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Stories filed under: "gigabit fiber"

Big Telecom Is Once Again Using Fake Consumer Groups To Attack Community Owned Broadband Networks

from the socialist-antifa-woke-takeover-of-the-internet-dot-com dept

Annoyed by the kind of expensive, shitty, slow, and spotty broadband access caused by limited competition and monopoly power, hundreds of U.S. communities have been building their own broadband networks. These networks come in a variety of forms, including direct municipal ownership, cooperatives, extensions of city-owned electrical utilities, or public private partnerships.

While there’s certainly the occasional misfire, data consistently indicates the networks they build tend to result in more broadband competition, lower prices, better customer service, and more uniform access. They also see fairly widespread, bipartisan support. Our collective disdain of shitty companies like AT&T and Comcast is one of very few subjects that can burn through all partisan barriers.

Big telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast don’t much like that. But because these networks are hugely popular, they can’t just come out and say they don’t like that. They could prevent this from being a problem by providing faster, cheaper, evenly deployed broadband, but it’s much easier and cheaper to bribe politicians into banning community broadband (see: House Republicans).

It’s also fairly inexpensive to throw money at a dodgy fake consumer interest group whose entire function is to seed lies in local communities. Charter, for example, was caught using a fake consumer group to spread distrust about community broadband in Maine. AT&T has, for years, either funded fake consumer groups or “co-opted” existing groups with malleable ethics to do the same thing.

There was a bit of a lull in this kind of activity during COVID, as undermining popular, affordable broadband access during peak plague wasn’t a great look. But big telecom has, in the last year, begun ramping back up such efforts, increasingly using, as this great Ars Technica article explores, dark money 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups who couldn’t care less about actual social welfare:

“Nonprofits registered as 501(c)(4) “social welfare organizations” are allowed to engage in some political activity. Public broadband advocates suspect that 501(c)(4) groups fighting municipal networks are funded by private ISPs. There’s evidence to support this belief: Even though 501(c)(4) groups don’t have to reveal donors, they sometimes list ISPs as “partners” or as sponsors of a conference.”

You know you have a really sound argument when you’re too afraid to make the argument as yourself (say, Verizon, AT&T, or Comcast), but instead have to create a fake consumer interest group to make your (usually false) points for you.

These campaigns were highly successful for a few years, but the annoyance many people had with substandard broadband via COVID really drove the point home that broadband monopolies are bad, and affordable broadband access should probably be viewed more like an essential utility in actual service to the public interest:

“Public broadband advocate Christopher Mitchell told Ars that when the COVID-19 pandemic made home broadband access even more important to Americans than it already was, “the cable and telephone companies lost a fair amount of their power and sway in state legislatures. Now, I kind of think they’re trying to figure out how to operate in the new environment.”

Most of the sleazy groups funded by the telecom industry have names like the “Taxpayer Protection Alliance,” and generally try to play to the inherent right wing or libertarian mistrust of government. This usually involves misrepresenting community broadband as some kind of socialist, dystopian, government takeover of the internet that always inherently results in a massive taxpayer boondoggle.

But that narrative generally falls apart once locals actually experience community broadband access, which, again, comes in a variety of forms with varying degrees of government involvement. In many areas, locals are getting symmetrical, uncapped, gigabit fiber for as little as $60 dollars a month. Owned and operated by people more directly accountable because they live down the street from you.

That’s not to say community broadband is some magical Utopian silver bullet. It requires intelligent planning, smart leaders, and savvy financing. But it’s still an organic, popular, grass roots alternative to the consolidated monopoly telecom power every American has decades of experience with. It not only delivers affordable access, it spurs local monopolies to actually try harder.

And it’s getting harder for giant telecoms to distort and twist the narrative in their favor.

Filed Under: 501(c)(4), astroturf, broadband, community broadband, competition, gigabit fiber, high speed internet, lobbying, municipal broadband, telecom

Why Isn’t Taxpayer-Funded U.S. Broadband Mapping Data Owned By The Public?

