A new paper commissioned by INCOMPAS quantifies the investment of the tech industry, particularly by streaming services, in internet infrastructure and pegs it at a whopping $833 billion over the past decade, saying that saved internet-service providers billions of dollars.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook, also provided support for the report, conducted by Analysys Mason.

The report comes as Big Tech is under pressure around the world to pony up network usage fees. In the U.S., some want edge providers to pay regulatory fees to the Federal Communications Commission, pointing to the benefit they get from broadband infrastructure and suggesting they have done so without sufficiently paying for the privilege.

The report says otherwise and adds that such usage fees could disrupt the internet ecosystem. "We find that the imposition of network usage fees would risk creating barriers to entry and growth for smaller and new CAPs [content and application providers]," it asserts.

The report documents that attempts by telecom network owners to "extract" payments from online services are unfounded and misguided, CCIA president Matt Schruers said.

The report suggests that investments by streaming services and others to get traffic closer to end users saves ISPs up to $6.4 billion per year.

"INCOMPAS and the authors of this study have now proven what we already knew: Content delivery and edge internet services have always paid to build out of the network, both through subscriptions to broadband providers and their own investments in network infrastructure," Public Knowledge president Chris Lewis said. "Any calls for network user fees is simply an effort to charge these companies twice to give internet users the content they are also paying to access." ■

The White House has put out a Technical Assistance Guide to the massive federal resources in the President's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that includes tens of billions for broadband deployment and access.

"In the past, too many communities have lacked the resources to apply for and deploy transformative infrastructure opportunities," the White House said. 

More than 90% of the billions in funding -- $65 billion of which is going to broadband infrastructure and uptake -- is going to non-federal partners so the administration is providing a list of federal programs that will help local communities "navigate, access, and deploy" infrastructure money.

Also: Charter Chief Says There Is No Labor Force for Fed-Funded Fiber Builds

Those programs include a State Digital Equity Planning and Capacity Grant and a Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program, as well as a Middle Mile Grant Program to help reduce the cost of connecting to the internet "backbone." Under orders from Congress, the FCC is currently seeking input on how to define digital equity in terms of the allocation of all that broadband subsidy funding.

To check out all the  broadband programs, resources and contact info, the White House guide is here. ■

Senate and House Republicans have advised the Biden Administration not to put any network neutrality conditions on the tens of billions of dollars in broadband subsidies being overseen by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), the President's chief communications policy adviser.

They also don't want NTIA to favor any particular broadband delivery system.

That is according to a letter to NTIA administrator Alan Davidson from the ranking members of the Senate Commerce and House Energy & Commerce Committees, which have principal jurisdiction over broadband issues, outlining their priorities for broadband subsidies in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

While the Democrats still control the House and Senate and so trump Republicans' broadband deployment wish list for the moment, the midterms could conceivably flip that script.

Also: White House Issues State Guide to Broadband Billions

Those Republican priorities are: 1) use the FCC's new and improved broadband maps when it produces them, rather than use other data sources as a substitute; 2) avoid overbuilding, 3) "provide an equal opportunity for all broadband providers to compete for grants by not prioritizing municipal networks or networks run by nonprofits or cooperatives, and not favoring certain broadband technologies over others" (fiber is a Biden Administration favorite, for example); 4) avoid what they call "unnecessary requirements," which include net neutrality, "burdensome" labor regulations and rate regulation; and 5) allow public input and review of agency decisions.

Among the NTIA's stated priorities are affordable, equitable and high quality broadband service for all.

Congress provided $65 billion in the IIJA for broadband infrastructure. NTIA is overseeing $48.2 billion of that, mostly going to states via the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.

Republican leaders have conceded that NTIA will have to put some conditions on broadband providers receiving the money to make sure they have the financial and technical capacity to deliver on their promises. But they also have said that putting net neutrality or other "unnecessary" requirements on them would "go beyond the scope of congressional intent, could raise the monthly cost of broadband service, and could discourage participation from providers, undermining the success of the BEAD program and harming consumers."

Instead, they said, NTIA should work with states to reduce regulatory "burdens." And while they said affordability is also an important factor, that can be achieved through the current requirement that BEAD recipients offer a low-cost option and not through some form of rate regulation. While NTIA is prevented by law from directly regulating rates, it could make state regulation a condition and Republicans said that should not happen. Nor should NTIA use its authority to approve -- or reject -- a low-cost option as indirect rate regulation. ▪️

In a press conference Tuesday (Nov. 9) on the $65 billion in broadband investments in the just-passed infrastructure bill, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said those investments will be sufficient to achieve universal high-speed broadband.

But she also said Commerce has to make sure the money is not spent to overbuild, "which means we'll have to work very closely with the FCC and using their maps to make sure that we focus the money where broadband doesn't exist now," and that broadband is affordable, equitably distributed, and built out by a diverse workforce. (The FCC has gotten money from Congress to improve its broadband availability maps, which both Congress and the FCC agree need work.)

Raimondo was a special guest at the White House's daily briefing.

"President Biden has set a very ambitious goal for his administration that we must connect all Americans -- all Americans, regardless of where they live -- to high-speed, affordable internet," Raimondo said, adding "and thanks to the passage of the bill, we will be able to accomplish just that."

Also: Survey Says Voters Back Broadband Subsidies

The legislation includes $65 billion for that universal broadband effort, with about $48 billion of that going to Commerce's National Telecommunications & Information Administration to hand out.

She said that affordability was just as important as access, arguing that broadband availability does a family no good if they can't afford it. To make sure they can, she said, fund recipients will have to offer a low-cost plan, as well as "provide federal funding for broadband services to low-income families; requiring providers to be transparent about pricing to help families do comparison shopping for services where they have competitive options."

Raimondo also signaled equity would be top of mind. "Broadband is the gateway to economic opportunity," she said, "and so, in order to open that gateway, we're putting equity at the center of everything we do," with investments that are "equitable and just." She said that will be an implementation challenge, but said it was "necessary" to meet that challenge.

Each state will get $100 million, which they will give out in grants, with the rest of the money allocated to the unserved based on the differing needs of each state, she said. For example, she said, Rhode Island has no rural contingent, so the money will be more focused on affordability and inner city access. Contrast that with New Mexico, she said, where 50% of Tribal lands don't have broadband access.

Also: FCC Approves Boeing Broadband Application

She said there would have to be a "tremendous amount of federal oversight and transparency." Speaking to transparency, she pointed out that each state has to put its plans for getting broadband to everyone in the state online "for everyone to see." That includes NTIA, which will "evaluate that plan, adjust it, [and] provide technical assistance to make sure at the end of the day we hit the goal."

Raimondo said it will be "well into next year" before the projects being funded could get underway, saying Commerce wanted to get the money out quickly but "in a quality way." But she also said laying fiber in mountainous areas "could take years."

Raimondo said some of the money will be used for workforce training so there are enough people for the work required, which she said was not currently the case. The upside of that is money will be going to diversify the workforce of electricians and technicians deploying fiber. "[T]he folks that we train ought to look like America. Right?," she said.

An eclectic group of advocacy groups — from organizations representing computer companies and competitive networks to associations of farmers, realtors and hoteliers — have asked congressional leaders to find a way to pass President Joe Biden‘s infrastructure package, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act with its $65 billion for broadband, by the end of October.

Currently that bipartisan bill is tied to the contentious fight over the president‘s multitrillion-dollar — trimmed to under $2 trillion according to reports — “Build Back Better” plan.

In a letter to bipartisan House and Senate leadership sent Monday afternoon (Oct. 25), the groups, which include the Connect Americans Now coalition, ACT-The App Association, INCOMPAS and Broadband Now, as well as the U.S. Canola Association and Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association, to name but a few, said that the pandemic has shown how vital it is to close the broadband gap.

“This digital divide threatens access to the full promise of the American Dream for too many communities — both urban and rural,” they told the legislators. “American communities are being left behind without access to broadband infrastructure, without the resources they need to afford broadband service, without access to broadband-supported devices for telehealth, telework and school and without the digital skills necessary to utilize the full potential of digital technology.’

Billions of COVID-19 relief-related dollars have already been flowing to low-income broadband subsidies, e-learning, and telehealth through Federal Communications Commission programs, the states, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and others, but nobody is arguing that more money for deployment and adoption would be a bad thing, though there is political disagreement on what should qualify as a broadband deficit — a total absence of service, for example, or lack of competition, affordable broadband or a baseline speed.

The Senate has already passed the infrastructure bill, now the groups want passage House passage by the end of the month. “Congress must build on the positive momentum by advancing additional solutions to permanently bridge the digital divide,” they said.

Cox Communications said it has completed its purchase of the commercial services segment of Charlotte, North Carolina-based fiber infrastructure provider Segra. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but some published reports estimated it was worth about $3 billion. 

Segra serves commercial enterprise and carrier customers in nine states in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions of the country. Cox first announced the deal in April. 

Although Cox did not disclose the price, the company said the deal was one of the largest in its history and supports an ongoing focus on strategic infrastructure investments and continued commitment to the business services market. Bloomberg said back in April that it could be worth more than $3 billion, including assumed debt. 

