In the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Congress laid out a bold plan to bring broadband to every remaining unserved corner of the nation. That plan authorizes distribution of grants totaling $42 billion in Broadband Equity and Deployment (BEAD) money to benefit each state and territory. The process for distributing those funds has already begun, and the first transfers are expected early next year.

The BEAD investments are vital to close geographic gaps in broadband coverage. But the job of connecting communities to broadband does not end with laying cables and installing hardware. Success requires a long-term commitment to the technological, economic, social, and civic vitality of each community.

Congress has made capital funds available only for building these broadband networks. Operating and maintaining them — and keeping them secure and innovative — will require continuous investment. As Brookings recently explained, “If a government decides to greenlight a project by only looking at the upfront sticker price, it’s a recipe for deteriorating infrastructure.”

In most communities, particularly those that have lacked broadband until now, success is best assured by building public-private partnerships with established and experienced ISPs. Community leaders should carefully consider which partners have a real track record that can be relied upon to make broadband successful beyond the build – long after the federal grant dollars have been spent.

Six key ISP capabilities that communities should prioritize in potential BEAD partners

1. Superior Scale. Selecting a partner with vast resources and networking experience facilitates more rapid and extensive rollout of broadband infrastructure, and also brings assurances of quality network management in the future. Whether it is conducting routine maintenance and upgrades or coping with critical natural disaster recovery or supply chain shocks, an ISP with superior scale is best equipped to meet the ongoing demands of operating critical infrastructure and to keep costs down.
2. Financial Stability. Companies with strong balance sheets have superior access to capital, are better able to manage rising interest rates and to withstand uncertain economic conditions, and have the resources to operate networks for decades. When companies with flimsy balance sheets take federal broadband subsidies but prove unable to follow through on their commitments, it wastes the public’s money and leads to costly delays in serving communities. Prime examples can be found in any of the many recipients of the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) grants who have defaulted even before beginning construction, affecting one-third of RDOF census blocks.
3. Continuous Innovation. Partners who are at the forefront of technological advancements can keep pace with the changing digital landscape, innovating continuously to meet consumer demand. Internet traffic is growing incredibly fast – up over 20% in the last year alone. Broadband speeds are up over 3x since 2017. Leading innovators like Comcast always keep their networks and services ahead of the curve and bring those capabilities to their public sector partnerships.
4. Seamless Security. In 2022, cyberattacks against tech and telecom companies more than doubled. Investment in cybersecurity is essential to protect American businesses and consumers, and it already carries a price tag of over $200 billion a year worldwide. While no ISP is immune to cyberattacks, companies may underinvest in network security, creating serious risks. We have one of the deepest cybersecurity teams in the world, with hundreds of employees dedicated to minimizing cybersecurity harms. Small, inexperienced ISPs cannot match this.
5. The Skills to Promote Broadband Adoption. A local community can have good broadband infrastructure, but if its citizens are not taking the service that’s not success. A company with a proven track record in driving higher adoption rates can ensure that many more households reap the benefits of broadband. We have been the industry leader in meeting the adoption challenge for over a decade, with our first-of-its-kind Internet Essentials program as well as our successful participation in the bipartisan-supported Affordable Connectivity Program, which has helped millions of low-income households connect to the Internet.
6. Track Record for Serving Communities. Efforts by local governments to go at it alone in building broadband, or choosing inexperienced partners, are riddled with failure. Whether it’s participants in BTOP, RDOF or state subsidy programs, we have seen scores of ISPs over-promise and under-deliver. At Comcast, we have an unmatched track record: We meet our commitments, and we bring service to all neighborhoods in our footprint.

The broadband future depends on effective collaboration

Community leaders who understand the complexity and risk associated with building and maintaining a broadband network will value a partner that can help them deploy digital infrastructure that is not just built to last, but built to lead.

Comcast brings to local communities its deep-rooted commitment to high-quality technology, widespread adoption, and services that are stable, secure, and innovative.

We are ready and able to work with communities to maximize the value of their broadband investment to every household. With Comcast, communities can be sure they will have a steady and reliable partner who will ensure their success beyond the build for decades to come.

David Don is Senior Vice President of Public Policy at Comcast. This piece is was posted on Comcast’s blog on September 28, 2023, and is reprinted with permission.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

The Federal Communications Commission, under the behest of Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, may now go after the practice of usage-based billing, a common method by which internet-service providers charge consumers different rates based on how much data they use.