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

Mon, Feb 26th 2024 10:48am - Karl Bode

We’ve noted for decades how, despite all the political lip service paid toward “bridging the digital divide,” the U.S. doesn’t truly know where broadband is or isn’t available. The FCC’s past broadband maps, which cost $350 million to develop, have long been accused of all but hallucinating competitors, making up available speeds, and excluding a key metric of competitiveness: price.

You only need to spend a few minutes plugging your address into the FCC’s old map to notice how the agency comically overstates broadband competition and available speeds. After being mandated by Congress in 2020 by the Broadband DATA Act, the FCC struck a new, $44 million contract with a company named Costquest to develop a new map.

While an improvement, the new map still has problems with over-stating coverage and available speeds (try it for yourself). And the FCC still refuses to collect and share pricing data, which industry opposes because it would only work to further highlight monopolization, consolidation, and muted competition.

But there’s another problem. As broadband industry consultant Doug Dawson notes, the public doesn’t even own the finalized broadband mapping data. Costquest does:

“…the FCC gave CostQuest the ability to own the rights to the mapping fabric, which is the database that shows the location of every home and business in the country that is a potential broadband customer. This is a big deal because it means that CostQuest, a private company, controls the portal for data needed by the public to understand who has or doesn’t have broadband.”

In addition to the 44.9milliontheFCCpaidCostquesttocreatethemaps,Costquestreceivedanother∗∗44.9 million the FCC paid Costquest to create the maps, Costquest received another 44.9milliontheFCCpaidCostquesttocreatethemaps,Costquestreceivedanother∗∗49.9 million from the NTIA to provide the databases and maps for the $42 billion broadband subsidy and grant program (included in the 2021 infrastructure bill). Third parties (like states trying to shore up access to affordable broadband) have to pay Costquest even more money to access the data.

So it’s all been incredibly profitable for Costquest. But taxpayers are closing in on paying nearly half a billion dollars for broadband maps that not only still aren’t fully accurate, but which they can’t transparently access and don’t own despite paying for.

That’s fairly insane any way you slice it, and as Dawson notes, it’s a detriment to the cash-strapped folks who could be helping expand access to affordable broadband (and helping fact-check the data):

“Our industry is full of data geeks who could work wonders if they had free access to the mapping fabric database. There are citizen broadband committees and retired folks in every community who are willing to sift through the mapping data to understand broadband trends and to identify locations where ISPs have exaggerated coverage claims. But citizens willing to do this research are not going to pay the fees to get access to the data – and shouldn’t have to.”

For decades, feckless and corrupt state and federal regulators turned a blind eye as regional telecom monopolies dominated the market and crushed all competition underfoot, resulting in spotty access, high prices, and terrible customer service. Usually under the pretense that “deregulation” (read: very little real consumer protection oversight) had resulted in immense innovation.

Not only did government not address (or often even acknowledge) that problem, they’re still proving somewhat incapable when it comes to transparently mapping its impact.

The $42 billion in subsidies flowing to many states to shore up access is a good thing, but its impact will most assuredly be corrupted by feckless bureaucrats who can’t stand up to industry giants, aren’t keen on the idea of data transparency, and will lack the courage necessary to ensure giant monopolies with a history of fraud (like Comcast and AT&T) don’t pocket most of the funds.

Filed Under: BEAD grants, broadband, broadband mapping, competition, duopolies, fcc, gigabit fiber, high speed internet, mapping, subsidies, telecom
Companies: costquest

America Tires Of Big Telecom’s Shit, Driving Boom In Community-Owned Broadband Networks

from the I-guess-I'll-do-it-myself dept

Thu, Feb 8th 2024 01:35pm - Karl Bode

For decades, frustrated towns and cities all over the country have responded to telecom market failure by building their own fiber broadband networks. Data routinely shows that not only do these networks provide faster, better, and cheaper service, the networks are generally more accountable to the public — because they’re directly owned and staffed by locals with a vested interest in the community.

Despite relentless industry lobbyist efforts to paint these networks as some kind of socialist boondoggle hellscape, such community ISPs continue to see massive, bipartisan popularity. Case in point: The Institute For Local Self Reliance, which tracks community networks, says they saw a dramatic uptick in such networks after COVID lockdowns highlighted the importance of affordable access.

