Wall Street analysts are warning investors that mobile providers like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint will have to spend $130-150 billion on fiber optic cables alone to make 5G wireless broadband a reality in the next 5-7 years.

A new Deloitte study found providers will have to spend a lot of money to deploy next generation wireless service across the United States, money that many may be unwilling to spend.

“5G relies heavily on fiber and will likely fall far short of its potential unless the United States significantly increases its deep fiber investments,” the study notes. “Increased speed and capacity from 5G will rely on higher radio frequencies and greater network densification (i.e., increasing the number and concentration of cell sites and access points).”

Unlike earlier cellular technology, which worked from centralized cell towers that covered several miles in all directions, 5G technology is expected to be deployed through “small cell” antennas attached to utility and light poles with coverage limited to just 300-500 feet. To reach city residents, providers will need countless thousands of new antenna installations and a massive fiber network to connect each antenna to the provider.

Telecom providers seeking financing for such networks will face the same criticism Verizon Communications took from Wall Street over the expense of its FiOS fiber-to-the-home upgrade as well as doubts about the viability of other fiber projects like Google Fiber.

Goldman Sachs told its investors back in 2012 that throwing money at Google Fiber or Verizon FiOS was not going to give them a good return on their investment. That year, Goldman was “Still Bullish on Cable, But Not Blind to the Risks.” That report, written by analyst Jason Armstrong, noted Google’s fiber upgrades would cost billions and only further dilute industry profits from increasing competition.

Goldman Sachs steered investors back to the cable industry, which gets significant praise from Wall Street for its ability to repurpose 20-year-old wired infrastructure for enhanced broadband without having to spend huge sums on a complete system rebuild.

In 2013, Alliance Bernstein continued to slam Google Fiber’s buildout as an unwise business investment:

We remain skeptical that Google will find a scalable and economically feasible model to extend its build out to a large portion of the US, as costs would be substantial, regulatory and competitive barriers material, and in the end the effort would have limited impact on the global trajectory of the business.

For example, making the far from trivial assumption that Google can identify 20 million homes in relatively contiguous areas with (on average) similar characteristics as Kansas City when it comes to the most important drivers of network deployment cost, homes per mile of plant and the mix of aerial, buried and underground infrastructure, and that Google decides to build out a fiber network to serve them over a period of five years, we estimate the [total capital expenditure] investment required to be in the order of $11 billion to pass the homes, before acquiring or connecting a single customer.

Some analysts are even questioning the relevance of 5G when providers investing in the massive fiber expansion required for 5G wireless could simply extend fiber cables directly into homes, assuring customers of more bandwidth and reliability. In many cases, fiber to the home technology is actually cheaper than 5G deployment will be.

VantagePoint released a report in February that called a lot of the excitement surrounding 5G “hype” and cautioned it will not be the ultimate broadband solution:

Undoubtedly, 5G wireless technologies will result in better broadband performance than 4G wireless technologies and will offer much promise as a mobile complement to fixed services, but they still will not be the right choice for delivering the rapidly increasing broadband demanded by thousands or millions of households and businesses across America.

Previous analysis of 4th generation (4G) wireless networks clearly demonstrated how these networks, even with generous capacity assumptions for the future, will have limited broadband capabilities, and inevitably will fail to carry the fixed broadband experience that has been and will be demanded by subscribers accustomed to their wireline counterparts. Although there is understandably much anticipation today about phenomenal possible speeds for 5G wireless networks tomorrow, they will continue to have technical shortcomings that will, like their predecessor wireless networks, render them very useful complements but poor substitutes for wireline broadband. These technical challenges include:

• Spectral limitations: 5G networks will require massive amounts of spectrum to accomplish their target speeds. At the lower frequencies traditionally used for wide area coverage, there is not enough spectrum. At the very high frequencies proposed for 5G where there may be enough spectrum, the RF signal does not propagate far enough to be practical for any wide area coverage. This is particularly important in rural areas where customer concentration is far, far less than what can be expected in densely populated urban areas where 5G may offer greater promise.
• Access Network Sharing: This is not a good solution for continuous-bit-rate traffic such as video, which will make up 82% of Internet traffic by 2020.
• Economics: When compared to a 5G network that can deliver significant bandwidth using very high, very short-haul frequencies, FTTP is often less expensive and will have lower operational costs. This is particularly true when one consider how much fiber deployment will be needed very close to each user even just to enable 5G.
• Reliability: Wireless inherently is less reliable than wireline, with significantly increased potential for impairments with the very high frequencies required by 5G.