“Cox has invested more than $15 billion in its communities through infrastructure upgrades in the last decade and acquiring Segra's commercial services business underscores our commitment to continue to make big bets in the business services space,” said Cox incoming president Mark Greatrex in a press release. “An expanded geographical presence, greater network capacity and more services will be an immediate benefit for customers of both companies and will better enable us to meet the significant demand for our solutions.”

Segra's existing management team will continue to lead the Segra enterprise and carrier organization following the acquisition, will retain the Segra brand and operate as a standalone business within the Cox family of companies.

“Segra’s primary focus will continue to be on serving our customers,” Segra CEO  Timothy Biltz said in a press release. “Our dedicated team of employees is our most important resource. Through them, we deliver a superior customer experience and demonstrate the value of our state-of-the-art fiber infrastructure. We’ll continue to invest in our employees and our world-class network in order to exceed our customer’s expectations. Joining Cox strengthens our ability to meet the growing demand for our products and services, which are mission critical to our customers. The Segra and Cox teams have been working diligently together to plan for a successful day one and beyond.”

An infrastructure bill with tens of billions for broadband appears both poised for a Senate vote and without the Biden Administration's explicit focus on affordability or competition as part of the definition of broadband availability. But the bill's language would appear to allow for determinations of "reliable" broadband that could include more than just sufficient speeds and quality.

According to the bill language, the ‘Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act" would include about $42.5 billion in grants as part of a "‘Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program" to close the digital divide, with a priority on rural and low income unserved and underserved areas.

The money will be tied to better maps of where those unserved and underserved areas are and there is a challenge process for ISPs or anyone else disputing whether an area is actually unserved or underserved.

But while the Biden Administration has been signaling it thinks that affordability should be part of the definition of whether broadband is actually available, the definition of "unserved area" in the bill is where less than 80% of the population has no access to broadband at all or no access to "reliable" broadband, which it defines as speeds of less than 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload (the FCC's current floor for its definition of "high speed") and latency "sufficient to support real-time, interactive applications."

Underserved is defined as areas where at least 80% of the population has access to speeds under 100 Mbps download/20 Mbps upload speeds and sufficient latency.

There is no mention of affordability, but there is a catch. The definition of "Reliable Broadband Service" is defined as "broadband service that meets performance criteria for service availability, adaptability to 11 changing end-user requirements, length of serviceable life, or other criteria, other than upload and download speeds, as determined by the Assistant Secretary [the head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration) in coordination with the Commission [the FCC]."

That "or other criteria" would appear to allow the Biden-appointed heads of both agencies to add price and competition into the broadband availability equation, much to the displeasure of ISPs.

Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney issued a defense of the broadband spending in the bill. "I think we can agree broadband ought to be available to all Americans whether in rural areas or low-income areas," he said. "Kids need to be able to connect to their schools and get their assignments and follow what's going on in the world through the media, through the internet. People need to be able to use telehealth to get consults with doctors. If we're going to have economic growth in our urban areas or rural parts of our country, we need to have businesses know they have access to high-speed internet or they simply won't go there." 

The White House says it has struck a deal with House Democrats and Republicans on a massive infrastructure bill that includes $65 billion for broadband tied to speed, affordability and competition.

The President signaled the bill will get consideration in the Senate and that the broadband investment will ensure that "every American has access to reliable, high-speed internet."

"Today’s agreement shows that we can come together to position American workers, farmers, and businesses to compete and win in the 21st century," the White House said.

Saying broadband was a necessity for everything from jobs to school to healthcare but that 30 million people live where there is "no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds," particularly in rural areas, the White House said the $65 billion will be a historic investment in deployment.

As to the ties to price and speed and competition, it said it will 1) require recipients of all those billions to offer "a low-cost affordable plan"; 2) create "price transparency" so consumers can comparison shop, and 3) give them more to compare by "boosting competition in areas where existing providers aren’t providing adequate service."

The compromise bill also incorporates the Digital Equity Act, it says it will end "digital redlining," and create a permanent program to help low-income residents access the internet and get the devices required. Currently, the Emergency Broadband Benefit subsidy provides $3.2 billion for both access and devices for low-income residents, but only during the duration of the pandemic.

Also Read: More Than Four Million Tap Into Broadband Benefit

The Digital Equity Act, whose goal is to provide broadband access tools and technologies to "traditionally overlooked communities," creates an annual $120 million formula grant program for states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, to create individualized "digital equity plans," plus another annual $120 million competitive grant program for similar projects by groups, coalitions, and communities of interest.

It also charges the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Administration's chief communications policy adviser, with studying the results and "providing policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels with detailed information about which projects are most effective."

The White House says the billions for broadband and many other infrastructure projects in the package will be paid for with a combination of "redirecting unspent emergency relief funds, targeted corporate user fees, strengthening tax enforcement when it comes to crypto currencies, and other bipartisan measures, in addition to the revenue generated from higher economic growth as a result of the investments."

The President called the infrastructure package a bipartisan, blue collar, blueprint for rebuilding America.

Getting broadband to Americans was "long overdue," said Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“Investments in digital technologies and infrastructure are critical to the United States’ economic success, future growth, and global leadership,” said Andy Halataei, EVP of government affairs for global tech trade association ITI. “We’re encouraged by this bipartisan progress and look forward to learning more about the details of the deal, specifically efforts to close the digital divide and expand internet access. Our industry will continue to work with our partners in the administration and Congress to advance these critical efforts.”

“NATE welcomes the bipartisan infrastructure agreement that has been reached between Senators and President Biden, which provides an unprecedented $65 billion in funding for broadband deployment,” stated Todd Washam, director of government relations for NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association. “The Association is also pleased that the agreement includes provisions for wireless firms to be eligible for deployment funding. This historic investment will help fulfill one of NATE’s priorities, closing the digital divide, while delivering reliable Internet and communications services to rural, unserved and underserved communities. NATE supports swift action by the Senate and urges the House of Representatives to pass this important infrastructure package as soon as possible."

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said he was proud to have helped negotiate the bill, which he said would expand broadband into rural Utah.

The fact that boatloads of money will be available at the state and local level was not lost on the Naional Association of Counties.

“We are also pleased to see historic investments in high-speed internet as counties advance efforts to expand access to affordable broadband in every corner of the country," said NACo Executive Directors Matthew Chase. “America’s counties are ready to work with our bipartisan congressional partners and the Biden-Harris administration to pass this much-needed legislation.”

Computer companies were cheering the investment as well. 

"The Computer & Communications Industry Association has long advocated for policies that will close the digital divide and bring broadband access to more Americans," said CCIA VP of public policy, Arthur Sidney. "The pandemic has demonstrated how American consumers rely on connectivity for remote learning, working, and access to services. We applaud the bipartisan infrastructure package for its significant investments in broadband for all Americans.” 

Hearst President Steven Swartz signed onto a letter from over 140 executives urging Congress to pass the compromise infrastructure bill.

They told the bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate that funding the modernization of physical and digital infrastructure are "a necessary foundation for our nation's sustainable growth."

They said investments in broadband and other "essential assets" will also "create training and re-employment opportunities for millions of Americans who lost jobs during the pandemic."

Also Read: Sen. Warner Says Virginia Will Be Among First to Universal Broadband

Democrats and Republicans both back spending billions on broadband deployment, though how many and in what way is where that bipartisan impulse diverges along political lines.

Among those others signing on to the letter were Microsoft President Brad Smith and Vox Media President Pamela Wasserstein.

The White House led off an infrastructure promotion fact sheet distributed to the media Thursday (July 8) with the impact of a bipartisan framework on high-speed internet, particularly in rural and tribal areas, and President Joe Biden’s pledge to get broadband into every home.

The Biden administration also doubled down on its definition of availability as including speed and price.

“More than 35% of rural Americans and Tribal communities lack wired access to broadband at acceptable speeds,” the White House said as it tried to drum up support for a new version of Biden’s massive infrastructure spending bill.

It did not say what it considered acceptable.

The sheet pointed out that the compromise plan would invest $65 billion on broadband deployment, which would include money to the Agriculture Department’s rural broadband programs. That $65 billion was the Republican counteroffer to Biden's proposed $100 billion-plus in broadband funding.

The GOP’s $65 billion comes from the $81 billion in revenue from the FCC's C-band auction — minus the $16 billion it will cost for the repacking and reallocation of that spectrum.

The fact sheet said the broadband infrastructure investment goal was “to make high-speed internet available to all Americans, bring down high-speed internet prices across the board, and provide technical assistance to communities seeking to expand broadband.”

That would include money for municipal buildouts of broadband, potentially in competition to existing service that didn't meet the White House definition of sufficiently high speed at sufficiently now prices.

The White House also echoed former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who long argued that the country needed a rural broadband program similar to rural electrification during the Roosevelt Administration.

“With the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, the Federal government made a historic investment in bringing electricity to nearly every home and farm in America, and millions of families and our economy reaped the benefits,” the White House said. “Broadband internet is the new electricity. It is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to accelerate precision agriculture, to participate equally in school learning and health care, and to stay connected.”

