While the bipartisan infrastructure bill isn’t law (or even finished) at this point, we do have some reports on its content. Light Reading offered their take, for example. I downloaded and reviewed the bill, so let’s take a look at it, what it seems to get right, and what it may have missed.
The goal of the broadband piece of the bill should be familiar; it’s all about closing the often-cited “digital divide” that dooms consumers in many rural areas to broadband Internet service capacities far below the national average. However, all legislation is politics in action, and lobbying in action too. What emerged from all the lobbying and politicking was two distinct positions on what broadband should be. One group favored what could be called a “future-proof” vision, where the goal was to provide capacity that’s actually more than most US households have, or even want. Another group favored a broadband model that was aligned with the technology options and practices of the current market.
Fiber proponents, of course, wanted to see gigabit symmetrical broadband, something that can be delivered over fiber but is problematic with nearly every other technology option. What this approach would have done is to expand the digital divide into suburbs and metro areas, rather than closing it, because cable broadband wouldn’t fit the model. In addition, it would likely disqualify fixed and mobile wireless technology, which is the easiest of all our new options to deploy.
The operators themselves were generally in favor of a more relaxed 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload, which some public advocacy groups feared would make two-way video for remote learning (something we needed and still need) and work less useful. Operators were also leery of mandated low-cost options and terms that could force them not to cherry-pick high-value areas where their revenue could be expected to be better.
The notion of universal fiber is simply not realistic, because fiber costs in areas with low demand density would be so high that only massive subsidies could induce anyone to provide the service. Thus, it’s a win for the practical political and technical realities that the standards were set at 100/20 Mbps, though I think that 100/35 would have been almost as achievable and would offer better future-proofing for remote work and education.
What’s a bit disappointing here is that there’s no specificity with regard to how the broadband speed is measured. As I’ve pointed out, simply measuring the speed the interface is clocked at doesn’t reflect the actual performance of the connection. A company could feed a node or shared cable with (for example) 10 Mbps of capacity, clock the interface at 100/20 Mbps, and appear to comply.
This would seem to admit mesh WiFi, a technology that was used over a decade ago and that almost universally failed to meet its objectives. The problem is that WiFi range is short, and mesh technology loads the WiFi cells closest to the actual Internet backhaul, so performance is very unlikely to meet remote work or school objectives, yet it could meet the simple interface-speed test.
There is a provision in the bill that states “The term ‘‘reliable broadband service’’ means broadband service that meets performance criteria for service availability, adaptability to changing end-user requirements, length of serviceable life, or other criteria, other than upload and download speeds, as determined by the Assistant Secretary in coordination with the Commission.” Here, the “Commission” is the FCC and the Assistant Secretary is the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information. It would seem that details of service criteria could be provided later on, which could address the interface-versus-real-speed issues.
Mandated low-cost options are required, but it’s not completely clear how they’d work. The big question is whether the same service would have to be offered (100/20 Mbps) at a lower price point. If that’s the case, then the mandate could result in some major operators (telcos and cablecos) selling off areas where the cost mandates would likely apply, which could mean lower overall economies of infrastructure in those areas and a need for more subsidies. Hopefully some clarity will emerge in the rest of the bill’s process.
The “digital redlining” issue is similar in impact. Network operators typically try to manage “first cost”, meaning the cost of deploying infrastructure when revenues are unlikely to build quickly enough to cover it. That would favor using higher-revenue-potential areas to pull through some of the deeper infrastructure needed, infrastructure that lower-revenue areas could then leverage. One thing I think could be hurt by some interpretations of digital redlining is millimeter-wave 5G. You have to be able to feed the nodes where mm-wave originates through fiber, and early and effective node deployments could naturally favor areas where the “revenue per node” is the highest. Those early nodes could then be the source of fiber fan-outs to other nodes, offering service to other areas whose return on investment couldn’t otherwise justify connection.
The bill seems to ignore another issue regarding neighborhoods, one that I’ve seen crop up again and again. In many states, builders of residential subdivisions, condos, and apartments can cut exclusive deals with an ISP. The ISP “pre-wires” the facility for their broadband in return for the exclusivity. That means that there’s no competition for broadband Internet in these complexes, and little incentive for the dominant ISP to improve services. Since ISPs seek these deals where they believe consumer spending on broadband is high, the same practice may result in having no deals offered in lower-income complexes, which would mean that the neighborhood would have to be wired to offer service. That can create an effective red-lining.
All of this is to be based on a significant data gathering and mapping of unserved (less than 25/3 Mbps) and underserved (less than 100/20 Mbps) broadband service areas. That process is likely to take time, and like all legislation the effect will depend on whether a change in administration results in a change in policy. Time may be important for another reason; there are funds for incentives and subsidies included in the bill, but the majority would help initial deployments but not cover costs down the line. The subsidies provided per user aren’t funded in the long term, so there is no assurance that either incentives or subsidies will have a major impact beyond the next election.
As I said at the start of this blog, legislation is politics, and both the overall infrastructure bill and the broadband portion are examples of politics in action. Since the Telecom Act was passed about 25 years ago, I’ve recognized that Congress isn’t interested in getting the right answer, but rather the politically optimum answer. It’s easy to fob off details to the executive branch, particularly to a Federal Commission like the FCC, but the Telecom Act was mired in shifts in party in power, legal fights, and changes in interpretation. The biggest problem with the broadband terms in the infrastructure bill is that they follow the path that’s failed in the past, and that I think is likely to fail again.