We’re doing better than Bangladesh, so give us money, telcos tell U.S. senate

India utility pole

Telephone companies don’t appear to having the same success cable companies have had with broadband promotions during the covid–19 emergency. The head of telco’s primary Washington, D.C. lobbying front organisation asked a U.S. senate committee on Wednesday to “keep providers on sound financial footing” and urged the use of existing, incumbent-friendly federal programs to distribute subsidies directly to them.

California’s two major telephone companies – AT&T and Frontier Communications – aren’t offering service at the 25 Mbps at $15 or less per month covid–19 benchmark set by California Public Utilities Commission president Marybel Batjer. AT&T has a 10 Mbps or less for $10 offer for low income customers, while bankrupt Frontier tops out at 12 Mbps for $20 for legacy copper customers.

As lobbyists do, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter told of the hardships his clients face and lavished accolades upon them for persevering nonetheless. That list includes AT&T and Frontier, as well as Verizon, Centurylink and lots of small telephone companies. But not major cable companies. When Spalter spoke about their performance during the emergency, though, it was more like damning with faint praise…

Even as traffic has at times soared more than 25 percent higher than pre-crisis levels, the performance of our networks remains seamless for our nation’s citizens. Indeed, according to one recent study, “[o]f the top 10 countries in the world by population, the U.S. is the only [country] that recorded no download speed degradation on average in the month of April.”

So who are AT&T, Frontier and friends beating? China, for one, which is the world’s most populous country. Not far behind is India – both countries have more than a billion residents. It’s a long drop to third place, which belongs to the U.S. with 333 million people. The remaining seven are in the 100 million/200 million range: Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico.

Yes. Our broadband networks are holding up better than their’s.