According to a Data for Progress survey of 1,137 likely voters conducted June 30-July 1--and also being promoted by the White House--78% "support expanding internet access to rural communities." That includes 44% who strongly support it and 34% who said they "somewhat" support it.

As the broadband fate of rural communities nationwide remains in limbo in the wake of the apparent compromise concerning President Biden’s $65 billion broadband initiative, one rural telecom company -- GCI -- said it plans to connect 17 remote areas of Alaska this year using funds from the five-year old $1.5 billion Alaska Plan to bring high-speed internet to the frontier.  

Earlier this week, President Biden announced he had reached a compromise with Senate Republicans concerning his overall infrastructure plan, which would pump nearly $600 billion of federal funds to build bridges, roads, and fund environmental remediation and other projects, including earmarking $65 billion to bring broadband service to rural communities. Initially the broadband component was to include  increasing funding for municipal broadband projects, but where the money will go is still somewhat up in the air. Republicans have taken a harsher stance on muni broadband -- some have tried to eliminate it all together  -- and some reports have said it is unlikely that they would have agreed to give municipalities priority over private providers.   

Also Read: Building Out Broadband: Look Before You Leap 

In the meantime, GCI  said 11 communities -- Kodiak, Nome, Valdez, Kotzebue, Tok, Dillingham, Manokotak, Aleknagik, Clark’s Point, Becker Ridge, and Fritz Creek -- will receive faster wireless service via LTE upgrades this year. Another six communities -- Nikolai, Lime Village, Rampart, Central, Lake Minchumina, and Takotna -- will get terrestrial internet service for the first time. 

The news  comes weeks after GCI said it would deploy 2 Gigabit per second service to 77% of residents in the state in 2022 and that it is on track to provide 10 Gbps service in the next five years. . 

Also Read: Broadband Infusion in Biden Plan Faces Challenges 

The Federal  Communications Commission’s Alaska Plan was created in 2016 to allocate $1.5 billion over ten years to carriers to maintain, extend, and upgrade broadband service across certain areas of the state. GCI was one of 15 carriers and their eight wireless affiliates to sign on to the plan back in 2016. 

Also Read: More Muni, More Money 

According to GCI, the federal funding helps make rural investment and maintenance possible in extremely remote, costly and difficult-to-serve communities. GCI, along with other Alaska providers, receives a portion of Alaska Plan funding each year.

“As technology evolves, access to reliable connectivity is more crucial than ever, especially for those who live in remote communities,” GCI senior director of regulatory affairs Juliana Wayman said in a press release. “Through GCI’s Alaska Plan projects, more Alaskans can stay connected in their homes and on-the-go with wireless devices. Increased connectivity also expands entertainment options and enables Alaskans to grow small business opportunities, access online government services, and keep in touch with friends and family.”

So far, GCI said the plan has helped 79,000 rural Alaskans in 105 communities gain access to faster data speeds and improved broadband service. 

Also Read: Cable’s Last Frontier 

“While GCI is a key provider of wireless and wireline services throughout rural Alaska, we can’t do it alone,” Wayman said in the press release. “With the leadership of the Alaska Telecom Association, support from Alaska’s federal delegation and the dedication of 16 other providers across the state, keeping Alaskans connected is a group effort requiring innovative solutions to serve a state unlike any other. Through that collaboration, it’s our goal to be good stewards of Alaska Plan funding and investment so we are able to expand broadband access and better connect rural Alaska and close the digital divide.”

President Joe Biden's 2022 budget, released Friday (May 28) continues to paint the less-than-flattering portrait of broadband deployment that has typified his push for massive infrastructure spending, including that broadband is overpriced.

That American Jobs Plan infrastructure package, which includes $100 billion for broadband deployment, is the centerpiece of the new budget, which says the White House, will "bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every household, including the more than 35% of rural families who lack access to broadband infrastructure, the millions of families paying too much for broadband, and the millions of low-income and marginalized communities left behind by digital redlining and the digital divide."

Also Read: White House Paints Depressing Portrait of Broadband

That 35% figure for rural families does not necessarily mean that none of those have access to broadband service since the budget says those are rural families who lack access to broadband at what the White House says are "minimally acceptable speeds." It does not elaborate on what unacceptable speeds are.

ISPs argue that rather than overbuild existing service, the Administration should focus its spending on getting broadband to those who have none rather than define lack of broadband in terms of price or speed or competition, which could lead to such overbuilding, including by the municipal networks and co-ops the Administration appears to favor.

Also Read: FCC's Rural Broadband Subsidy Bidding Begins

"[T]he Biden Administration’s call for investments in reliable, affordable broadband comes at a time Americans need it most," said budget fan and House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). "Our increasing reliance on telework and telehealth options proves that high-speed internet isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity, like any other utility. I applaud the Biden Administration for putting forth a budget that recognizes access to internet means access to opportunity.”

House Republicans have unveiled their response to the Biden $100 billion broadband infrastructure plan, the American Broadband Act, which provides $23 billion in targeted infrastructure deployment funds, to be overseen by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, rather than the FCC.

According to House Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans, $20 billion over five years would go to broadband buildouts, plus another $3 billion for rural wireless infrastructure.

The money would be handed out by NTIA in the form of grants using the better broadband availability maps Congress, in the Broadband Data Act, mandated that the FCC come up with. The money would go to partnerships between industry and government, so long as the government side of the equation had "streamlined" their permitting processes so that the money goes to broadband, not red tape, said Republicans.

Also Read: White House Paints Depressing Portrait of Broadband Deployment

The $3 billion fund for wireless would also be administered by NTIA using FCC maps.

The money would be targeted to rural and unserved areas, with the goal being to spur deployment "duplicative and wasteful overbuilding."

The Biden plan funds municipal networks and makes price and competition part of the calculus for where broadband is considered to be available.

"By relying on a light-touch regulatory environment and targeted investments—rather than cumbersome government-run networks—we will ensure reliable, affordable access for the communities who need it most," said House Energy & Commerce Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Bob Latta (R-Ohio).

The bill would also place shot clocks on cable franchise authorities as a way to speed deployment, as well as streamline permitting for cable ops to speed the application process.

The House Energy & Commerce Committee waded into broadband as an equity issue Thursday (May 6) in a hearing "addressing disparities in access and affordability."

Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said one problem creating digital disparities has been too narrow a definition of the digital divide. 

"For too long, the term digital divide has been used to characterize the differences in quality and speed of internet networks in rural areas, compared to those in urban areas," he said in his opening statement. "There is no doubt that government must step in and invest where the marketplace doesn’t support the business case for private broadband investment in any community in our nation. But that's just the start," he said. "Studies have shown that within all sorts of different communities broadband service isn’t always available or of equal quality. Certain communities somehow always find themselves at the back of the line when it comes to upgrades to the network."

Pallone said the digital divide between races and ethnicities when it comes to access hurts students and their ability to get jobs.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, who has introduced legislation to preempt laws — backed by cable broadband operators — that limit municipal broadband buildouts said the digital divide — however it is defined — is a national embarrassment and that community broadband networks are part of the solution.

But while the hearing was premised on the assertions that lack of competition and high prices were among the impediments to broadband that exacerbated a racial digital divide, Communications Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) suggested both were off base.

“According to the most recent Communications Marketplace Report published by the FCC, the cost of the most popular plans has decreased by 20 percent, while speeds increased by 16 percent since 2015," he said. "And, as a result of more Americans upgrading their services, the average cost of the highest speed offerings have dropped by 37 percent, while simultaneously increasing speeds by 27 percent."

As to an urban as well as a rural divide, he said that broadband subscriptions in urban areas are up 21.8% over the past five years. "And despite the claims of consolidation, the number of broadband providers has increased over 25 percent from 2014 to 2019, with urban core areas seeing an increase of 30 percent."

And while Democrats are pushing for more money for broadband — including another $6 billion to make the current Emergency Broadband Benefit permanent — in addition to the billions of dollars already allocated in COVID-19 relief packages, Republicans are billing that as more radical Big Government programs from the new Biden Administration that would "reshape" entire industries.

The infrastructure package President Biden is currently promoting would inject another $100 billion into broadband subsidies, adding to Republicans' angst about the vast sums involved.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), ranking member of the full committee, also cited price decreases despite the decision by then FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to exclude rate regulation from the Title II (common carrier reg) regime the FCC was imposing on ISPs.

But rate regulation clearly appears to be on the table for Democrats emphasizing that cost is a barrier to adoption that the government needs to address.

The majority of the witnesses agreed that cost was a big barrier.

Chris Lewis, president of Public Knowledge, said that the high cost of broadband is one of the primary reasons for the "staggering" digital divide, and said that Congress should take steps to increase competition and provide a long-term benefit.

Citing Pew Research Center data, Joi Chaney of the National Urban League said that unaffordability is the single biggest reason that Americans cite for not subscribing to broadband. "It does not help much to have lightning-fast broadband at your door if you cannot afford to subscribe to it," she said.

