Benton Institute for Broadband & Society - Wireless Internet

Author:

Adam Echelman

Send date:

Mon, 07/11/2022

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 7/8/2022

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Mon, 07/11/2022

Coverage Type:

Localism

https://www.benton.org/blog/how-fixed-wireless-technologies-compare-fiber

How Fixed-Wireless Technologies Compare to Fiber

benton — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 11:35:42 +0000

As state and local governments and their partners plan to invest billions of dollars in federal funding to build broadband infrastructure, choosing the best technology will have significant long-term implications. Federal policymakers have addressed this subject to some degree: For example, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program’s notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) preferences fiber over fixed wireless. To aid state and local policymakers, CTC Technology & Energy conducted an engineering analysis of fixed-wireless technologies and their suitability for delivering broadband service in various environments. The resulting report, Fixed Wireless Technologies and Their Suitability for Broadband Delivery, addresses a range of critical technology and cost considerations related to fixed-wireless networks—and, as a point of comparison, to fiber-to-the-premises networks. The report seeks to do the following:

Provide an accessible guide to current and anticipated future fixed wireless technologies,
Demonstrate whether fixed wireless can be a viable approach to delivering broadband to currently unserved residents in various deployment scenarios, such as in urban and rural communities, and
Suggest how and in what circumstances states should consider using public funds on fixed wireless technologies as a long-term solution to address residential broadband needs.

[Andrew Afflerbach, Ph.D., P.E., is CEO and CTO of CTC Technology & Energy. He specializes in planning, designing, and overseeing the implementation of broadband communications networks.]

Benton Content:

Benton Original Content

Teaser:

Fiber offers the greater long-term value

Source:

https://www.benton.org/blog/it-time-reimagine-lifeline

Author:

Andrew Afflerbach

Send date:

Fri, 06/24/2022

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 6/23/2022

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Fri, 06/24/2022

Coverage Type:

It is Time to Reimagine Lifeline

benton — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 12:31:49 +0000

Low-income households are spending too much on connectivity. Prior to the pandemic, the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program supported mainly wireless communication services for low-income households; its $9.25/month subsidy resulting in service plans that restricted voice and data usage. To address Americans’ online connectivity needs during the pandemic, Congress directed the FCC to launch the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program—a historic expansion of financial support for universal service. With the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, EBB has transitioned to a longer-term Affordable Connectivity Program, a $30-per-month service subsidy for qualifying households. The Affordable Connectivity Program offers the opportunity to take a fresh look at policies to promote online access for low-income people in the United States. In Reimagining Lifeline: Universal Service, Affordability, and Connectivity, published by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, I examine data about the tools typical American households have for accessing the internet and how affordable they are, and explore the administrative journey of Lifeline, which is all the more significant because the Universal Service Administrative Company, which administers the Lifeline program, will also administer the Affordable Connectivity Program.

[John B. Horrigan is a Benton Senior Fellow. He is a national expert on technology adoption, digital inclusion, and evaluating the outcomes and impacts of programs designed to promote communications technology adoption and use.]

Benton Content:

Benton Original Content

Teaser:

The new Affordable Connectivity Program, coupled with Lifeline, has the potential to deliver more equitable connectivity solutions to low-income households.

Source:

Author:

John Horrigan

Send date:

Tue, 02/22/2022

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 2/18/2022

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Tue, 02/22/2022

Coverage Type:

Competition/Antitrust

Lifeline/Low-Income Consumers

Research

Universal Service Fund

https://www.benton.org/blog/action-needed-now-preserve-essential-lifeline-during…

Action Needed Now to Preserve an Essential Lifeline During the Pandemic

benton — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 11:42:56 +0000

Universal service is the principle that all Americans should have access to essential communications services, like phones and broadband. You may not have heard much about it, but a universal service crisis is right around the corner. Due to Federal Communications Commission inaction, nearly 800,000 people could lose phone service on December 1. On that day, changes in the FCC’s Lifeline program, which provides a modest monthly discount for communications services, mean that voice-only services like a home landline telephone and/or a cellphone will no longer be eligible for the discount. The changes could mean people losing service at a time they need it most. As the December 1 deadline approaches, the FCC should quickly act, first, to ensure low-income people do not lose their essential telephone service during the COVID-19 pandemic. And the FCC should come to grips with the reality that Lifeline’s $9.25/month subsidy is too small to connect low-income households with robust broadband service. With the rollout of the Emergency Broadband Benefit, and the possibility, on passage of the infrastructure bill, of a permanent American Connectivity Plan, the FCC should think about low-income subsidies for communications services holistically to allow low-income households to be connected as most middle- and upper-income people do: with both a wireline broadband subscription and a cellular data plan.