In 2014, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP released a report urging telecom executives to shift their thinking about telecom capital spending away from one that focuses on upgrades to deal with increasing traffic and demand and move instead to a hardline view of only spending on projects that meet Return On Investment (ROI) objectives for investors.

“The predominant task of management is to take a considered view of the future, allocate capital towards strategies that maximize value for the providers of that capital, and manage the execution of those strategies through to the delivery of returns for those investors,” wrote PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. “For too long, telecoms have been on auto-drive for much of their capex. Departments assume if they had the money last year, they are going to get it again this year, under the premise of increasing traffic. But rarely do telecoms truly analyze that spending for its ROI or ask whether the investment should be made at all.”

In short, if a project is not certain to quickly deliver significant ROI, serious questions should be asked about whether that investment is appropriate to undertake. That reluctance is at the heart of Deloitte’s new study.

Deloitte notes if providers cannot overcome Wall Street’s reluctance to support major spending on fiber infrastructure, lack of investment will be even more costly.

It predicts falling short on fiber deployment will cause a dwindling number of broadband provider choices for consumers. Today, fewer than 33% of U.S. homes have access to fiber broadband and only 39% have the option of choosing more than one provider capable of meeting the FCC’s minimal definition of broadband – 25Mbps. As competition declines, the need to further expand is reduced while prices can freely rise.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP also recommends cable and phone companies partner with content providers like Netflix or Google, and let those companies take an ownership interest in return for capital investments for fiber upgrades. Those type of solutions also protect Wall Street from a feared price war should alternative providers launch in markets that are barely competitive, if at all.

Johnson

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is in favor of banishing Net Neutrality and allowing service providers to sell paid broadband fast lanes, claiming some uses of the internet are more important than others.

Speaking alongside FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on a live interview with WTMJ Radio in Milwaukee with no guests in opposition, Johnson claimed unless cable and telephone companies are given additional economic incentives to risk capital, broadband service improvements will be slow in coming.

Johnson added ISPs should be allowed to adopt paid prioritization.

“You might need a fast lane within that pipeline so that [medical] diagnoses can be transmitted instantaneously [and] not [be] held up by maybe a movie streaming,” Johnson said.

“I want everyone to have what I call digital opportunity, and to do that you need to have a regulatory framework that gives all of these companies — satellite, wireless, fiber — a strong incentive to invest,” added Pai.

“As a businessperson, you need the economic incentive to risk your capital and the minute you have government regulation it reduces the certainty in terms of what you can get from return on investment, you are going to invest less,” argued Johnson. “We’re seeing that right now because of what [former FCC] Chairman Wheeler did.”

Pai

Pai argued that outdated FCC rules were also responsible for reducing broadband investment, particularly rules that require phone companies to continue maintaining their existing wireline network to provide universal access to telephone service.

Pai characterized Net Neutrality as government control of the internet.

“Do you want the government deciding how the internet is run?” Pai said, noting he favors “light touch” regulation where private companies manage their own businesses with targeted enforcement action by the FCC. “In 2015, on a party line vote, the FCC went the other way and put the government, rather than the private sector, at the center of how the internet operates.”

By getting rid of the Obama Administration’s Net Neutrality policies, Pai believes that will return the U.S. to an era of where cable and phone companies invest in their networks and expand rural broadband.

“As Chairman Pai said, Net Neutrality is a slogan,” added Johnson. “What you really want is an expansion of high-speed broadband. In order to do that, you have to create the incentives for those smaller ISPs to invest and if they don’t really control their own fiber — if the government tells them exactly how they are going to use their investment — there is less incentive for them to invest so we’ll have less high-speed broadband.”

“Consumers will be worse off because of this term Net Neutrality,” Johnson said.

“We at the FCC need to be focused on investment in infrastructure,” Pai said, not Net Neutrality.

So much for the “small-dollar donors” President Donald Trump touted as his biggest financial supporters. A new campaign finance report released today shows about three dozen billionaires and corporations bankrolled almost half the inauguration expenses of the president, doubling what President Obama collected for each of his two inaugurations.

