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May 28, 2023

Lack of Affordable Connectivity Fund Money Could Hobble Broadband Deployment: Experts

Providers are using revenues from the ACP to bankroll broadband buildouts. Published on By WASHINGTON, June 20, 2023 – Experts are pushing Congress to extend the funding available to the Affordable

Providers are using revenues from the ACP to bankroll broadband buildouts.

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WASHINGTON, June 20, 2023 – Experts are pushing Congress to extend the funding available to the Affordable Connectivity Program or else it will hamper efforts to build out infrastructure in other parts of the country.

The essence of the argument is that the $14.2-billion ACP, which provides a $30- and $75-per month subsidies to low-income Americans, is helping internet service providers with revenues used to build more infrastructure in underserved areas. But experts are warning that the ACP – which currently enrolls about 18.5 out of 48 million eligible Americans – could run out of money as soon as early 2024, which observers have said could affect private investment in broadband deployment.

Kathryn de Wit, broadband program director of Pew Charitable Trusts, said at a Wednesday event hosted by think tank New America that the ACP is a crucial link supporting other federal grants aimed to accelerate nationwide broadband deployment, including the $10-billion Capital Project Fund and the $42.5-billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.

“This is the first time we’re seeing these deployment grants make a specific requirement for recipients to actually include and participate in an affordability program,” said Kathryn. “They are trying to stabilize revenue for internet service providers who are connecting areas that might not offer a high return on investment.”

This funding from the ACP would provide the groundwork for a decade-long investment in internet infrastructure, according to Jonathan Cannon, technology policy counsel at think tank R Street Institute.

“We’ve got one program here that’s getting people connected, getting people access, driving markets, driving deployments,” said Cannon.

Joshua Stager, policy manager at the advocacy group Free Press, echoed the importance of affordability in broadband deployment efforts.

“It was a core requirement because as much as BEAD and CPF are focused on access and building out networks to unserved areas, those networks if they are unaffordable, they’re not really gonna work,” said Stager.

The discontinuation of ACP funding could also spell disaster for households already dependent on the subsidy, potentially leading to financial distress, debt accumulation, and long-term damage to their credit scores, warned Stager.

Amid discussions on prolonging the financial viability of ACP, proposals have emerged advocating for the utilization of the Universal Service Fund—a roughly $9-billion annual program dedicated to bolstering essential telecommunication services. However, the fund’s sustainability has been under pressure as the growing prevalence of broadband services among Americans has led to a decline in voice service revenues, which is the primary driver of the USF.

Despite a lack of definitive solutions, panelists strongly urged Congress to prioritize the replenishment of ACP as an urgent bipartisan matter, emphasizing the need for a solution that will have a lasting impact for future generations.

“Having access to affordable and accessible broadband is a civil right and it’s one that we need to continue to fund and to save,” said Anita Banerji, senior program director to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of Anita Banerji. This version also clarifies that Banerji is the senior program director to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

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Quinn Nghiem studied communications and business at Villanova University, where she also participated in news reporting and video production for the university’s newspaper. Additionally, she covered economic and political issues for Vietnam Television, the national television broadcaster of Vietnam.

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Convicts are given transferable hard and soft skills in the system, says expert.

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WASHINGTON, July 26, 2023 – Ex-convicts are a solution to the workforce shortage in telecommunications, said John Gabriel, senior advisor of external affairs at the Center for Employment Opportunities.

Although specific telecom skills are not often taught in prisons, many people in the system are taught technical skills like electronics manufacturing that are tech related and are a springboard to developing more technical expertise, Gabriel said during a Fiber Broadband Association event Wednesday.

Broadband providers are facing looming workforce deficiencies as federal funds come down the pipeline and create more job opportunities. Industry leaders are concerned that the workforce pool is not growing larger but rather that companies are taking employees from other desperately understaffed industries. Prisons provide a way to increase the workforce pool, Gabriel said.

While incarcerated, convicts are given many opportunities for education, including English courses, high school equivalent certification, and advanced education courses. Additionally, prisons provide convicts with self-help solutions such as victim awareness, anger management, narcotics anonymous and peer mentorship, among others. In fact, many prisoners have opportunities to get on-the job training for in-prison positions like cooking, clerical work, barbering, forestry, and firefighting, he added.

Not only do ex-convicts receiving hard skill training, but the unique experience in prison develops transferable soft skills including communication, problem solving, ability to work in high stress environments, and interpersonal skills, said Gabriel.

Gabriel urged the telecom industry to be willing to evaluate an applicant’s skills before considering an applicant’s past convictions. Doing so will eliminate barriers to employment and improve talent acquisition in the company, he said.

Technical and worker shortages have been flagged by government officials, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, as a key area of concern for broadband builds.

Eligible Americans are not getting through the entire ACP application process, event hears.

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WASHINGTON, July 26, 2023 – Two-thirds of potential applicants for the Affordable Connectivity Program drop out before submission due to bureaucratic hurdles, said Stacey Baxter, program manager at advocacy group Next Century Cities.

During a webinar on Tuesday, Baxter pointed to the multi-step application process as a huge barrier for enrollment in the ACP program, which offers discounts for low-income families to obtain internet connectivity.

In order to sign up for ACP, applicants have to submit multiple documents verifying their identity and eligibility. This process may take up to 30 or 45 minutes, but applicants are usually on a time crunch or have limited access to the internet or limited digital skills, which is often the case for families seeking ACP subsidy, said Baxter.

Once they have submitted the applications, chances are there will be name mismatch because applicants don’t always have access to all required documents. In that case, they would have to start the whole process over again, she added, saying this is one reason why only one out of four eligible households are enrolled in the program.