Cox Communications said Tuesday that it has agreed to purchase the commercial enterprise and carrier business of fiber company Segra from private equity company EQT Infrastructure. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although some published reports put the value of the deal at around $3 billion.

Segra, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of the largest privately held infrastructure providers in the country. As part of the deal, EQT will retain Segra’s residential and small-to-medium sized business segment in Virginia and North Carolina. Cox will acquire Segra’s commercial services segment, which serves commercial enterprise and carrier customers in nine states in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. 

“Cox is focused on buying and investing where it makes sense, and we believe that the demand for broadband infrastructure will continue to grow, making fiber an attractive area for long-term investment,” said Cox president and CEO Pat Esser in a press release. “Acquiring Segra’s commercial services business is another key milestone in our pursuit of strategic infrastructure to ensure that we're providing the best products and services to our customers.”

Blomberg first reported Monday that Cox and EQT were in talks concerning Segra, estimating that the deal, including assumed debt, would be worth about $3 billion. 

This is the latest in a string of fiber network infrastructure investments Cox has made over the years, including EasyTel,  EdgeConneX, InSite Wireless, StackPath, Unite Private Networks and ViaWest. Once the deal is closed, the enterprise and carrier unit will retain the Segra name and its existing management team, operating as a standalone business within the Cox family of companies. 

“Our relationship with Cox will allow Segra to leverage expert resources, capabilities and strategic insights in order to scale up operations and accelerate long-term growth,” Segra CEO Timothy Biltz said in a press release. “Cox and Segra are equally devoted to the communities we serve. We will be even more strongly positioned to meet growing demand from carrier and enterprise customers for high-bandwidth fiber-infrastructure solutions. I would also like to thank EQT for its continued guidance and invaluable support as we worked to grow the business over the last nearly four years.”

Bank Street Group LLC and Goldman Sachs and Co. LLC acted as financial advisors and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP acted as legal advisor to Segra in connection with the transaction.

Fitch Ratings said debt ratings for Cox Enterprises and Cox Communications would not be affected by the transaction. Cox Enterprises has ample cash on hand after selling a majority stake in its TV and radio stations to Apollo Global Management in 2019, Fitch noted, and Cox Communications was expected to "continue to invest in strategic growth opportunities through its Cox Business segment." The deal enables Cox to exploit its fiber infrastructure and "address the overall growing demand for high capacity fiber in the commercial enterprise and carrier segment. It also allows CCI to continue its efforts to expand its addressable market footprint both organically and inorganically," Fitch said in a statement.

There are a lot of reasons why a merger between DirecTV and Dish Network wouldn't make long-term sense — it would cost too much, it would be the combination of two business that are in rapid decline, it’s anti-competitive, it’s just plain dumb — but that doesn't stop people from bringing up the possibility from time to time. And while talk about a possible deal probably will never truly die, Moffett Nathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett said in a research note Tuesday he may have found the final nail in the Dish/DirecTV merger coffin: President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill.

In a 19-page research note, Moffett pointed out that the infrastructure bill, which includes about $100 billion for broadband expansion into rural areas, could remove one of the barriers to a DirecTV-Dish combination — the fear that it would reduce TV distribution competition in rural markets from two players to one — but creates another. By giving cable, telco and other operators financial incentives to extend broadband into areas that didn’t make economic sense in the past, it also gives consumers the final reason to dump their satellite TV subscription. 

“The Biden infrastructure bill explicitly targets taking the rural core of customers historically served exclusively by satellite providers to zero,” Moffett wrote. 

Also Read: AT&T and TPG: There is No Why

While opening up the rural broadband market would appear to remove one roadblock to a satellite merger — that such a deal would take down the number of competitors in less populated areas from two to one — it poses another challenge in that it could eviscerate satellite TV’s last stronghold. 

“Given the option, for the first time, of choosing not just cable but also OTT alternatives, it’s a safe bet that many customers will simply leave,” Moffett wrote of the satellite TV subscriber base. 

The old arguments for a DirecTV/Dish merger appear compelling on the surface — putting the two together would create a satellite TV juggernaut with 23 million subscribers (more than Comcast!) and would produce cost efficiencies and synergies in the billions of dollars per year. But despite the plusses, those that would push for a merger between the two companies are ignoring the one very big minus — consumers are abandoning traditional pay TV structures for more flexible streaming relationships that ensure that a combination would only prolong the inevitable breakdown of the business. 

Also Read: Dish Gets Back to Its Rural Roots 

And it already is breaking down pretty rapidly without any external help. Moffett estimated that pay TV (cable and satellite) has been losing customers at a 7+% clip over the past four quarters. Gross additions for both DirecTV and Dish have also been plummeting — from a combined 6.45 million subscribers in 2016 to 2.36 million subscribers in 2020. 

In his report, Moffett wrote that the Biden bill would be a “body blow” to the satellite TV business, but especially for Dish, which has made a focus on rural markets its main focus over the years. The same strategy, according to Moffett, has kept DirecTV’s subscriber losses from going totally in the tank.

While Moffett added that the actual size of the rural subscriber pool is unknown, it is obviously large enough to keep these companies going as it becomes an increasingly important part of their respective businesses.

“As the subscriber bases of the two companies spiral lower, the rural core has been steadily growing as a share of what’s left,” Moffett wrote. “Merging the two companies would not change this dynamic at all.”

And now, he continued, “The federal government wants to spend $100B to make this market segment disappear.”  

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen has said on several occasions that he believes a DirecTV/Dish merger is “inevitable,” but given that Dish’s future is tied to whether it will be able to successfully build a wireless network, merging with DirecTV shouldn’t be top of mind, according to Moffett.  

Dish has about $16.5 billion in debt ($10.5 billion of which is pledged toward the satellite business) with about $2 billion in maturities due in June. Dish could make that payment with cash on hand, but according to Moffett, that would starve the wireless effort of needed cash to fund its buildout. 

Dish has said that it will spend about $10 billion on its wireless network, a figure that Moffett has said in the past he believes is strikingly low. Adding pressure to that aspect of the business can’t help the situation. 

DirecTV relies on the rural markets as well — Moffett estimates that most of the churn in rural markets is actually between the two satellite companies, so any reduction in that base will adversely affect both companies. In addition, AT&T’s deal to spin off its DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-verse businesses with TPG Capital earlier this year carries a high interest loan (10%) from TPG that also includes a “warrant for 30% of the excess value in the event DirecTV ever realizes an exit at a valuation of greater than $16.2 billion, as it might in the event of a Dish merger,” Moffett wrote. 

Dish and DirecTV tried to merge in 2002,  when both were much stronger companies and the threat of broadband was minuscule, and the government blocked it.  Even as satellite’s fortunes began to wane during a presidential administration that was supposedly open to more deals, the feds reportedly made it pretty clear that they would block a merger, and the current administration appears to be even less inclined to allow a big combination. But ultimately, whether a deal is done will come down to what these things usually come down to — economics. And with the government ready to fund satellite TV’s competitors in its most stable market, those economics don’t look so good. 

Although broadband proposals occupy only four paragraphs in the White House’s 25-page summary of President Joe Biden’s “American Jobs Plan” — the official name for the “infrastructure overhaul” unveiled March 31 — those high-level visions immediately generated intense controversy regarding their implementation. Analysts expect heated economic and political furor as the $100 billion proposal for federal support of broadband expansion, including funding for municipal broadband systems, high-speed mandates and possible price controls, works its way through Congress.

One key goal of the plan is to assure universal broadband access, especially high-speed availability to unserved rural and underserved urban areas. 5G technology will be part of that solution, but the initial vision did not address specifics for wireless delivery in the master plan.  

Even before Biden formally unveiled the proposal at a Pittsburgh speech — in the heart of old rust-belt America — Republicans vowed to slash the $2.2 trillion concept to focus on roads, bridges and broadband projects, and not allow it to cover the climate, energy and “social infrastructure” ideas that Biden espoused. A second phase of the Biden infrastructure agenda, labeled the American Family Plan, was due to be released in April, also calling for $1 trillion to $2 trillion in government funding during the coming decade. 

Since the entire infrastructure plan includes corporate tax increases, it faces severe challenges as it heads to Congress.

The broadband proposal’s congressional journey actually began in the last two months with the introduction of legislation that will become part of Biden’s plan: House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) introduced the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act (AAIA), which seeks to invest $94 billion to build high-speed broadband infrastructure in underserved communities, and all 32 Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are co-sponsoring the Leading Infrastructure For Tomorrow’s America (LIFT America) Act, which includes broadband modernization and expansion in its proposed $312 billion spending for energy, water and health-care infrastructure programs. 

The “digital” section of the Biden plan focuses on eliminating the digital divide. It also encompasses tech-related research projects to assure American innovation, some of which could become intertwined with expanded broadband or wireless services. 

‘Revitalize Digital Infrastructure’

Biden cited data indicating that “more than 30 million Americans live in areas where there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds,” emphasizing the limitations in rural areas and on tribal lands. 

