connect america fund

Dozens of ISPs qualify to bid on FCC broadband subsidies, hundreds more in line

18 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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Almost three hundred companies could be bidding for broadband service subsidies when the Federal Communications Commission begins auctioning off unserved rural territory across the United States. The FCC received 277 applications from companies that want to participate in the Connect America Fund program’s reverse auction, which is scheduled for late July.

Only 47 are good to go, though. The other 230 companies – including Frontier Communications – didn’t fully complete their applications, in the eyes of the FCC.… More

Federal broadband subsidy auction doesn't favor California

2 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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California could, in theory, get as much as $476 million in broadband upgrade subsidies from the Federal Communications Commission’s upcoming Connect America Fund (CAF) auction, but the actual total is likely to be a lot less.

Eligible broadband service providers will bid against a “reserve price” that the FCC sets as the maximum it will pay to fund broadband service at a minimum of 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds in (mostly) rural areas that lack it.… More

FCC prepares to auction off $2 billion in broadband subsidies

28 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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There’s $2 billion worth of broadband subsidies on the table at the Federal Communications Commission, and providers that are interested in competing for it have until Friday to register.

The FCC published a list of areas, primarily rural, that were left out of previous rounds of federal Connect America Fund (CAF) subsidies, mostly because it cost too much to build infrastructure there or because incumbent telephone companies didn’t accept the FCC’s offer in the last round.… More

Trump outsources rural economic development to wireless broadband companies

9 January 2018 by Steve Blum
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U.S. president Donald Trump put privately funded wireless broadband at the top of his rural economic development agenda yesterday. In a speech to the American Farm Bureau Federation, Trump embraced recommendations made by a government task force he created to define rural economic development policy. The task force report labeled rural connectivity “essential” and “fundamental for economic development”, and leaned heavily on wireless solutions.

“The task force heard from farmers that broadband internet access is an issue of vital concern to their communities and businesses“, Trump said.… More

Frontier exceeds federal expectations but understates Californian obligations

Frontier Communications put out a puzzling press release yesterday. What should have been a celebration of good news, was instead a mish-mash of misdirection and lawyerly evasions that raised more questions than it answered.

The good news is that Frontier has upgraded broadband availability for 39,000 of the 90,000 rural Californian homes it promised the Federal Communications Commission it would serve with a minimum of 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, in exchange for $228 million in subsidies.… More

Frontier punts on California broadband subsidy obligation

Frontier is bragging about how well it’s doing with the broadband infrastructure and service upgrades it promised to do, in exchange for $2 billion in federal subsidies. But not in California.

When it accepted the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund (CAF) money in 2015, Frontier agreed to deliver a minimal level of service – 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds – to 58,000 homes and businesses in California in exchange for a total of $228 million, paid out over six years in $38 million increments.… More

California makes AT&T's list for limited and costly rural broadband

29 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Taxes not included. Except in my bonus check.

AT&T says it’s official: they are launching slow, expensive wireless Internet service in rural California, and other undefined “underserved” areas, instead of upgrading ageing copper networks to modern levels. The technology is designed to support 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, although there are no guarantees.

The California Public Utilities Commission, on the other hand, decided to go in the opposition direction and unanimously endorsed the higher standard of 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up yesterday.… More

AT&T uses federal subsidies to offer expensive, slow broadband

12 July 2017 by Steve Blum
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Never give a sucker an even break.

AT&T’s federally subsidised wireless Internet service is costly, compared to what wireline customers pay. The fixed wireless service has supposedly been offered in Georgia for a couple of months, and AT&T announced it was expanding it to rural customers in eight more states immediately, with nine others, including California, slated to get it by the end of the year. It’s difficult to tell whether or where AT&T is actually delivering it, though.… More

The worse your broadband, the harder price hikes hit, FCC data says

16 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Broadband service is getting more expensive, particularly if you’re on the slow side of the digital divide. The Federal Communications Commission just published its 2017 urban benchmark rate survey, which it uses to set prices and data caps for subsidised rural service – via the Connect America Fund, for example – as well as standards for lifeline service.

In 2016 (which is the benchmark year for 2017 rates), urban customers subscribing to packages with download speeds of 10 Mbps, upload speeds of 1 Mbps per second and a data cap of 100 gigabytes per month – in other words, the slowest and lowest service – paid $76.49 per month.… More

Unexpected U-turn as FCC lets New York manage broadband subsidy money

30 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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By Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York (IMG_4305_4) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The new federalism.

Who would have thought that the Federal Communications Commission’s first significant decision of the Trump era would be to take money originally designated for its no-incumbent-left-behind broadband subsidy program – Connect America Fund 2 (CAF-2) – and use it to top up reasonably competitive state grants, with the state calling the shots?

But that’s exactly what happened.

In 2015, Verizon turned down the CAF-2 money on offer in its wireline territory, except for the systems that it was selling to Frontier Communications, which did want it.… More