Despite a campaign that promised to “drain the swamp” of corporate influence and special interests in Washington, Trump’s team accepted checks valued in the millions from individuals and companies with matters before regulators or Congress. The Wall Street Journal reports they include billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, who gave $5 million; hedge-fund executive Robert Mercer, who gave $1 million; Marlene Ricketts, a member of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs, who gave $1 million; and Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, who gave $1 million.

While the Republican National Committee was concerned enough about a $250,000 contribution from Russian-American businessman Alexander Shustorovich to return it, President Trump had no reservations accepting a $1 million check from Shustorovich, who has close ties to the Putin government and various state-owned companies. Shustorovich raised alarms with national security officials who rejected some of his U.S. business deals in the past on national-security grounds.

Trump also accepted huge contributions from corporations with dealings in Washington and his Administration. Chief among the top donors was AT&T, along with Pfizer, Boeing, and Qualcomm, that all donated $1 million each. Boeing’s check arrived about a month after Trump tweet-slammed Boeing for the “out of control” cost of the new 747 Air Force One. Trump has been silent about Boeing since the check arrived. AT&T’s check may also prove a good investment if Trump abandons his commitment to oppose the AT&T-Time Warner, Inc., merger now before regulators.

The Journal reports Trump’s extravagant corporate donor list threatens to undercut the president’s message that he isn’t beholden to anyone — special interests or wealthy donors. In contrast, President Obama banned corporate funding of his 2009 inauguration. The newspaper adds, in some cases, the donations arrived days after the president selected executives at those companies to serve in his administration.

President Donald Trump took credit on Friday for Charter Communications’ commitment to hire 20,000 new employees and invest $25 billion on improving cable and broadband service, despite the fact Charter promised to hire those workers more than a year before Trump won the election and its spending commitment may actually represent a reduction in spending.

Today, I was thrilled to announce a commitment of $25 BILLION & 20K AMERICAN JOBS over the next 4 years. THANK YOU Charter Communications! pic.twitter.com/PLxUmXVl0h

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2017

“We are really in the process of announcements and you’re going to see thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs and companies and everything coming back into our country,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after meeting with Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. “They’re coming in far faster than even I had projected.”

Rutledge claimed the company’s promise to spend $25 billion over the next four years was because of Trump’s commitment to cut corporate taxes and further deregulate the cable industry. Rutledge added that he was excited that the time was right in the “regulatory climate and the right tax climate to make major infrastructure investments.”

Unfortunately for both the president and Charter’s CEO, public filings required by the Securities and Exchange Commission show Rutledge’s spending commitment to the president actually could represent a $4 billion reduction in spending over the next four years.

In 2015, Charter, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House collectively spent a combined $7 billion as Charter continued its speed improvements and Time Warner Cable invested in its Time Warner Cable Maxx upgrade initiative. That spending increased in 2016 to $7.1 billion (a figure that excludes merger-related expenses), an amount confirmed in last month’s 4th quarter 2016 financial results:

“Capital expenditures totaled $1.89 billion in the fourth quarter, including $187 million of transition spend,” reported Christopher Winfrey, chief financial officer of Charter Communications. “Excluding transition CapEx, fourth quarter CapEx declined by $81 million year-over-year or 4.5% with tradeoffs between all-digital in the fourth quarter of 2015 in Spectrum pricing and packaging box placement in Q4 2016. For the full-year 2016, our capital expenditures totaled $7.5 billion or $7.1 billion when excluding transition spending.”

Hal Singer, a principal at Economists, Inc., noted Rutledge’s new $25 billion spending commitment could represent a net decrease in spending. That’s because “New Charter” would have spent $28.4 billion over the next four years if it kept combined spending in line with the figures the three companies independently reported in 2015 and 2016.

Rutledge

Charter officials told Ars Technica the spending commitment announced Friday was “specific to broadband infrastructure and technology investment” and claimed it was different from the total capital expenditure figure. Charter claimed spending related to infrastructure and technology was $5.3 billion in annual spending over the last three years, but Charter declined to provide numbers for 2016. It also wouldn’t provide a breakdown adequate to determine if Rutledge’s commitment would result in a spending increase or decrease.