“In urban areas as well, there is a stark digital divide: a much higher percentage of White families use home broadband internet than Black or Latino families,” Biden said. The proposed $100 million investment will “build high-speed broadband infrastructure to reach 100 percent coverage,” Biden added, noting that the plan will ‘future-proof’ broadband infrastructure.

One way to accomplish that is to “prioritize support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments, nonprofits, and cooperatives — providers with less pressure to turn profits and with a commitment to serving entire communities,” the plan said. 

Piling on ideas that have traditionally annoyed incumbent telecom companies, Biden focused on price regulation, noting that Americans “pay too much for internet service.” He cited the need to “reduce the cost of broadband internet service and promote more widespread adoption.” The White House policy paper said: “building out broadband infrastructure isn’t enough. We also must ensure that every American who wants to can afford high-quality and reliable broadband internet.”

That goal will be achieved by “lifting barriers that prevent municipally-owned or affiliated providers and rural electric co-ops from competing on an even playing field with private providers, and requiring internet providers to clearly disclose the prices they charge,” according to the plan.

Biden sought to temper this approach by assuring that individual subsidies to cover internet costs will not be a permanent policy. “Continually providing subsidies to cover the cost of overpriced internet service is not the right long-term solution for consumers or taxpayers,” according to the White House.

Opposition Takes Shape

Even before the Biden plan was released, Congressional Republicans announced that they’d only work on legislation that focused on transportation and broadband, not other Biden aspirations such as climate and family care factors.

“I don’t think the bill can grow into a multitrillion dollar catch-all,” said Rep. Sam Graves (R-Missouri), the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “It needs to be about roads and bridges.” 

The need for speed fits into many of the initial analyses of the plan, along with an evaluation of whether the overall broadband agenda is good for incumbent carriers or entrepreneurial interlopers. Critics are already speculating incumbent carriers will seek to tailor the eventual legislation to assure their stake in the funding — possibly to the exclusion of entrepreneurial ventures. 

Craig Moffett, principal and senior analyst at research firm MoffettNathanson and a long-time media/telecom analyst, said in an interview that the Biden plan “still feels very much like a provisional first draft at this point.”

“There are some problematic elements, like the symmetrical bandwidth standard,” he said. “On balance, funding to bring broadband to more of America is good news for existing operators.” 

Others questioned whether ideas such as the bidirectional requirement for speeds of 100 megabits per second or 1 gigabit per second should be enshrined in the plan, as proposed by former Federal Communications Commission chairman and Brookings Institute visiting fellow Tom Wheeler. In Congressional testimony in March, Wheeler suggested that symmetrical 1 Gbps service is a necessity, even if it requires a long-term funding subsidy. 

Wheeler, who had a hand in crafting the Biden plan, said it is a “work in progress.” He believes it should be rolled out as a “Fiber First” project, based on FCC studies, an interesting perspective from the lobbyist who once headed CTIA-The Wireless Association. He said the rural prioritization should be about adoption, not just deployment. In that context, he said, price matters to assure that low-income users can afford high-speed access.  

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association president and CEO Michael Powell quickly voiced opposition to government-built broadband subsidies or price regulations. He said the White House’s plan risks making a big “wrong turn” by “discarding decades of successful policy” that is subsidizing hard-to-reach and low-income residents. Powell insisted Biden’s plan is shortsighted in believing “the government is better suited than private-sector technologists to build and operate the internet.”

ACA Connects president and CEO Matthew M. Polka also warned that “more deployment alone will not bridge the digital divide” and insisted that recent federal pro-investment policies have encouraged private-sector expansion of broadband services. 

“As we go forward, we should ‘do no harm’ and not undermine these investment incentives,” Polka, said. He acknowledged “adoption,” not deployment, is a major challenge. 

Michael O’Rielly, principal at MPORielly Consulting and a former FCC commissioner, said the Biden proposal “is based on faulty premises and seems to advocate for indefensible and harmful policy directions.”

“It dismisses calls by many, including myself, to focus on those Americans without broadband service — those truly in need — and charges ahead with a costly, unnecessary, and detrimental proposal that would assault current private broadband providers’ investment and putting at risk all existing federal broadband programs,” O’Rielly said. 

View from Pew Center

The Pew Research Center, which has followed internet and technology developments, focused on the high data speed goals of the infrastructure plan. 

“No matter how this legislation shakes out, lawmakers should set higher speed requirements, prioritize fiber deployment, establish accountability and oversight measures for funds, and address affordability,” said Kathryn de Wit, project director of the broadband access initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts, adding that it’s critical for federal law to address the role of state and local governments.

Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation, a telecom-focused think tank, endorsed the infrastructure proposal, but voiced concerns that “the plan will not direct funds primarily to unserved areas. The bulk of any funding should go to areas that do not yet have broadband service.” He also is wary about how “broadband will be defined.” 

Consumer Technology Association president and CEO Gary Shapiro focused on the importance of building broadband infrastructure, including “dig once” policies to free up spectrum for innovators. 

John Lawson, president of Convergence Services and executive director of the AWARN Alliance, believes that the Biden infrastructure programs could seed the market for NextGen TV, citing the FCC’s “broadcast internet” rulemakings as supporting this prospect. He noted that “innovative broadcasters” are working on connected car projects using ATSC 3.0 technology.  

Energy & Commerce Committee Democrats are asking the FCC to delay its vote on a declaratory ruling, saying not to do so could put American's health and safety at risk.  

The FCC plans to vote on a "5G Upgrade" order next week (June 9) to clarify some of the steps the FCC has taken, championed by commissioner Brendan Carr, to speed tower citing, upgrades, and other elements of wireless network buildouts.  

1. "Clarify when the FCC's 60-day shot clock on localities reviews of a wireless builder's documents.  

2. "Clarify what equipment can go on existing structures.  

3. "Spell out distinctions between concealment elements--having to make a tower look like a tree or a flagpole--and other conditions related to aesthetics, and clarifying that aesthetic conditions can't be enforced "in a way that negates our other rules that promote streamlined approval."  

Looking to delay a vote, the House Democrats invoked COVID-19.  

“We are especially troubled by the burden responding to this Declaratory Ruling will place on local governments that are rightfully focused right now on combating the ongoing coronavirus pandemic,” they wrote. “Likewise, we worry that if this Declaratory Ruling does not benefit from meaningful input from local governments, the result could undermine municipalities’ ability to balance their responsibilities to public safety and community design with their desire to ensure access to affordable wireless networks and the next generation services.” 

But they took the argument even farther: "“If local governments are forced to respond to this Declaratory Ruling instead of focusing on their public health and safety responses, it very well may put Americans health and safety at risk," they said.  

The letter was signed by two dozen committee members, led by full committee chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Communications Subcommittee chair Mike Doyle (D-Pa.).

That take on the FCC vote was in stark contrast to Republicans, who praised the item.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will head up a press conference Wednesday (April 1) on Democrats' infrastructure priorities for the the next coronavirus aid package. 

Broadband will almost certainly be part of that if House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) has anything to do with it. Pallone will join with Pelosi, Majority whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) at the press conference.  

Pallone is particularly concerned with rural broadband access, which has become a big issue now that remote work and education and healthcare are the new normal. 

The CARES Act, the $2 trillion aid package that was the third virus aid bill, included $200 million for telehealth. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai signaled this week that the FCC would be asking for money for distance learning in this latest package, as it did unsuccessfully for the CARES Act.  

Unlike Republicans, Democrats were not handing out laurels to President Donald Trump's infrastructure investment plan, which was fleshed out in a White House document Monday (Feb. 12).

Related: President Fleshes Out Infrastructure Plan

“I am deeply disappointed that the president failed to include dedicated broadband funding in his infrastructure proposal," Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), co-chair of the House Rural Broadband Caucus, said. "This glaring omission is a betrayal of the rural voters that supported him in his election, and a missed opportunity to close the digital divide that separates rural and urban America. A robust rural broadband network is essential to attract businesses, provide access to healthcare through telemedicine, help farmers become more efficient, and close the homework gap that hamstrings rural students.”

The president's plan includes $50 billion for rural infrastructure, including rural broadband, but also including bridges, rail airports, inland ports, public transit, drinking water, storm water, power, electric, flood management and more. That is part of $200 billion in direct funding that the White House said will drive $1.5 billion in infrastructure investment in public and private funds.

“President Trump’s infrastructure proposal is woefully inadequate for addressing the urgent needs of modernizing our nation’s infrastructure," said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. "The proposal does not include any new funding, and it forces the majority of costs onto cash-strapped state and local governments."

The president proposed leveraging $200 billion in government funding into $1.5 trillion in infrastructure upgrades and deployment. "President Trump spared no expense and required no offsets for his tax scam benefitting corporations and the wealthiest few," said Pallone, "but he refuses to provide any new funding to repair our crumbling infrastructure."

That "tax scam" was a reference to the Republican-backed tax cut bill that, among other things, reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

President Donald Trump has signaled that broadband will definitely be part of his planned infrastructure investments.