According to a database of such networks tracked by the organization (disclosure: I’ve worked with the nonprofit researching municipal broadband projects), there are now 450 municipal broadband networks in the U.S. Since January 1, 2021, at least 47 new networks have come online, with dozens in the planning or pre-construction phases. And this may be an undercount given the FCC’s failure to track them all.

There are now more than 400 communities all over the country served by such networks, which can take a variety of forms, whether it’s a local cooperative, a city-owned broadband utility, an extension of the existing city-owned electrical utility, or a direct municipal build. Closer to a thousand if you include local public-private partnerships.

In rural North Dakota, local cooperatives have driven the kind of affordable fiber access many city residents in more populous states still haven’t seen. In Vermont, numerous municipalities have fused to create Communications Utility Districts to deploy affordable fiber to long neglected rural markets. In Tennessee, the city-owned utility in Chattanooga has created one of the most popular ISPs in the nation providing speeds upwards of 25 gigabits per second to local residents.

They all represent local, grass roots’ responses to local market failure caused by often-mindless consolidation, stifled competition, and feckless federal policymakers unwilling to address (or often even acknowledge) the problem of unchecked monopoly power. ILSR’s Chris Mitchell put it this way:

“The monopoly cable and telephone companies frequently claim that there are no problems with broadband in the U.S., even as millions of students cannot access the Internet from their homes, whether in rural or urban areas. These cities remind us of the work that has to be done to make sure everyone can take advantage of modern technologies.”

During peak pandemic lockdowns, a viral photo made the rounds featuring poor kids forced to huddle in the dirt outside of Taco Bell, just to attend class. As somebody who has covered U.S. broadband policy for decades, I watched as that photo did more to move the needle on U.S. telecom policy and broadband affordability than any activism campaign or press release crafted in the last quarter century.

Many of these municipalities have been greatly buoyed by billions in both COVID relief money (The American Rescue Plan Act) and infrastructure funding (The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). As a result, countless communities are now deploying cutting edge, affordable, gigabit-capable fiber networks for the first time to customers long trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.

It’s a movement that could have been pre-empted at any time by the likes of Comcast and AT&T if they’d been willing to expand service, improve speeds, and compete on price. Instead, such companies quickly got to work trying to pass anti-democratic state laws banning such networks, spreading disinformation via fake consumer groups, or flinging lawsuits at towns and cities across America.

Even during the peak of the pandemic, when such networks were busy showcasing their benefit to affordable access for telecommuting and home education, the telecom lobby convinced House Republicans to try and ban such networks nationwide. It didn’t work, again, because nearly everybody in America dislikes Comcast, and these locally owned alternatives have significant, bipartisan support.

Our collective disdain for the local cable and broadband monopoly is one of the few things that bridges America’s ugly (and intentionally well cultivated) partisan divide. And this kind of local activism is going to be increasingly important as corporate efforts at the Supreme Court to unravel what’s left of federal corporate oversight gain steam in the months and years to come.

None of this is to say community broadband is a magic panacea. Such efforts require competent leadership, a good plan, plenty of money, and public support. But it is a very cool example — 100 years after a similar backlash played out with rural electrification — of locals banding together to combat regional monopolies (and the corruption that protects them) to dramatically improve their quality of life.

Filed Under: broadband, community broadband, digital divide, gigabit fiber, high speed internet, monopoly, telecom
Companies: institute for local self reliance

Oregon Winds Up Giving Comcast A Huge Tax Break For Doing Nothing Differently

from the great-work-everybody dept

Tue, Mar 6th 2018 06:18am - Karl Bode

A well-intentioned effort in Oregon to drive more competition to the broadband market has instead netted Comcast a $15 million annual tax break for effectively doing nothing differently.