[John Horrigan is a Benton Senior Fellow and a national expert on technology adoption, digital inclusion, and evaluating the outcomes and impacts of programs designed to promote communications technology adoption and use. Horrigan is leading Benton’s research on the FCC’s Lifeline program.]

Benton Content:

Benton Original Content

Teaser:

The FCC should quickly act, first, to ensure low-income people do not lose their essential telephone service during the COVID-19 pandemic

Source:

Author:

John Horrigan

Send date:

Tue, 10/26/2021

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 10/25/2021

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Tue, 10/26/2021

Coverage Type:

Analysis

Agenda

Upcoming policy issue

Coronavirus and Connectivity

Headlines Specific Topic:

The Last Broadband Gifts From the 116th Congress

benton — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 13:05:11 +0000

With great drama, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 became law on December 27, 2021. The $2.3 trillion COVID relief and government spending bill extended unemployment benefits and ensured the government can keep running. The $900 billion COVID relief provision includes over $7 billion to help improve connectivity in the U.S. Here's a rundown of the support for broadband in the new law including discounted broadband service for low-income people, funding to make telecommunications networks more secure, grants for deploying new broadband networks in rural and Tribal areas, connecting minority communities, supporting telehealth, improving broadband maps, better coordination of federal broadband efforts, and more spectrum for 5G services.

Benton Content:

Benton Original Content

https://www.benton.org/blog/last-broadband-gifts-116th-congress

Teaser:

Broadband provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021

Source:

Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare

Author:

Kevin Taglang

Send date:

Fri, 01/15/2021

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 1/14/2021

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Fri, 01/15/2021

Coverage Type:

Analysis

Coronavirus and Connectivity

Headlines Specific Topic:

Broadband for America Now

benton — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 11:17:54 +0000

In October 2019, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society issued Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s. The agenda was comprehensive, constructed upon achievements in communities and insights from experts across the nation. The report outlined the key building blocks of broadband policy—deployment, competition, community anchor institutions, and digital equity (including affordability and adoption). The agenda called for everyone to be able to use High-Performance Broadband by the end of the decade. When we released the report last fall, we promised a refresh in 2020 because we knew there were issues that required additional development and more success stories that needed to be told. What we did not know was that the world would be changed permanently by COVID-19, creating health, economic, and social crises, resulting in the worst economic setback in America in decades and unveiling a connectivity crisis that spans rural and urban places, threatening to create an even more divided America. This essay offers our key recommendations by describing the likely pattern of changing broadband usage once the present crisis recedes, and by emphasizing how federal, state, tribal, and local governments should work together to implement a comprehensive broadband agenda.

Benton Content:

Benton Original Content

https://www.benton.org/publications/broadband-america-now

Teaser:

This essay offers key recommendations by describing the likely pattern of changing broadband usage once the present crisis recedes, and by emphasizing how federal, state, tribal, and local governments should work together to implement a comprehensive broadband agenda.

Source:

Coronavirus and Connectivity

Author:

Jonathan Sallet

Send date:

Thu, 10/29/2020

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 10/28/2020

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Thu, 10/29/2020

Coverage Type:

Research

Headlines Specific Topic:

Benton Foundation

What Did the FCC Do to Close the Digital Divide?

benton — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 12:42:36 +0000

It's budget season. Federal departments and agencies are making their funding requests to Congress for fiscal year 2021 (starting October 1, 2020 and ending September 30, 2021). And part of the ask is reporting how well an agency did achieving its FY 2019 goals. One of the primary goals of the Federal Communications Commission is to close the digital divide in rural America. On February 10, the FCC released its annual performance report, so we snuck a peek to see how the commission thinks it is doing to ensure that all areas of the country have access to broadband internet access service. First, we should note that the FCC approach to the problem is to develop a regulatory environment to encourage the private sector to build, maintain, and upgrade next-generation networks so that the benefits of advanced communications services are available to all Americans. Where the business case for infrastructure investment doesn’t exist, the FCC aims to employ effective and efficient means to facilitate deployment and access to affordable broadband in all areas of the country. With all that in mind, how is the FCC doing?

Benton Content:

Benton Original Content

https://www.benton.org/blog/what-did-fcc-do-close-digital-divide

Teaser:

How does the FCC think it is doing ensuring that all areas of the country have access to broadband internet access service?