Trump issued an executive order Wednesday (July 19) creating The Presidential Advisory Council on Infrastructure, which will include a representative from the communications and technology sector. The council will report back to the president with its findings.

The members will be appointed by Trump and will represent the following sectors: real estate, finance, construction, communications and technology, transportation and logistics, labor, environmental policy, regional and local economic development, and "other sectors determined by the president to be of value to the council," the White House said.

The mission of the council, whose membership will be capped at 15, is to "study the scope and effectiveness of, and make findings and recommendations to the president regarding, federal government funding, support and delivery of infrastructure projects in several sectors, including surface transportation, aviation, ports and waterways, water resources, renewable energy generation, electricity transmission, broadband, pipelines and other such sectors as determined by the council."

That will include prioritizing infrastructure buildouts, speeding approval processes, coming up with ongoing financing mechanisms, identifying public-private partnerships, coming up with best practices for procurement and delivery, and promoting innovation.

The Department of Commerce will provide the administrative staff, facilities and support services for the council. The council positions will be unpaid, though private citizens will get travel expenses.

House Energy & Commerce Committee Democrats have introduced a wide-ranging infrastructure bill that includes a $40 billion broadband component, $10 billion of which could trickle down to subsidizing deployment in underserved areas.

The LIFT America Act's investment in secure and resilient broadband is almost as much as the combined investments in drinking water ($22.56 billion), energy ($17 billion), healthcare ($3 billion) and "brownfields" ($2.7 billion) investments combined.

The Democrats say the bill will "spur new high-paying technology jobs by supporting deployment of smart buildings, smart grid, and Smart Communities technology. "

According to a breakout of the bill, the broadband investment is spread out over five years and will use a reverse auction to subsidize broadband in "unserved" areas (75% of the funds, or $30 billion), with the remaining 25% (that would be $10 billion) going to states via a separate reverse auction.

But if there are no unserved areas in a state, that state could use the funds to serve underserved areas--or as ISPs see it, overbuild existing service--or for connecting libraries and schools or to deploy next gen 911.

The $30 billion would have to go to private entities, but some of the $10 billion could go to governments for 911. (This story initially said that money could go to municipal broadband buildouts, but that was incorrect).

The broadband will have to be high-speed--at least 100 Mbps downstream, and 3 Mbps up, with a carveout for remote areas, where 25 Mbps/3 mbps would qualify, and cost no more than $60 per month for residential service exclusive of taxes and fees. 

Given that it has money for potential overbuilds, both of which the reigning Republican majority has issues with--as do ISPs--the bill's prospects are probably not very bright.

“We appreciate this latest contribution to the evolving debate regarding how best to promote access to broadband,” said Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA The Rural Broadband Association. “While we’re still reviewing the details of this most recent proposal, its introduction and the amount of resources indicated reflect a clear recognition of the importance of broadband as a national infrastructure priority. The ultimate touchstones in any infrastructure discussion must be both how we can build these assets in the first instance and—especially in high-cost rural areas, where the ongoing operation of a network is itself a substantial undertaking—how we can make sure these investments are sustainable for the benefit of the consumers and businesses that depend upon them.”

Looking to trump the president's trillion-dollar infrastructure spending plans, Hill Democrats Tuesday (Jan. 24) unveiled their own plan, which calls for spending big bucks to expand "high-speed and affordable broadband" in both unserved and "underserved" areas, including funding for both middle mile (backbone) and last-mile wired and wireless deployment

That allocation was not surprising given the importance of broadband deployment to the previous Democratic administration.

The Democratic plan calls for a $20 billion investment, which the Dems say would result in 260,000 new jobs. 

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, was a key co-sponsor of the spending plan, which included the following: "To close the rural-urban divide, and to push toward ubiquitous access to high-speed broadband, we will invest $20 billion to fund the build out of high-speed broadband in unserved and underserved areas. This funding will be available to projects currently eligible under programs at both the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We also propose expanding the programs to enable grant recipients to use grant funds to deploy various types of infrastructure capable of offering, middle-mile, last-mile wired and wireless broadband access, and adding evaluation criteria in the awards process to ensure that the funding goes to the most effective and efficient uses. Finally, we propose ensuring additional funding is available to help upgrade our nation’s aging 9-1-1 system and other critical infrastructure technology."

The Commerce and Agriculture departments also received billions in broadband funds as part of the BTOP stimulus plan under President Obama.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association applauded the plan and its backers, which also include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The CCIA also pointed out that both FCC chairman Ajit Pai and President Trump support infrastructure buildouts.

RELATED: Pai Prioritizes Closing Digital Divide

Internet buildout is an issue that has bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch. Pai has expressed support for the idea in recent months, and President Trump made infrastructure improvements a major campaign issue.

“Our economy depends on connectivity, and we need higher speeds and stronger broadband networks to remain competitive," said CCIA president Ed Black. "Broadband buildout done properly would create a wave of jobs and leave better access to high speed broadband for more citizens in its wake. Broadband buildout is an issue that does have and should have broad, bipartisan support. We appreciate the steps Democrats and Republicans are now taking to make their shared goals a reality for the thousands of citizens who need high speed internet access and the jobs that would bring.”

In a move that could help speed wireless and wired broadband buildouts, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order "establishing a framework" for "expediting" environmental reviews and approvals for "high-priority infrastructure projects."

"[D]elays and other inefficiencies in the environmental review and permitting process are severely impeding critically important projects to rebuild and modernize our nation’s infrastructure, such as highways, bridges, tunnels, the electrical grid, ports, water systems, airports, railways and pipelines," the order stated.

Broadband was not among the projects the White House named in announcing Trump had signed the order, which, but tech companies have pushed him to make broadband infrastructure part of his trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Environmental impact reviews are among the cited impediments to broadband buildouts.

The executive order had not been published on the White House Web site at press time

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), in early comments at Monday's annual State of the Net conference in Washington, presaged a discussion later in the day about whether and how federal support to build broadband facilities should be part of the Trump administration's proposals for upgrading the nation's infrastructure of roads and bridges.

That dialog sparked an examination, suitable to the venue and referred to throughout the day as part of the "kinetic versus cyber" ecosystem, of telecommunications' importance vis-à-vis tangible products.

"The more we can do in the broadband space, the  better," Schatz said in his remarks at the conference. "We can get bipartisan support," but he proposed that "we should do little things" rather than go for sweeping telecom reform.

Schatz also addressed the continuing controversy about net neutrality, insisting that, "reversing the Open Internet order is not so easy." He said that "right now it is just too polarized" to legislate on that issue, although he thinks Congress should do so.

"I'm open to legislating but only if it's not a Trojan horse for undermining the authority that is already in place," said Schatz, who sits on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

He also said he "believes Jessica should be back on the FCC," a reference to former Democratic FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, whose term ended after an ill-fated, politically laced attempt to reappoint her in late December.

Schatz's remarks included his views on privacy and the Internet of Things, which were major topics throughout the SOTN annual conference.

"IoT is one of the spaces where we need rules of the road; also artificial intelligence as it relates to law enforcement," Schatz said. "I don't think this is apocryphal sci-fi stuff. We have to have this conversation, ideally private-sector driven." 

He did not offer any suggestions on how Congress would become involved in these rapidly developing tech/telecom sectors.

At a subsequent session on IoT, Dr. Ron Ross, a fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, characterized cybersecurity intrusions as "the greatest national security problem," emphasizing that communications and utility operators are not adequately prepared for attacks, such as "exfiltration" of customer information. He said building the infrastructure to defend against cyberattacks "is incredibly complex."

The panel also addressed looming issues such as liability and how IoT systems can be built that enable consumers to keep control over their own data.

Reassigning Spectrum, Funding Broadband Deployment
A session on "Rethinking the Future of Communications Policy" spanned a terrain from spectrum allocation to FCC staffing.

After declaring the current broadcast incentive auction a success (despite its lower-than-expected revenue results), the panel said it expects further efforts to retrieve airwaves for new digital applications. In particular, the panel focused on government agency controlled airwaves, which it called "the low hanging fruit for more spectrum."

Larry Downes, project director of the Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy, cited the opportunity for the new administration "to incentivize federal agencies with underused spectrum to give it up or share it for commercial use.   

Although the Defense Department is unlikely to relinquish its massive spectrum holdings, according to panelists, airwaves controlled by aviation and other agencies may be diverted to commercial use.  No one offered specifics regarding timetable or how the transfer would be accomplished.

Broadband will be part of the Trump administration's national infrastructure construction plan, said Markham Erickson, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson law firm, who represents telecom and internet clients. He expects the primary federal actions will be created by providing tax incentives and subsidies for private investment, "some mechanism to get broadband out to rural places."

Erickson also said he expects that the FCC will retain "extensive regulations" over some telecom sectors, although he did not cite specific topics.

With FCC transition team member Mark Jamison (pictured above) on the panel, discussion also touched on the extent of the FCC reorganization agenda. Jamison, who is director of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida, was a member of the Trump transition team working on the FCC.

Jamison said that the "basic goal" was to "elevate the role of technical analysis."

"It's easier to hire lawyers than economists or engineers," he said. "I think the commissioners and public will be better served" with more technical expertise.