Back in 2014 the Oregon State Supreme Court issued a hugely-controversial ruling that allowed companies to be taxed based on “intangible” assets such as the value of their brands. Lobbied by Google, the state in 2015 signed a new law rolling back those assessments to try and incentivize competitors looking to deploy faster broadband networks. But in 2015, Google was quick to point out that the sloppily-worded bill actually exempted it from gleaning any tax breaks for deploying gigabit broadband:

“SB611 offers an exemption from the state’s tax methodology to companies with the capacity to offer Internet service of “at least one gigabit.” Google Fiber offers speeds “up to a gigabit” per second – that’s 1,000 megabits per second, 25 times faster than the current broadband standard. So the law, as written, would make Google Fiber ineligible for the tax exemption.”

In other words, a well-intentioned bill intended to incentivize deployment of next-generation broadband actually exempted the one company actually promising to do so.

Oddly, this was only the start of the problem. Google Fiber had spent several years promising Portland locals that gigabit fiber would be deployed to the city. This promise was at the heart of the entire state-level legislative tax adjustments in the first place. But by late 2016, Google Fiber had indicated that it was getting bored by the whole broadband disruption thing, and had decided to put its fiber expansion plans on hold. Needless to say Portland, one of several cities that had been strung along as potential launch markets, wasn’t impressed.

But wait: it gets better. Comcast, which had already been planning to deploy gigabit broadband service via relatively inexpensive DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades, was quick to take full advantage of a law intended to bring more competition to bear on the incumbent giant. Its lawyers quickly got to work successfully arguing that its modest and already-planned cable-based upgrades qualified it for 15millioninannualtaxbreaks.ButbecauseComcast’sgigabitservicecosts15 million in annual tax breaks. But because Comcast’s gigabit service costs 15millioninannualtaxbreaks.ButbecauseComcast’sgigabitservicecosts300 per month and came with a $1000 installation fee (plus usage caps), lawmakers were quick to argue that this massive Comcast gift wasn’t what they had intended:

“Comcast argues it qualifies, too, by virtue of its obscure new service. Oregon cities are crying foul, but the staff of the Oregon Public Utility Commission says Comcast meets the letter of the broadly written law – even if hardly anyone signs up for a service critics say would cost subscribers $4,600 in the first year alone.”

Since Comcast technically adhered to the letter of the law (even if the service it was deploying was already planned and priced uncompetitively), it was able to begin enjoying the huge tax break. So was Frontier Communications, a company under fire in other states for being almost as large of an anti-competitive shitshow as Comcast. And while Oregon lawmakers tried to reboot the whole mess and repeal the law last week, procedural missteps and Comcast’s lobbying influence over state leaders made sure that wasn’t successful:

“Count Comcast among the big winners in this year’s legislative session in Salem.

Efforts to repeal a tax break worth millions of dollars a year to big internet companies faltered at the last minute Thursday during the Oregon Legislature’s short session.

“I’m really disappointed we weren’t able to get that one over the finish line,” said Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, who chairs the rules committee where House Bill 4027 died. She said the measure didn’t clear the House early enough to avoid a potential Republican slowdown, and with the Legislature set to adjourn Saturday or Sunday she said the clock ran out on the bill.

Just so we’re clear: a well-intentioned bill designed to improve competition in the state simply wound up giving Comcast $15 million annually in taxpayer funds for doing nothing differently. Funds that could have otherwise gone to local schools and other essential services. All, ironically, while Comcast faced heat in numerous communities for all manner of billing hijinks and anti-competitive behavior across the state. And this was a state where lawmakers really were trying to do the right thing. In countless other states, where those good intentions don’t exist (like West Virginia), things are often even more ridiculous.

This state level corruption, dysfunction and absurdism, as they say, really is why we can’t have nice things.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, gigabit fiber, oregon, tax breaks
Companies: comcast, google

Despite Gigabit Hype, Comcast Is Facing Less Broadband Competition Than Ever

from the ma-bell,-ill-communication dept

Tue, Mar 21st 2017 06:29am - Karl Bode

Despite the rise of heavily-hyped-but-highly-scattered gigabit deployments, the broadband industry is actually seeing less competition than ever before across huge swaths of the country. Once upon a time, broadband “competition” consisted of an equally matched telco going head to head with the incumbent cable provider (if you were lucky). These days, most phone companies lack the finances or competitive motivation to improve lagging DSL speeds across their footprints — speeds that don’t even meet the FCC’s base definition of broadband (25 mbps).