A push by the FCC to eliminate the practice could result in price increases for many broadband users.

Rosenworcel announced a proposal in June to investigate how internet data caps affect consumers, especially the impacts on those with disabilities and lower incomes. Many broadband providers offer tiered pricing based on data usage, limiting how much a customer can use before paying more for their service or facing slowdown in their speeds.

“Internet access is no longer nice-to-have, but need-to-have for everyone, everywhere. As we emerge from the pandemic, there are many lessons to learn about what worked and what didn’t work, especially around what it takes to keep us all connected,” Rosenworcel said. “When we need access to the internet, we aren’t thinking about how much data it takes to complete a task, we just know it needs to get done. It’s time the FCC take a fresh look at how data caps impact consumers and competition.”

But usage-based billing ensures that those who use the most data pay the most money, helping keep costs lower for those who use less data. It is a common practice across many industries. For example, if you operate a business, your accountant would bill you for more hours to do your taxes than you neighbor who only files personal taxes. If you travel farther across the city in an Uber, you’d pay a higher rate than another customer traveling a few blocks. And – since Democrats wants to regulate the internet as a utility – if you use more kilowatts of electricity in your home than your neighbor, you get a higher power bill.  

As James Erwin of Digital Liberty notes, it’s this latter point where the proposition by the FCC really falls apart.

“If one accepts the premise that high-speed broadband is now a necessity, not a luxury, and uses that as justification for outlawing usage-based billing, why shouldn’t the same logic apply to electricity? It has been government policy for close to a century that universal electricity is imperative for access to modern life. Despite this, electric utilities still put meters on our houses and measure our usage to charge us.”

Case for Consumers points out that pricing is one of the most critical decisions by a business and can determine its success or failure.

“This is why letting the market, as opposed to government, set prices is an enormous advantage to consumers, as prices for goods and services necessarily reflect the actual costs incurred and most often land at a point of equilibrium reflecting actual market value at the time and place delivered,” the organization posted on a blog. “This allows businesses to efficiently and economically produce goods and services, as well as improve those goods and services, in order to make a profit while preventing consumers from overpaying their hard-earned money.”

Most internet providers offer tiered plans, which allow light users to pay a much lower rate for a limited amount of data and heavy users to pay a higher rate for unlimited data. An effort by a Democrat-led FCC to eliminate this structure, capping the rate, would likely lead to light users (who often have lower incomes) having to pay more for their internet.

As Case for Consumers notes: “If the government dictated the price of a fill-up (regardless of tank size), then gas stations would set the price high enough to ensure they did not lose money on larger vehicles, meaning the driver of a Geo Metro would pay the same at the pump as the owner of a Chevy Suburban, an absolutely outlandish notion.”

A large reason why the United States enjoyed robust broadband infrastructure during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic was the ability of internet providers to use the revenue from such tiered pricing systems to continue to reinvest and maintain their systems. Efforts by the FCC to force providers to charge a lower-than-market price would put such long-term stability at risk.

Johnny Kampis is director of telecom policy for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

Listening to many politicians and National Telecommunications and Information Administration officials, you’d think “broadband” is practically synonymous with “telehealth.” So let’s go with it! Make telehealth front and center, the marketing hook of your NTIA Broadband Equity Access Deployment and Digital Equity Act grant applications.

Do a medical needs assessment of NTIA’s eight populations (target markets): 1) low-income urban dwellers, 2) rural communities, 3) Native American communities 4) veterans, 5) seniors, 6) people with disabilities, 7) those for whom English is a second language, and 8) the incarcerated. Low-income Americans have high rates of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and other chronic conditions compared to higher-income Americans.

How many people would we help with telehealth and how many people would go home with a computing device? A marketing win-win – attack the disease, attack the digital divide.

By the numbers

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 4 of 10 adults live with two or more chronic diseases. That’s 103.2 adult human beings. Imagine if we leveraged those $45 billions from NTIA, the thousands of all staff people, and the hosts of volunteers to treat, cure, or prevent chronic conditions?

In 2020, 1,603,844 new cancer cases were reported and 602,347 people died. About 695,000 people in the U.S. died from heart disease in 2021 and the disease costs us about $239.9 billion each year in 2018 and 2019. 37.3 million people have diabetes.