Gigi Sohn, a former advisor to former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, concurred, noting that it was "very frustrating to bring engineers and economists" from telecom and media companies and count on their information. "As a result, we're reliant on industry input," Sohn said, lapsing, as she frequently did on the panel, to using "we" when discussing a job she left three weeks ago, a very common gaffe among recently quondam public servants. She joked about the ex post facto “we” that crept into her comments.

The panel agreed that FCC reorganization should reflect greater overlap of activities that affect multiple bureaus.

"The FCC should recognize the convergence of all kinds of Internet Protocol technologies," said Downes. "There is no need to separate bureaus based on [legacy] structures."

Sohn also used the platform to predict that Trump appointees will adopt the mantra "Consolidation, consolidation, consolidation," in counterpoint to Wheeler's "Competition" mantra. She predicted that the FCC will have no role in upcoming merger considerations, with those functions going to the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department.

Erickson pointed out that there are similar rules at various bureaus and agencies, noting as an example that the Justice Department may be better equipped to take "a bigger view of intermodal and intramodal competition."  

In his closing keynote,  Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) avoided any indication that an omnibus Telecommunications Act reform is in the works.

Comcast was the only "Platinum Sponsor" of the annual event;  AT&T, Verizon and Google were among the "Gold Sponsors."

Free and subscription video-on-demand services sparked a major shift toward over-the-top viewing. Now, the emergence of virtual pay TV providers is stoking another big OTT movement — this time toward linear, live TV services.

This latest trend is shepherded by a new breed of virtual multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) services such as Sling TV and Sony’s PlayStation Vue, and will now expand with last week’s launch of DirecTV Now, as well as online pay TV offerings coming from Hulu and YouTube.

Though use of OTT services is on the rise, even during highly viewed “tentpole” events, it remains relatively small compared to traditional pay TV audiences. Significant scale is coming, though. Meeting the increased demand for live TV feeds via the Internet presents a broad mix of critical technology and business-related challenges that will need to be addressed as Internet- fed audiences continue to expand in the years to come.

STARTED WITH VOD

For OTT video, on-demand was the first entrée, in part because it was easier to engineer. VOD requires materially fewer moving parts and less complicated workflows, John Bishop, chief technology officer of Akamai Technologies’ media business unit, said.

Next came one-off live events, which were more difficult to handle, though Akamai’s platform now handles tens of thousands of them — perhaps 100,000 — per day.

“But what is new right now is linear [networks],” Bishop said. “They are similar to live events from a functionality standpoint, but when you look at it from a redundancy, planning and maintenance perspective, they are very different.”

Some live events, including NBCUniversal’s expansive online coverage of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janiero earlier this year, are especially intensive. They also provide windows of inactivity that allow for changes and tweaks, though.

“We don’t have that luxury with linear,” Bishop said. “It’s always running.”

While picture quality, consistency and the quality of the experience are all key “tenets” of live streaming, “scale is always the hard one,” he said.

Online video publishers are seeing a greater push into the live arena. “Most every new customer has a requirement for some kind of live [component],” Arik Gaisler, Kaltura senior director of product management, infrastructure, said.

Even partners that don’t have a live stream are looking to add a live-like experience using preprogrammed VOD content that can be spliced into a linear-style stream, Gaisler said.

Progress is being made. It wasn’t long ago that any streaming number with the word “million” tied to it was cause for major concern, Bishop recalled. “We would’ve all gotten the cold shakes — this was an all-hands-on-deck, student-body-left movement,” he said.

These days, preparing for 5 million concurrent streams doesn’t cause a lot of lost sleep.

“North of 10 million gets me very worried,” Bishop said. “And what scares me online is 125 million coming in possibly for an event like the Super Bowl. We’re not there yet.”

Fortunately, neither is the online viewership of pro football’s marquee matchup. Availability of live Super Bowl streams are now the norm, but they tend to be a complementary option to the traditional TV feed.

CBS’s live stream of Super Bowl 50 in February drew 3.96 million unique viewers, far behind the 111.9 million viewers who tuned into the CBS telecast.

SCALING UP

“We still have a long way to get to the point where we can handle broadcast-level scale,” Devin Poolman, senior vice president of digital platforms at Fox Sports, said. “We’re seeing tremendous growth curves … but we need to start building for [broadcast-level scale] now — not just for ourselves, but as an industry.”

During Game 7 of Major League Baseball’s World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians on Nov. 2 — a tight contest that saw the Cubs prevail by a score of 8-7 — more than 1 million consumers viewed some 3.5 million-plus streams via Fox Sports Go, the programmer’s TV everywhere service. Those were OTT records for Fox Sports, yet relatively small figures placed against the 40 million viewers who tuned in via traditional TV for the series clincher.

“Relative to our past records, over the last six months we have quadrupled our bests in terms of concurrent audience,” Poolman said.

Sling TV, Dish Network’s OTT TV service, doesn’t break out subscriber numbers, but says its totals have been on the rise since its debut in February 2015.

“We have seen continued growth and we’re pleased with how the year has progressed,” Ben Weinberger, chief product officer at Sling TV, said, noting that live events, led by sports, tend to drive traffic to the OTT TV service.

The recent presidential election, and the debates that surrounded it, also created spikes in usage. And, on occasion, sports and the election collided.

A case in point was on Sept. 26, when the first Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton presidential debate outstreamed the New Orleans Saints-Atlanta Falcons Monday Night Football game. On Sling TV, the debate at its peak generated 68% more viewers than the football game. Together, the game and the debate helped to shatter all of Sling TV’s previous viewership records.

Jason Thibeault, executive director of the Streaming Video Alliance, a cross-industry group that counts members such as Comcast, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Charter Communications and NeuLion, is also taking on the scalability challenge that live OTT will face as Internet-using audiences continue to grow.

“We don’t have the infrastructure available to deliver live video to 15 million people concurrently. That would break the Internet,” Thibeault said. “There’s a whole value chain when it comes to delivering live video. It has challenges in front of it in order to make it broadcast quality.”

INFRASTRUCTURE WORRIES

Among the solutions getting a close look are multicast streaming, which is more efficient than unicast streaming because it allows a subset of viewers to share live streams; and LTE-B, also referred to as evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS).

SVA, meanwhile, is focusing on the live-streaming challenge in part through a new Open Caching working group that’s focused on putting caches deep into the network, as close to the user as possible. In addition to helping with concurrent streaming, the project will also target latency so that OTT viewers receive a feed more closely synched to the traditional TV broadcast, rather than one that lags 30 seconds behind it.

SVA is creating the functional requirements and technical specifications to build a new open caching infrastructure for companies in the OTT ecosystem. Next year, several SVA member companies are expected to collaborate on a proof-of-concept/demonstration of the open-caching idea.

“Hopefully that will solve some of the latency issues and improve the end-user experience for content delivery for both VOD and for live,” Thibeault said. “All of these players recognize that this is what consumers want and this is the next generation of the television experience.”

Bishop agreed. “Being close to the edge matters more and more now,” he said. “Consumers are expecting lower latency and high data rates. All of that needs to be served as close to the end user as possible.”

Bishop and Akamai are also strong advocates of shifting OTT video to the User Datagram Protocol, an alternative system known for delivering lower latencies and being less “chatty” than Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

Bishop sees TCP and UDP as coexisting for a long time to come, but expects adoption of UDP to “start small and then quickly ramp up” over the next 36 months.

Much of that work will need to happen on the client side of the streaming equation — laptop browsers, tablets, smartphones and connected-TV platforms. Google Chrome already has native support for UDP, but other devices, such as the iPhone, will need a software development kit to receive UDP content, Bishop explained. Akamai is making an SDK available for free that can pull UDP-based content off its platform, he said.

Dan Rayburn, executive vice president of StreamingMedia. com and a principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan, has a different view about the big issues being confronted by live OTT. Some providers are playing it too close to the edge to keep costs in check, he said, which in turn exposes them to unnecessary outages.

Others, like Twitch, the Amazon-owned company behind the popular live-streaming video game service of the same name, rarely run into buffering and capacity issues. Rayburn calls MLB Advanced Media the “gold standard” for live OTT streaming, and a big reason why PlayStation Vue and online video services from the WWE and the National Hockey League use that platform.

“They understand the importance of live. They understand that you get one chance to do it right,” Rayburn said, noting that MLBAM recognizes that underspending on streaming infrastructure and backend workflow systems can harm its reputations and brands.

“Some of the biggest challenges [with live streaming] aren’t technical; they’re business-related,” Rayburn said, pointing out that the vast majority of OTT TV services aren’t adding subscribers rapidly enough to make scale much of an issue — yet.

Some of the newer OTT TV players won’t be able to survive without being subsidized by a well-funded parent, Rayburn added.

Sling TV “wouldn’t be in business if they weren’t owned by Dish,” he said. “They wouldn’t survive [because] their subscriber count is too low.”

