Tuesday, May 07, 2019

Rural Broadband News Links



It’s Microsoft vs. Comcast in infrastructure push to expand rural broadband - but a big mapping problem. Microsoft is still pushing its White Spaces Plan at the FCC.

On the map: Microsoft has its own map that it uses for Airband Project.

There are many parties involved in broadband mapping including the FCC, the NTIA (part of the Dept of Commerce) and the USDA. There are many lobbying bodies sticking their nose in, most notably NTCA. The others include Connected Nation, WIA – The Wireless Infrastructure Association, ITTA – The Voice of America’s Broadband Providers and CCIA.

It looks like only about 2% of the households are without broadband. [FYI, In 2018, there were about 127.59 million households in the United States.] "The last two percent of U.S. housing locations, as shown by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission National Broadband Plan and Broadband Availability Gap analysis, are the areas where the geographically-produced digital divide is most acute," as reported by Gary Kim. BUt then it depends which map/data is used, right?


The FCC has yet another program to give USF moneys to rate-of-return carriers:

"The FCC said today that it has made new offers of broadband support to 516 rural carriers. The new FCC broadband support offers target more than one million homes and businesses and are based on the ACAM (alternative Connect America) cost model. The offers went to rate-of-return carriers that previously rejected or weren’t eligible for ACAM broadband support. ... If a carrier accepts a new offer, it will receive funding over a period of 10 years and will be required to meet specific build-out milestones over that time." [telecomp]



Fun Fact:
Charter: Broadband-Only Users Average 400 GB of Monthly Data Usage
Comcast said median usage is around 200 gigabytes

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