fast and Furious 7 featuring an exploding house.

A new home gateway router, capable of handling 9-Gigabit WiFi, IP video, phone and Xfinity Home is being trialed this year and will be available across Comcast’s footprint by the end of next year.

In Chicago, Roberts unveiled a prototype Studio Xfinity store complete with virtual-reality stations and video games for the kids alongside set-top boxes, modems and other equipment for subscribers. In introducing the store — which he said will be Comcast’s flagship retail operation and will officially open in June — Roberts said the intention was more toward education rather than the hard sell.

Comcast has had to weather several high-profile and embarrassing customer-care glitches in the past, and Roberts said that it has served as a “rallying cry” for employees to rethink how it does business.

He added that the initiatives have been more than two years in the making.

“We’re going to use that negative energy and turn it into positive energy,” Roberts said.

Leading the initiative is Comcast executive vice president of customer experience Charlie Herrin, who has a $300 million budget to make Comcast’s customer care vision a reality. He added that products and services aren’t the only part of the plan — at some point, all of Comcast’s 84,000 employees, from front-line workers to top executives, will go through hospitality training to improve the customer experience.

Comcast customers will soon be able to track technicians via their mobile phones with an Uber-like app that display’s the tech’s name, how far away he is and when he is expected to arrive. The app also has a ratings system for after the tech completes the job — anything less than a four-star rating will prompt a phone call from Comcast to find out how it can do better. With the “Always on Time” initiative, customer accounts will be automatically credited $20 if a tech shows up one minute late.

— Mike Farrell

5. Cable Is a Regulated Industry — and the FCC Is Watching

Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler received a frosty welcome from the congregation at INTX last week, who were stingy with applause for a man who had just branded them “gatekeepers” and rocked their world with new regulations that the NCTA has dubbed “a disaster.”

The Title II regulations recently passed by the FCC will ensure there’s no discrimination against competitors, but MVPDs are concerned that other restrictive parts of the new rules — including price regulation, which the FCC is “forebearing” — could come to life in this or future administrations.

“I thought we operate in a different environment than he [Wheeler] seems to live in,” Time Warner Cable chairman and CEO Rob Marcus said at the start of the general session panel that immediately followed Wheeler’s speech. “In my world, broadband is very competitive. Competition has, in fact, fueled a tremendous amount of investment, and it’s investment we continue to make to make our broadband better. I wonder what the problem is.”

Wheeler defended his recent decisions and assured the crowd Title II would be the law of the land. He said the broadband industry was not competitive enough, and the FCC would be working to change that.

“[It] is important to understand that the tipping point from cable to broadband came while the transaction was under review,” Wheeler said of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal the FCC helped quash. “We recognized that the industry had changed and we saw concrete evidence of the new competition and business models made possible by high-speed Internet access. You don’t have a lot of competition, especially at the higher speeds that are increasingly important to the consumer of online video,” he said.

“By bringing competitive alternatives to television viewers, this industry did just that — and the video business was changed forever. Then, your industry went on to upgrade, compete with the telcos, and dominate broadband. Now the question is whether consumers will have competitive alternatives for broadband.”

— John Eggerton

The White House Tuesday outlined President Obama's proposals to boost access to "affordable high-speed broadband for all Americans, which will include calling on the FCC to "end laws that harm broadband service competition." It was a preview of one of the President's State of the Union initiatives, and the Administration made clear that the state of broadband was not fast enough.

That is according to Jeff Zients, director of the National Economic Council, and Andy Berke, Mayor of Chattanooga, Tenn., who were on a call with reporters previewing the Presidents plans, to be outlined in a speech Wednesday and later in the Jan. 20 State of the Union.

Zients stopped short of saying the President was supporting FCC preemption of state laws limiting municipal broadband, something FCC

Chairman Tom Wheeler has suggested the FCC should do, but Chattanooga is one of a pair of cities (Wilson, N.C., is the other) that has asked the FCC to preempt state regulations limiting municipal broadband buildouts, which cities argue are one way to deliver affordable broadband. A fact sheet from the White House seemed to make clear that the President was providing Wheeler backup for preemption efforts, just as the President offered support and encouragement for Title II reclassification of broadband.

"Laws in 19 states — some specifically written by special interests trying to stifle new competitors — have held back broadband access and, with it, economic opportunity," the White House said. "President Obama is announcing a new effort to support local choice in broadband, formally opposing measures that limit the range of options available to communities to spur expanded local broadband infrastructure, including ownership of networks. As a first step, the Administration is filing a letter with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging it to join this effort by addressing barriers inhibiting local communities from responding to the broadband needs of their citizens."

He made clear the Administration thinks there is not enough competition for high speed broadband. "Broadband matters, but a lot of us have a commonly frustrating experience," said Zients on a call with reporters. "Even when we are unhappy with the speed and performance of our Internet service, we don't have a choice. There are no alternative providers we can switch to. Three out of four Americans live in a location that has no competition or service at the broadband speeds increasingly required for many online services."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has already signaled that 25 Mbps is the new table stakes, and the White House also seemed to be signaling that underserved areas would be defined by speed, not just whether or not there was service.