And as for DirecTV Now, the new OTT TV service from AT&T? “DirecTV Now couldn’t roll out on its own, because the model doesn’t make sense,” Rayburn said, noting that OTT providers have to pay more in capacity as more and more customers stream content from them.

To its credit, AT&T is nailing up enough capacity to support 1 million simultaneous DirecTV Now users a year from now, he said, citing his sources in the online video industry.

“AT&T is being realistic, internally, in saying, we don’t think we’re going to get that many subs in the first year,” Rayburn said.

AT&T has not made any subscriber predictions for DirecTV Now, other than to say it will be targeted to the 20 million U.S. homes currently outside the traditional pay TV ecosystem.

The company appears confident that it will be able to deliver a high-quality, stable experience for a service that will be streaming more than 100 live TV feeds.

AT&T: WE’RE CONFIDENT

“We do scale at AT&T,” John Stankey, CEO of AT&T Entertainment Group, stressed at the company’s DirecTV Now press event on Nov. 28 in New York. “When you bring a product in, it needs to be scaled.”

Stankey said the new video platform, which DirecTV Now is riding on, will serve as “the foundation for how we’re going to do things in the future.”

Rayburn said it’s important to remember that OTT and broadcast TV are different animals. At a base level, the Internet is open and public, made up of myriad networks and systems. Broadcast television is a closed, standardized and private system that is largely based on fixed costs. “From a cost and infrastructure standpoint, it’s night and day,” he said.

“People always connect capacity with streaming,” Rayburn said, but problems that occur aren’t always with the video itself. Often the problem is an issue with the player, the authentication system or a bad API. “There’s all kinds of steps in the process that have to work perfectly and tie into one another. If any of those don’t work or get hung up, you can’t even get to the video.”

Fox Sports’s Poolman agreed: “Different systems have to work well together. Invariably, there are different failure points or choke points. We spend a lot of our time on how to mitigate that and also have the redundancy and more efficient paths to get to the end user.”

OTT TV providers such as Sling TV need to have a good sense of the average audience to prepare for, but remain agile enough to add streaming and sign-on capacity if, for example, a big breaking news event occurs.

“We have to prepare for normal traffic and we need to prepare for spikes in that traffic because of unexpected events, and we need to prepare for new people coming into the service at the same time,” Weinberger said. “A lot of that has to do with the entire ecosystem that we put in place. There’s only so many things that we can control.”

SIDEBAR: fuboTV Forges a Build-vs.-Buy Path

fuboTV, the self-proclaimed “sports-first” virtual MVPD that launched in January 2015, faced a big challenge in July when FC Barcelona squared off against Real Madrid — a match between popular and rival La Liga soccer clubs that’s known as “El Clasico” whenever it occurs.

fuboTV, which delivered the game via its distribution deal with beIN Sports, ran into some technology snafus: Some subscribers had trouble signing on and others reported different streaming-related issues.

The troubles were temporary, but they happened during a major sporting event and fuboTV made the decision to offer s $15 credit (applied in three monthly $5 increments) to affected subscribers.

It turned into a valuable lesson for the OTT service, which decided it made sense to rebuild its platform in-house rather than relying on one that was largely based on outsourced products.

“When I took this job, I expected very heavily to buy systems from other vendors and put them together,” said Jason Solinsky, a former Google engineer named chief technology officer of fuboTV in August.

“In fact, we’ve gone the opposite direction,” he said, noting that an enormous amount of the software that powers the service’s platform, including its account management and package management systems and code, have been rewritten and developed internally.

“That’s the only way to achieve reliability that’s on par with a cable system,” he said.

fuboTV is about halfway through with replacing its infrastructure, Solinsky said, and expects to complete the job by the end of 2017 if not earlier.

The service now better understands what’s required to develop and scale an OTT TV service and “where the pain parts are,” cofounder and CEO David Gandler said.

Live-streaming, particularly with sports, “requires someone that has access to the full chain of problems that can take place,” he said.

And fuboTV’s internal handiwork is being parlayed into a new, complementary line of business as a streaming platform provider for other services.

“I think we’re a cross-breed between a Sling-type service and BAMTech,” Gandler said, the latter a reference to the tech services and video streaming operation launched by Major League Baseball’s MLB Advanced Media, which recently nabbed a major investment from The Walt Disney Co. “We’ll be focused on building out a fully automated end-to-end solution.”

SIDEBAR: OTT by the Numbers

A recent sampling shows live sports streaming is driving sizable audiences to the OTT world, but those numbers are still dwarfed by traditional TV viewing audiences.

15.2 million: The number of unique viewers who tuned into Yahoo’s global live stream of the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars-Buffalo Bills game on Oct. 25, 2015. Yahoo streamed that game to most regions of the world, but the game was also available on regular TV (via CBS) in the local Buffalo, N.Y., and Jacksonville, Fla., markets. The game generated 33.6 million video streams, and more than 460 million total minutes of video consumed, with 33% of the audience — about 5 million viewers — originating outside the U.S.

3.96 million: The number of unique viewers who accessed CBS’s live stream of Super Bowl 50 between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers across desktops, connected TV platforms, tablets and smartphones. CBS said viewers consumed more than 402 million total minutes of coverage, and watched for more than 101 minutes each on average. By comparison, the CBS Super Bowl telecast averaged 111.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

2.1 million: The number of unique viewers worldwide who watched Twitter’s first Thursday Night Football live stream on Sept. 15 between the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills. The feed’s average audience was just 243,000, and each viewer watched an average of 22 minutes of the matchup via Twitter. By comparison, 5.4 million television viewers tuned in to watch the game on CBS or NFL Network.

911,000: The number of Sling TV subscribers at the end of third-quarter 2016, according to the latest estimate from MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett. Dish Network no longer breaks out how many of its 13.64 million pay TV subs take the OTT TV offering.

180-plus: The number of live TV feeds offered via Comcast’s TV everywhere app. The MSO said nearly 50% of its subscribers are using its TVE platforms, up from 30% of subscribers last year, and that customers are viewing 10 hours a month of TVE content on average.

SIDEBAR: Struggling to Keep Popular Streams Stable

While OTT TV service stability has been steadily improving, the struggles have tended to pop up during premieres of popular shows or big sporting events.

Among some examples, Sling TV buckled under the strain last August during the AMC premiere of Fear the Walking Dead, and last year during the TBS telecast of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament’s Final Four round due to a rush of signups and the resulting spike in streaming demand. In June, HBO Now, the premium programmer’s standalone OTT TV service suffered a temporary outage when streamers swamped the system to watch the a new episode from season six of hit series Game of Thrones.

Notably, that hiccup occurred after former HBO chief technology officer, Otto Berkes, resigned in late 2014 after the programmer opted to shift gears and work with a third-party streaming infrastructure partner, MLB Advanced Media, after its TV Everywhere service, HBO Go, melted down multiple times during the premieres of GoT episodes and other series. HBO confirmed last week that it has developed its own technology stack for HBO Go and works with BAMTech for HBO Now.

Last week’s DirecTV Now launch got off to a bit of a rocky start. While the speed and consistency of the service seemed to vary device to device soon after DirecTV Now’s debut, the service’s first evening saw subscribers head to Twitter to lodge complaints about login troubles, browser compatibility problems, long waits for customer service representatives and error codes, including false messages that customers had reached their streaming limit. (DirecTV Now allows up to two concurrent streams per account.)

CTIA president Meredith Attwell Baker said the wireless industry's need for spectrum will outstrip all the current efforts to find it, share it or free it up.

In a speech at the National Telecommunications & Information Association's (NTIA) International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) in Boulder, Colo., Thursday (May 14), Baker suggested the government has no "what next" plan beyond its current spectrum efforts, and it needs to have one.

"Mobile broadband demand cannot be met by improved spectral efficiency alone," Baker told the audience. "More towers and more wireless infrastructure can never be enough; AWS-3 and the incentive auction will not suffice."

Baker is the former head of the NTIA, which oversees government spectrum use, just as the FCC oversees commercial use (she is a former FCC commissioner as well).

To handle an expected six-fold increase in already hefty data flows, the country needs infrastructure, standards and technologies, but mostly, it needs spectrum, she said, particularly licensed spectrum. Baker said while sharing spectrum is good, it should not be a substitute for clearing spectrum.

The AWS-3 auction, which freed up licensed spectrum for auction, was not a laurel to rest on, she suggested, because it would take 20 years to bring it to consumers. That is too long, particularly given that "we are already behind in identifying what’s next."

"We just had AWS-3, and the broadcast incentive auction looms ahead of us," Baker said. "and after that, right now, we don’t know what’s next."

The Obama administration in 2010 came up with a 10-year plan for freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum, but Baker said it has no plan beyond 2020.

"Because spectrum policy is a long game, we need to start planning today," she said. "Just months after AWS-3, it may seem strange to be here, saying we have to start again. But we do."

Of the need for more licensed spectrum, she said: "As a country, the U.S. cannot settle too quickly into sharing regimes that rely on unproven and complex government roles and nascent or untested technologies. We can’t ask carriers to depend upon limited and undefined access for the spectrum they need to serve tens of millions of subscribers every day."