In June, the Joe Biden administration announced ACP has been serving more than 18 million Americans out of an estimated 48.6 million eligible households. It also launched a campaign in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission to help the remaining families sign up. The agency said it continued to seek ways to streamline the application process and improve the program’s customer experience.

“We have limited time as individuals, especially as families, working parents,” Baxter explained. “Spending this much time on application might not be something that they are able to do.”

One way to address this issue is through community outreach, where local digital officials or navigators can motivate and assist households throughout the application process, said Herminia Ramirez, chief-regional community coordinator for the Department of Homeless Solutions and Equitable Communities in San Diego County, California.

For families to successfully see the discounts on their bills, “it often takes someone who knows the program, who can hold their hand and carry them through the process,” she remarked.

In addition to updates on the program, panelists also echoed other industry experts to urge Congress to replenish ACP’s funding before it runs out in early 2024.

The Wall Street Journal report alleging the toxicity of the cables is inaccurate, claims AT&T.

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WASHINGTON, July 19, 2023 – AT&T said in a Tuesday court filing that it “strongly disagrees” with a report from the Wall Street Journal that alleged that lead-clad telecom cables in Lake Tahoe and elsewhere raise a significant public health concern and will halt removal of the cables.

The company had previously agreed to remove two lead-clad cables in Lake Tahoe at a cost of up to $1.5 million as part of a 2021 settlement with California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, which sued AT&T to remove the cables.

AT&T said in the filing that it believes it is in the public interest that the cables remain in place as they “pose no danger to those who work and play in the waters of Lake Tahoe.” It claims that it agreed to remove them in 2021 “simply to avoid the expense of litigation.”

The company said that its repeated testing on the cables, which are publicly available, supports the decision to keep the cables in ground and puts into question the validity of the WSJ’s report that “placed these cables at the center of what it claims is a national public health crisis.”

According to AT&T, WSJ depended entirely on data commissioned by the WSJ and that it was conducted by “individuals with clear agendas and conflicts of interest.” It claimed that some of the researchers were the same who prompted California Sportfishing Protection Alliance to issue the original lawsuit.

In fact, it cited a statement by Below the Blue, an organization responsible for sampling of cables in Lake Tahoe and elsewhere, that says “sampling locations were chosen in part by their likelihood to show high lead levels.”

Not only are the testing methods in question, the telecom said, but the results of the test commissioned by the WSJ “differ dramatically” from testing commissioned by AT&T in 2021 and other research which allegedly show that no lead was detected leaking from the cables and that the low levels found in the water were likely not a release from the cables, but from another background source.

“In the spirit of transparency and informed public health, the parties should agree to maintain these cables in place to permit further analysis by any qualified and independent interested party, including the Environmental Protection Agency, and allow the safety of these cables to be litigated with objective scientific evidence rather than sensationalized media coverage,” it stated.

Tom Neltner, senior director of safer chemicals at nonprofit advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund, recommended in a Monday letter to the Environmental Protection Agency administrator that the agency assess the condition of the underwater cables to determine their condition and anticipated releases in the environment, including risks posed by their removal or by leaving them in place. AT&T asserted that the best course of action would be to maintain the status quo until the EPA has evaluated the environmental concerns of the cables.

AT&T added that it “would never dismiss any health risk or concern” to its customers. It committed to add a voluntary testing program for any employee who works or has worked with lead-clad cables, conduct additional testing beyond Lake Tahoe, and perform in-person site visits to inspect condition and determine if any action is necessary.

The WSJ report claimed that lead contamination exists in more than 2,000 telecom cables that crisscross the country owned by various providers. Share prices for AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, Lumen and others dropped following the report; some, like AT&T’s, dipped to their lowest price in decades.

One financial analyst firm, New Street Research, estimates that there are roughly 48 million addresses connected to lead-clad cables. It predicts that some of these cables will be updated by federal funding to cross the digital divide, namely the $42.5-billion Broadband, Equity Access and Deployment program. For the rest, the telecom industry will be left with a $59 billion cost to clean up.

“AT&T likely has the highest [financial] exposure overall, followed by Verizon and Lumen,” New Street Research wrote in a note to investors.

New Street analysis added that the government has a tough choice in deciding who will pay for removing the cables: the companies, telecom customers or taxpayers. “If they [Congress] force ILECs to pay the bill, some will be forced into bankruptcy delaying the remediation process in those markets potentially indefinitely. It will significantly slow the deployment of fiber infrastructure in the U.S. It would also leave less resources available to bring broadband to unserved and underserved markets via the BEAD program,” the note said.

“Regardless of who pays, this will be a major overhang for the incumbent local exchange carriers for some time,” it concluded.

“The telecommunications companies responsible for these phone lines must act swiftly and responsibly to ensure the mitigation of any environmental and public health effects,” Senator Edward Markey, D-Mass., wrote this week in a letter to telecom trade association USTelecom. “This is corporate irresponsibility of the worst kind.”

Markey asked the association and its members, which includes AT&T, to identify how much of its cabling contains lead and where those cables are located. Most U.S. telecom companies stopped using such cabling in the 1960s, but the cables are still in use in many areas of the country.

A Verizon spokesperson said that the company is “taking these concerns regarding lead-sheathed cables very serious.” It added that it has not deployed these cables in decades and that they only make a “small percentage” of the company’s existing network.

Consolidated Communications added that it “takes the health and safety of our works, neighbors and the communities in which we live and operate very seriously.”

Lumen said that it is “redoubling efforts by working with outside experts to prioritize and sequence our investigative efforts, including site testing and implementation of science-based steps where advisable.”

The Communications Workers of America said in a statement last week that it is “actively expanding its collaborations with researchers to delve into groundbreaking studies about lead depositions in bone in telecommunications workers.” The work seeks to better empower works to take action to monitor and protect their health.

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