Zients said the lack of broadband was rarely a lack of demand, but more often the cost of infrastructure, and "a combination of laws that rpevent communities from providing incentives." He said Americans want and need better and faster broadband.

Also part of the President's plan to get higher-speed broadband to everyone:

"Expanding the National Movement of Local Leaders for Better Broadband: As of today, 50 cities representing over 20 million Americans have joined the Next Century Cities coalition, a nonpartisan network pledging to bring fast, community-supported broadband to their towns and cities. They join 37 research universities around the country that formed the Gig.U partnership to bring fast broadband to communities around their campuses. To recognize these remarkable individuals and the partnerships they have built, in June 2015 the White House will host a Community Broadband Summit of mayors and county commissioners from around the nation who are joining this movement for broadband solutions and economic revitalization. These efforts will also build on the US Ignite partnership, launched by White House in 2012, and which has grown to include more than 65 research universities and 35 cities in developing new next-generation gigabit applications.

"Announcing a New Initiative to Support Community Broadband Projects: To advance this important work, the Department of Commerce is launching a new initiative, BroadbandUSA, to promote broadband deployment and adoption. Building on expertise gained from overseeing the $4.7 billion Broadband Technology Opportunities Program funded through the Recovery Act, BroadbandUSA will offer online and in-person technical assistance to communities; host a series of regional workshops around the country; and publish guides and tools that provide communities with proven solutions to address problems in broadband infrastructure planning, financing, construction, and operations across many types of business models.

"Unveiling New Grant and Loan Opportunities for Rural Providers: The Department of Agriculture is accepting applications to its Community Connect broadband grant program and will reopen a revamped broadband loan program, which offers financing to eligible rural carriers that invest in bringing high-speed broadband to unserved and under served rural areas.

"Removing Regulatory Barriers and Improving Investment Incentives: The President is calling for the Federal Government to remove all unnecessary regulatory and policy barriers to broadband build-out and competition, and is establishing a new Broadband Opportunity Council of over a dozen government agencies with the singular goal of speeding up broadband deployment and promoting adoptions for our citizens. The Council will also solicit public comment on unnecessary regulatory barriers and opportunities to promote greater coordination with the aim of addressing those within its scope.

The White House briefing was a preview of the President's visit to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where he will talk about his high-speed broadband agenda in advance of the State of the Union (SOTU) (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/president-promote-broad...). Broadband deployment has been a feature of previous SOTU's

Last year, for example, the President announced that the FCC and some major telecoms and edge providers were getting together to help connect 15,000 schools to high-speed broadband (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/president-announces-new...). In 2012, the President said one of the nation's construction challenges was an "incomplete high-speed broadband network" that prevented some small businesses from reaching world markets. (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/news-articles/president-cites-inco...

In the 2011 SOTU, the President announced the National Wireless Initiative and pledged that "within the next five years, we will make it possible for business to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98% of all Americans. This isn't just about a faster Internet and fewer dropped calls," he said at the time. "It's about connecting every part of America to the digital age."

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association blogged about the President's anticipated initiatives before the White House call.

Saying the reports of his Iowa visit seemed "like a good opportunity for us to take stock of the current state of broadband and how we might connect more Americans to fast broadband networks. Over the last two decades, America’s cable providers have invested over $230 billion to extend and upgrade fast broadband connections to  communities large and small, urban and rural, in all corners of America. In just the last decade, the average cable broadband customer has  seen top speeds increase a whopping 3200%..."

"Cable’s pace of technological progress shows no signs of abating," NCTA said. It did identify two areas where government could help, and one where it could hurt.

"While the cable industry continues to deliver on faster broadband at declining per-Megabit prices for Americans consumers, we know that that there are two discrete areas that may warrant targeted government attention," NCTA said. "First, for some very rural areas, private economic incentives may not be sufficient to justify network investments. In such areas, government incentives can play a constructive role in promoting universal service. Second, we know that for some Americans, the availability of broadband infrastructure is insufficient to spur adoption. The cable industry is committed to closing this digital divide by educating consumers about the benefits of broadband and by offering programs to help families overcome barriers they may face, including discounted service. You can learn more about those programs on our Closing the Digital Divide page."

But where the government could hurt was in the Title II arena, NCTA said.

"Instead of building on policies that have helped spur private investment, President Obama’s call to reclassify broadband as a Title II telecommunications service threatens to raise the cost of capital associated with network investment and slow continued progress in building faster and better broadband. Given the FCC’s ability to restore net neutrality rules without taking such extreme action, Title II appears particularly misguided."

Zients was asked about the impact of Title II. He said the Administration did not think it would have an adverse impact.

“I welcome the President’s focus on deploying high-speed broadband and improving competition in communities across America, particularly in rural areas," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).  "Broadband is long past the point of being a luxury – it is a necessity, and the gap between urban and rural America is not closing nearly fast enough.  The lack of adequate choices for consumers is also one of the main reasons why the FCC must act swiftly to protect an open Internet.  I stand ready to work with the President and other Members of Congress to enact policies that will ensure that all Americans, whether they live in rural or urban areas, have access to fast and affordable broadband.”