Many more millions suffer from and die from lung disease, strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, and kidney disease. What’s more, many these of chronic diseases are driven by unhealthy lifestyles – smoking, minimal physical activity, poor nutrition, and excessive alcohol use.

Make sure the numbers include the dramatic disparities. For example, African Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population, but twice as many die from strokes (100,000) as all other ethnic groups combined. Studies have found that Black people between the ages of 45 and 54 die of strokes at a rate that’s 3 times greater than their White counterparts. Being overweight or obese increases your risk of stroke. About three out of four Hispanics are overweight.

Telehealth making a difference: Gilda Radner’s legacy

Gilda’s Club Twin Cities, part of the Cancer Support Community global non-profit network providing free social and emotional support for those impacted by cancer, offers telehealth to medically underserved Minnesota urban and rural residents. The club partnered with telehealth firm Equiva and ISP Infinti Mobile to enroll members in the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program, to sign them up for Internet access, and send them tablets preloaded with special content.

“CSC organizes the telehealth content in a way that makes sense for their constituents,” says Beth Strohbusch, head of marketing for Equiva. “Members learn about cancer treatment options, digital support groups, and free psychosocial services if members are having problems with depression.”

Strohbusch believes it’s not just hospitals and support groups pursuing broadband and telehealth. Healthcare organizations, nursing homes, and financial risk-bearing organizations are seeing telehealth as an opportunity to enhance connectivity with patients and improve organizations’ financial and chronic healthcare outcomes.

Jason Welch, Infiniti president, says, “Equiva has a reach we don’t have – the healthcare communities, the cancer support community, those in elder care, the larger healthcare organizations. Infiniti saw a natural, practical fit. The Equiva ACP Connect Program is a practical combination of services that are easily explained. Our customers understand accessing healthcare and related resources from their computers and is the data transport mechanism allowing them to do so.”

The eyes have it

Age-related macular degeneration affects the central part of the retina that allows you to see fine details clearly. AMD causes damage to the macula and results in blurring of your central vision. It is a leading cause of blindness among older Americans and is more common in individuals of European ancestry.

Ocutrx manufactures an augmented reality corrective devices that tackles AMD and doubles as patients’ cell phone with Wi Fi, 4G, and 5G capabilities. CEO Michael Freeman says, “We build circuit board in our headsets that enables them to do everything that cell phones do, control seven cameras, and creates the six degrees of freedom where patients can pose virtual objects out in front of their eyes.”

The user puts on the headset and continually does a field test in each eye. Software signals the device when the user can’t clearly see an object, which triggers the cameras that starts projecting real-time on the lens a live 60-frames/second video. Augmented reality moves pixels from the peripheral to the front of the user and within 13 milliseconds the user can see the object.

Ocutrx has a headset for patients with chronic disease. Patients and their doctor each has a headset and cell phone capabilities for talking real time over an encrypted network. This headset measures temperature, respiratory rate, heart rate and other readings. Freeman adds, “Its camera can be disconnected so you can show the doctor your arm or leg.” To treat ‘lazy eye’, AI in the headset let’s patients play a game virtually. It frosts the lens of the good eye and makes the lazy eye work harder and tracks how well the eyes work together when they’re doing the exercises.

The fruits of telehealth

Telehealth vender Fruit Street delivers digital therapeutics for addressing bad habits that have medical consequences. CEO Laurence Girard says, “digital therapeutics may be programs that deal with sleep, stress, and resiliency, others may focus on opiate addiction or general mental health. ​

One in three adults have prediabetes in which someone’s blood glucose (sugar) level is too high but not high enough yet for a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Fruit Street’s Digital Diabetes Prevention Program combines group telehealth sessions, wearable devices, and dietary tracking in the vender’s mobile application. Besides lowering the risk to develop type 2 diabetes, the program can also lower the risk of having a heart attack or stroke, improve health overall, and help subscribers feel more energetic.​

Consider nonprofits marketing core digital therapeutics within a community. Imagine teams of “Life Changers” whose main goal is to embed broadband, smart home, cloud, and telehealth infrastructure that keeps residents healthy while reducing asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic illnesses.

Craig Settles conducts needs analyses with community stakeholders who want broadband networks to improve economic development, healthcare, education and local government. He hosts the radio talk show Gigabit Nation, and is Director of Communities United for Broadband, a national grass roots effort to assist communities launching their networks. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.