That’s resulting in a growing monopoly for the nation’s cable broadband providers, who have quietly been absolutely butchering phone companies over the last several years. Just take a look at the latest data from Leichtman Research, which notes that while cable broadband providers collectively added 2.7 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers last year, phone companies collectively shed roughly 600,000 broadband users.

That’s the most net additions the cable sector has seen in any year since 2007. And the 122% 2016 net additions are a notable bump up from the 106% of net additions seen by cable providers in 2015, and 89% of net additions seen in 2014. It paints a rather clear picture of a broadband industry that, frankly, is even less competitive than public wisdom dictates (and most of us already knew it’s one of the least competitive sectors in technology):

In countless markets, phone companies like AT&T and Verizon are simply giving up on unwanted DSL users, quite happily driving them to cable via the one-two punch of price hikes or apathy (their focus now is more expensive wireless, and gobbling up various media companies). Elsewhere, smaller telcos (Windstream, Centurylink, Frontier) have saddled themselves with so much debt by gobbling up AT&T and Verizon’s aging copper customers, they’re incapable (or unwilling) to invest in necessary broadband upgrades en masse.

Many of these companies quite simply don’t even want to be in the residential broadband business, resulting in a palpable, active disdain by many of these phone companies for their own paying customers. The residential broadband industry simply isn’t profitable enough, quickly enough for modern investors, so most of these companies have shifted their entire focus elsewhere. For smaller telcos like Windstream, it’s gobbling up companies like Earthlink to expand a focus on enterprise customers. For AT&T and Verizon, it’s gobbling up media empires in the quest to be millennial ad juggernauts.

All of this is wonderful news for companies like Charter and Comcast. This reduction in overall competition is eroding the resistance to the rise of completely unnecessary and arbitrary usage caps, meaning broadband (and competing streaming) services are getting more expensive than ever before. And remember, most of these companies have written and successfully lobbied for state bills preventing your town or city from doing much about it. As icing on the cable cake, new Ajit Pai-run FCC has made it clear that nibbling these companies’ earlobes is going to pass for regulatory policy for the foreseeable future.

All of this tends to get overshadowed each time an ISP proudly announces the expansion of expensive gigabit broadband lines in highly-selective areas. But for the countless markets in the States, phone companies have effectively given up — resigning consumers to at least a decade of higher prices and the cable industry’s particular knack for atrocious customer service.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, gigabit fiber, monopoly
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon

Vox Seems Kind Of Upset That We're Building Gigabit Networks With Bandwidth To Spare

from the you're-not-helping dept

Thu, Oct 20th 2016 08:23am - Karl Bode

If you want to see why broadband in the United States still stinks, your first stop should be to examine the state level protectionist laws used to stifle competition across countless markets. But despite the lobbyist stranglehold over state legislatures, we’re still seeing some impressive progress when it comes to the deployment of gigabit fiber networks. Google Fiber continues to slowly but surely expand its footprint, and we’re seeing the rise of numerous other piecemeal gigabit solutions, whether coming from the likes of Tucows or municipal broadband deployments in cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee.

To be clear, the “gigabit revolution” is certainly a bit overhyped. The vast majority still can’t get this caliber of service, and the obsession with the mighty gigabit does tend to obscure a potentially more important conversation about broadband prices and the often glaring lack of real competitive options. But by and large most people can agree that gigabit fiber builds are a good thing in an era when most users can still only obtain DSL at circa 2002 speeds and prices, and two-thirds of homes lack access to speeds greater than 25 Mbps from more than one provider (aka a broken monopoly).

Well, unless you’re Vox, which published a kind of strange article this week lamenting how “cities spent millions on fast gigabit networks” and “nobody is sure what they’re good for.” The central narrative of the article is apparently that gigabit fiber networks aren’t any good because nobody has developed the “killer app” that can effectively use all that bandwidth at once:

But six years after the first super-fast connections went live, even proponents concede no ?killer? gigabit application has emerged. Most of their potential, critics say, is simply ignored by users. And building gigabit networks nationwide would be a colossally expensive undertaking.

