More Questions Than Answers as FCC Tackles Rural Broadband Buildout Challenges

The agency released a list Wednesday of the 997 expressions of interest it had received by Tuesday night (http://fcc.us/1ihyczU). The IP transition order approved 5-0 in January contemplated a budget of $50 million-$100 million total for the experiments; expressions of interest have totaled several billion dollars. Jonathan Chambers, chief of the FCC Office of Strategic Planning, asked panelists how best to get community input on how universal service money should be spent. Chambers said he has read “several dozen” of the filings and has been “struck” by the “real diversity of expressions, a real diversity of communities, carriers, others who want to try to build out broadband in rural areas.” Evaluating how to spend its limited USF budget is “an important question, it’s a tough question for us,” he said. The criteria and budgets for the projects will be set by the commissioners in an order later this year, said Patrick Halley, Wireline Bureau associate chief.

The agency and industry must have “rising expectations for what connectivity means, because broadband is not the end,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said to kick off the workshop. “It’s what broadband enables that is the end. And we have to keep our eye on that prize.” The FCC has two tools at its disposal, Wheeler said: The ability to make policy, and the ability to dole out money. The proposed experiments “will challenge our thinking as to the kinds of solutions,” he said.

Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said that “contrary to some,” he sees broadband deployment throughout the country “as a tremendous success story.” O'Rielly said he has been “encouraged” by progress being made deploying broadband. “Providers are investing significant capital to expand service areas, coverage and speed throughout their territories,” and the Connect America Fund has begun providing support in areas where it’s needed, he said. He acknowledged there’s more work to do in underserved areas of rural America.

O'Rielly said he’s interested in the lessons ISPs and telcos have learned in deploying broadband, and “how those lessons can impact further universal service reforms.” He also wants to “understand whether certain commission rules need to be streamlined or eliminated because they're impeding rather than promoting broadband deployment,” he said.

O'Rielly and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn agreed on at least one concept: Rural areas will need to be tackled in a unique way. Too often, “well-intended policies” attempt to “fit an urban peg into a rural hole,” Clyburn said: That “rarely works.” O'Rielly agreed: “One size does not fit all.”

State Examples

California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine Sandoval said the CPUC considers an underserved area as one below 6 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload, “considerably higher” than the 3 Mbps downstream and 768 kbps upstream threshold the FCC used to assess Internet access (http://tinyurl.com/p67b9ld) in 2011. The FCC should consider raising its standards as well, she said, because its definitions “don’t actually support the [educational and health care] applications it’s our goal to support.” David Salway, director of the New York State Broadband Program Office, said that state also uses the 6/1.5 Mbps threshold.

In creating the maps that drive some decisions including funding, the CPUC also looks at what on-the-ground tests show are the actual speed in areas, instead of what providers report to be the speeds, Sandoval said. She displayed maps showing large disparities between what AT&T and Verizon report versus what tests show. CPUC considers the time in uploading or downloading in determining whether broadband is adequate, particularly in areas with schools, she said. “The delay in uploading or downloading creates a cognitive dissonance” in students during interactive testing, she said. “Whether it’s because of [attention deficit disorder] or you just get distracted, poor broadband means you're testing the level of broadband and not the students’ brains."

Illinois has instituted a “dig once” policy, in which conduit or fiber is laid whenever there’s a state-funded road project, said Lori Sorenson, chief operating officer at the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, Bureau of Communications and Computer Services. State agencies work with providers if they need help, whether it be getting permits processed more quickly or working to sign up hospitals, schools and other anchor providers before proceeding with creating infrastructure.

Illinois in 2009 for the first time included broadband in the state’s capital budget, allocating $76 million, Sorenson said. It also created in 2012 a $54 million Illinois Gigabit Communities Challenge program for projects that would bring gigabit speed to households.

"We go where people don’t want to go,” said Alex Phillips, CEO of HighSpeedLink.net. The wireless ISP has faced obstacles, he said. One such obstacle has been getting loans -- in 2000, he said his banker “didn’t understand anything I was telling him.” Another challenge is knowing where demand is, for which the National Broadband Map has been very useful, Phillips said. “Unfair government subsidies” allowing telcos to “use government funding, actually, to compete with us” has been another challenge for the WISP, he said.

At one point, an audience member asked with some incredulity what had happened to the billions of dollars made available for the Connect America Fund. Does the fact that broadband isn’t yet available everywhere mean the program doesn’t work? he asked. Where did the money go? Deploying a sustainable, good network is an “incredibly expensive proposition,” responded Denny Law, CEO of Golden West Telecom. “If you want to see where it went, come to South Dakota. We'll show ya.”