CFO Winfrey told investors in February that a “bigger portion of CapEx” spending in 2017 won’t be for broadband enhancements and expansion, as Mr. Rutledge seemed to tell President Trump. Instead, Charter will spend the money on set-top boxes, cable modems, and network gateways Charter will place in customer homes as a result of an ongoing digital transition, expected to last until 2020.

“When we do an install under Spectrum pricing and packaging, there’s a higher number of devices that we’re placing in the home because of our two-way set-top box strategy as well as our strategy not to charge for modem rental and to have reasonable router fees, which means that you’re going to put more capital into the home on an average transaction and we expect to have [more transactions as a result of increased sales],” Winfrey told investors last month.

Rutledge himself told investors on February’s investor conference call that predicting Charter’s CapEx spending in the future represented an “artificial target.”

“On CapEx, we are not providing CapEx guidance just because we approved a budget internally, which is what we want to operationally deploy this year,” Rutledge explained. “It could be less than that just because of what practically can be done or could be in a position to accelerate. But from our perspective, it doesn’t make sense to release such an artificial target and have the tail try to wag the dog for what’s ultimately right.”

Rutledge agreed with Winfrey’s assessment about what Charter’s spending priorities will be this year: installing more cable boxes and converting customers to all-digital television service. In all, there will be no significant boost in CapEx spending.

“If you think back to what I said, in 2017 we will be spending more on Spectrum pricing and packaging through that higher [cable equipment] placement or connect,” Rutledge said. “We will restart all-digital. We will be insourcing. But offsetting some of that increase will be the benefit of synergies. So without giving specific guidance, 2017 is probably a bit higher in terms of absolute dollars than what we were performing in 2016, but it shouldn’t be a dramatic change in terms of capital intensity or CapEx as a percentage of revenue.”

As for Trump claiming credit for Charter’s commitment to hire 20,000 additional employees, that has been part of Charter’s list of claimed “deal benefits” to win approval of its acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks for at least a year before the election, as Fortune reminds us:

The 20,000 jobs, at least, have been in the works for more than a year. Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said in 2015 that Charter would need to bring on 20,000 additional workers if the company’s merger with Time Warner Cable and acquisition of Bright House Networks went through. A Charter spokesman reiterated the claim in April 2016. The FCC approved the deal last May, and Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said in January that the company had plans to hire 20,000 new employees within three years.

Come for the scenery but don’t stay for the broadband. (Image: Paul Hamilton)

Verizon’s lack of interest in improving broadband service in rural Pennsylvania could cause the state to lose more than $23 million in available broadband improvement funding.

For several years, Verizon has declined tens of millions from the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund (CAF). The program’s ratepayer-funded subsidies are offered to private phone companies to expand rural internet access in high cost service areas where return on investment is slow or uncertain.

In 2016, Verizon was eligible to receive $23.3 million — nearly half of the federal allotment available to Pennsylvania, but Verizon once again turned the money down. Some consumer advocates called Verizon’s decision counter-intuitive in a state like Pennsylvania where a state law requires guaranteed access to broadband to any customer who wants the service.

Instead of accepting the money to improve the company’s poorly rated DSL service, still not widely available in many rural areas, Verizon has consistently shown no interest in improving service or expanding its highly acclaimed FiOS fiber to the home service to more customers in the state.

State officials now fear the millions in available funding will instead be distributed to other states, leaving Verizon customers in Pennsylvania paying ongoing bill surcharges that will be effectively spent on improved broadband in West Virginia, New York, Ohio, and other states.

“Losing all or part of this funding would be unfair to Pennsylvania residents in rural and high-cost areas and contrary to the FCC’s goal of ensuring broadband access for all,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) wrote in a Dec. 22 letter to outgoing FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler.

The state’s Public Utilities Commission claims there isn’t much the state can do if Verizon remains intransigent about accepting Connect America funding and the minimum speed and service obligations that come with the money.

Independent phone companies in the state including Frontier Communications and Windstream could benefit by requesting some or all of Verizon’s share of the money, but only if the companies are willing and able to invest in rural broadband expansion. In most cases, CAF funding requires phone companies to invest matching funds to collect a payout.

Verizon has significantly reduced investment in its landline/wireline networks since suspending FiOS expansion in 2010.