Vox appears to have missed the fact that gigabit broadband competition itself is the killer app. Google Fiber may only have a small footprint, but in markets where it’s deployed, incumbent ISPs have been forced not only to dramatically improve their own networks, but also to offer these services at a significantly lower price point (usually around $70) without the usage caps that have been popping up in less competitive markets. Gigabit municipal broadband deployments often have the same impact, as we’ve seen in locations like Wilson, North Carolina, and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

It’s true that most consumers don’t take gigabit speeds when offered; usually because 25 to 50 Mbps remains the sweet spot and can often be had for significantly less. But ISPs consistently note that even advertising gigabit speeds causes consumers — most of whom actually have no damn idea what speed they subscribe to — to call in and see if it’s time for an upgrade, driving overall adoption. Another study has found that prices of all service tiers tend to drop when gigabit connectivity is introduced into a market.

Yes, gigabit speeds aren’t really necessary for most people, but that’s missing the point. Especially when you’re trying to build the networks and competitive landscape of tomorrow.

As such, Vox’s claim that “nobody is sure” what gigabit networks are actually good for seems a bit short-sighted. Worse, perhaps, the article’s core narrative is only fueled largely by a single analyst at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation — the same think tank that first proposed SOPA. Said think tanker manages to contradict himself in pretty short order, lamenting the lack of the “killer app,” then immediately admitting gigabit network deployment could help the development of said apps in the future:

Of course, there?s another possibility: Maybe people just don?t have any use for so much bandwidth. That?s the view of Doug Brake, of Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a think tank funded by foundation and government grants as well as donations from firms such as Google and IBM. “There are no apps today and no apps on the horizon,? he said, though he acknowledged that development of new applications would probably proceed more quickly with far broader gigabit coverage.

Vox notes that the ITIF takes money from “Google and IBM,” but forgets to inform the reader they also take money from the same incumbent broadband ISPs threatened by the rise in gigabit competition. The ITIF is the same organization that recently tried to argue that Comcast’s plan to charge users more money to protect their own privacy was “pro consumer,” and that the failed Comcast merger would have been fantastic for consumers. As such, perhaps the ITIF is not the best cornerstone for your argument that gigabit networks are useless.

Meanwhile, this narrative that gigabit networks aren’t important because we’re not yet using their full potential runs deeply through the entire piece, the author trying to use Netflix as an example of why, apparently, we shouldn’t aim high when building new broadband infrastructure:

Right now, one of the most bandwidth-hungry applications out there is Netflix. Netflix recommends users have at least 3 Mbps of bandwidth for standard-definition video ? meaning that you could stream about 300 Netflix videos simultaneously on a 1 gigabit connection. If you want Netflix?s highest-quality streaming, called Ultra HD, that requires 25 Mbps. So a gigabit connection would allow you to stream 40 Ultra HD videos at a time.

But again, who builds technology for the future constrained solely by the needs of today? Are gigabit networks over-hyped? Yes. The fascination with extreme speeds tends to help some ISPs obfuscate the reality that the lion’s share of their tiers are expensive (or capped). But Vox seems to have been sold on the idea that we don’t really need these additional gigabit networks because the incremental improvements being deployed by cable and phone companies are “good enough.”

But most of us realize that’s not true: while cable companies are busy using relatively inexpensive DOCSIS 3.1 cable upgrades to deliver gigabit speeds Vox implies nobody wants, most phone companies are hanging up on unwanted DSL customers to focus on capped and metered wireless broadband that isn’t truly a replacement for fixed-line service. The end result is going to be a stronger cable monopoly (and in many areas less competition) than ever before, and a market that might offer gigabit speeds eventually, but at exorbitant prices and with utterly unnecessary usage caps.

No, you don’t need gigabit speeds today. But gigabit networks from the likes of Google Fiber and municipal broadband providers are delivering the kind of competition folks at incumbent ISPs (and by loyal proxy think tanks like the ITIF) are pretty clearly terrified of. And by helping them keep the bar set at ankle height, Vox is only perpetuating the kind of thinking that saddled us with the current broadband duopoly that so many of us “enjoy” in the first place.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, gigabit fiber