Source:

Author:

Kevin Taglang

Send date:

Wed, 02/12/2020

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 2/11/2020

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Wed, 02/12/2020

Coverage Type:

Infrastructure

Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

Universal Service Fund

Rural Health Care

https://www.benton.org/blog/t-mobilesprint-inching-towards-final-ok

T-Mobile/Sprint Inching Towards Final OK

benton — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 16:34:26 +0000

On November 5, the Federal Communications Commission gave its final OK, approving—with conditions—the transfer of control applications filed by T-Mobile and Sprint. T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint was first announced April 29, 2018, touting the capacity to rapidly create a nationwide 5G network while offering lower prices, better quality, unmatched value, and greater competition. Is that where we've ended up? Although T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint has gotten approval from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the FCC, the deal isn't done yet. Over a dozen states are challenging the deal in court. State attorneys general fear the merger would hurt competition, raise prices for cell service, result in a loss of retail jobs and lower wages for the employees who remain.

Benton Content:

Benton Original Content

Teaser:

Basic Broadband for "Homes" on Tribal Lands

benton — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 19:53:47 +0000

Sacred Wind Communications was founded on the premise of “serving the unserved,” given the technological void that envelopes so many tribal communities in New Mexico. While the company continues to expand its broadband deployment initiatives among tribal communities in New Mexico, it still faces an uphill battle when trying to balance high infrastructure buildout costs with high consumer demand, particularly in remote Navajo communities. The following points specifically elucidate how difficult it is for a small, rural telco whose mission is to serve tribal communities that want and need broadband services, but still do not have basic access:

Operating costs and infrastructure deployment costs are much higher on remote tribal lands than those in other rural and urban areas.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), using U.S. Census Bureau data and its own Form 477 data, designating a carrier’s served households, misses many unserved tribal homes in its calculation of broadband support needed by the carrier.
A major part of the undercounting of tribal homes is the failure to recognize certain structures as domiciles, inhabitable by Western standards.

[John Badal is a co-founder of Sacred Wind Communications and is the CEO and Chairman of the Board.]

Benton Content:

https://www.benton.org/blog/basic-broadband-homes-tribal-lands

Teaser:

One Rural Telco’s Uphill Battle to Provide Basic Broadband Services to Tribal Communities in Need

Source:

Benton Foundation

Author:

John Badal

Send date:

Thu, 08/29/2019

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 8/28/2019

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Wed, 08/28/2019

Coverage Type:

Universal Service Fund

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-settles-t-mobile-and-sprint-th…

Justice Department Settles with T-Mobile and Sprint in Their Proposed Merger by Requiring a Package of Divestitures to Dish

benton — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:06:48 +0000

The Department of Justice announced that it and the Attorneys General for five states reached a settlement with T-Mobile and Sprint regarding their proposed merger. The settlement requires a substantial divestiture package in order to enable a viable facilities-based competitor to enter the market. Further, the settlement will facilitate the expeditious deployment of multiple high-quality 5G networks for the benefit of American consumers and entrepreneurs.

The Department’s Antitrust Division, along with the offices of five state Attorneys General (Plaintiff States), filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to block the proposed transaction. At the same time, the Department and the Plaintiff States filed a proposed settlement that, if approved by the court, would resolve the Department’s and the Plaintiff States’ competitive concerns. The participating state Attorneys General offices represent Nebraska, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, T-Mobile and Sprint must divest Sprint’s prepaid business -- including Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Sprint prepaid -- to Dish Network, a Colorado-based satellite television provider. The proposed settlement also provides for the divestiture of certain spectrum assets to Dish. Additionally, T-Mobile and Sprint must make available to Dish at least 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations. T-Mobile must also provide Dish with robust access to the T-Mobile network for a period of seven years while Dish builds out its own 5G network. The Department and the Plaintiff States said that, without the divestiture, the proposed acquisition would eliminate competition between two of only four facilities-based suppliers of nationwide mobile wireless services. According to the complaint, T-Mobile and Sprint both operate mobile networks and offer nationwide coverage to consumers, and they are particularly close competitors to each other for the roughly 30% of retail subscribers who purchase prepaid mobile wireless service. The combination of T-Mobile and Sprint would eliminate head-to-head competition between the companies and threaten the benefits that customers have realized from that competition in the form of lower prices and better service.

Benton Content:

Teaser:

The Department of Justice announced that it and the Attorneys General for five states reached a settlement with T-Mobile and Sprint regarding their proposed merger.

Source:

Department of Justice

Send date:

Mon, 07/29/2019

Daily Digest:

Daily Digest 7/26/2019

DD Publish Status:

Not Available

Include summary in newsletter email:

Publish Date:

Fri, 07/26/2019

Coverage Type:

Press Release

Ownership

Spectrum