AT&T will spend $9.7 million in annual public subsidies to bolster its cell tower network in South Carolina in part to expand its rural wireless broadband program. Perhaps services like mobile tower lease would come in handy.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the funding, which is expected to cost Americans nearly $10 million annually until 2020 to boost wireless coverage in 20 mostly rural counties in South Carolina to reach an estimated 12,000 new homes and businesses by the end of this year. Nationwide, the company is getting almost $428 million a year to extend access to 1.1 million customers in 18 states, the FCC says.

AT&T plans to spend the money to improve cell towers it already has in place for its mobile phone customers. The company admitted it will rely on existing infrastructure and won’t lay a single new strand of fiber optics. Instead, wireless broadband customers will share space with AT&T’s existing mobile customers on AT&T’s backhaul network.

“Because of the wireless aspect of it and the greater ability to deliver that last-mile connection, it does help to overcome any obstacles that may be in the cost equation,” Hayes said. “This initial build, with it being infrastructure that we have in place with these towers, that comes from years of investment.”

AT&T will also be able to promote its own products and offer customers discounts and free installation when they agree to sign up for other AT&T services. Hayes said the service will cost $60 a month for everyone else, along with a one-time installation fee of $99.

“Because of the wireless aspect of it and the greater ability to deliver that last-mile connection, it does help to overcome any obstacles that may be in the cost equation,” spokesman Daniel Hayes told The Post and Courier. “This initial build, with it being infrastructure that we have in place with these towers, that comes from years of investment.”

AT&T is treating the fixed wireless program, which offers up to 10Mbps service, as an alternative to wiring fiber optics in outer suburban and rural areas.

With taxpayer/ratepayer dollars financing a significant part of the cost, AT&T will have a de facto monopoly in its rural service areas where it has traditionally declined to offer or maintain DSL service or consider fiber optic upgrades, leaving these areas without broadband service until the subsidy program began.

Antenna tower operator Crown Castle International has announced it will buy privately held Lightower Fiber Networks for about $7.1 billion in cash to acquire the company’s extensive fiber assets across the northeastern United States that will be used to connect small cell 5G networks.

The acquisition will allow Crown Castle to market an extensive fiber backhaul network in large cities like New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia, as well as smaller cities particularly in upstate New York, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and northern New England. Crown Castle, which already owns many of the cell towers where AT&T and Verizon place their equipment, will now be able to market fiber backhaul connectivity for AT&T and Verizon’s forthcoming 5G networks.

LIghtower’s fiber footprint.

Lightower’s fiber network was originally focused on major markets like Boston, New York City, the District of Columbia, and Chicago. Its partner, Fibertech — acquired by Lightower in 2015, focused on 30 mid-sized cities from Indiana to the west to Maine in the east. The network’s customers are large companies and independent ISPs. In Rochester, where Lightower maintains a Network Operations Center, Greenlight Networks relies on a fiber backhaul network originally built by Fibertech to connect its fiber-to-the-home broadband service. That fiber is likely to soon be shared with AT&T, Verizon, and potentially T-Mobile and Sprint to power any 5G buildouts in the region.

“Lightower’s dense fiber footprint is well-located in top metro markets in the northeast and is well-positioned to facilitate small cell deployments by our customers,” said Crown Castle CEO Jay Brown in a statement. “Following the transaction, we will have approximately 60,000 route miles of fiber with a presence in all of the top 10 and 23 of the top 25 metro markets.”

This acquisition marks Crown Castle’s first major diversion outside of its core market — leasing out the cell towers it owns or acquires.

Microsoft is indirectly getting into the internet access business with its support for white-space wireless internet access for two million rural Americans by 2022.

The project will involve a partnership putting Microsoft’s financing together with rural telecommunications companies that want a rural broadband solution for their customers.

Microsoft has spent at least a decade promoting “white space” wireless broadband, which works over unused UHF TV channels. An internet provider markets the service as a next generation Wi-Fi network, capable of serving customers over a much larger distance than traditional in-home or business Wi-Fi. The service transmits from strategically placed antenna towers that are capable of delivering internet access to dozens of families in an immediate area.

Pilot projects not associated with Microsoft are already up and running in selected rural areas with mixed results. None of the projects have lived up to their pre-launch hype, but most have been a significant improvement over satellite internet access. Speed variability and capacity has proven difficult technical challenges, and finding ongoing financial resources to maintain the wireless network once constructed has also been a challenge.

Rural community politics is never too far away. Thurman, N.Y.’s white space broadband project Stop the Cap! wrote about two years ago has turned into a political football. Only about three dozen residents subscribe to the white space internet service and vocal opponents of the project and controversy over other spending initiatives caused the town’s CEO and one board member to resign. Town meetings have deteriorated into shouting matches as recriminations are fired back and forth. One of the project designers resigned after the town refused to honor an invoice for a cost overrun. The white space project was funded with a grant that required local matching funds. With only a few dozen customers using the service, some taxpayers object to underwriting its expenses.

The technology has not been a runaway success in the U.S., but Microsoft has had better luck funding internet access to 185,000 people in 20 wireless projects, many in the developing world.

Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith today introduced Microsoft’s plan to expand white space internet in the U.S., pointing to a white paper laying out Microsoft’s rural broadband strategy, which will leverage several wireless technologies.

A combination of technologies can substantially reduce the total cost of extending broadband coverage. Specifically, a technology model that uses a combination of the TV white spaces spectrum, fixed wireless, and satellite coverage can reduce the initial capital and operating costs by roughly 80 percent compared with the cost of using fiber cables alone, and by approximately 50 percent compared with the cost of current LTE fixed wireless technology.

One key to deploying this strategy successfully is to use the right technology in the right places. TV white spaces is expected to provide the best approach to reach approximately 80 percent of this underserved rural population, particularly in areas with a population density between two and 200 people per square mile. […] Satellite coverage is expected to be the most cost-effective solution for most areas with a population density of less than two people per square mile, and LTE fixed wireless for most areas with a density greater than 200 people per square mile. This mixed model for expanding broadband coverage will likely bring the total national cost of closing the rural broadband gap to roughly $10 billion.

To cover the costs, Microsoft has agreed to front its own money and recover it later. The Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. received $250,000 from Microsoft. Another $500,000 originated with the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and another $250,000 came from the telecom company. Mid-Atlantic hopes to expand white space internet access to 1,000 local customers by the end of the year.

Mid-Atlantic today offers residents in Charlotte and Halifax counties, two rural regions in southern Virginia, free internet access to a limited number of education-related sites with speeds of 3-4Mbps. Customers can pay to access the entire web at those speeds for about $10 a month. A premium tier raises speeds to 8-10Mbps for $40 a month. About 90% of subscribers have chosen the free service, an alarming percentage for any company trying to sell internet access and recoup its investment. It currently costs around $1,000 to hook up each customer, a number local officials hope to reduce to $100 eventually.

Microsoft argues the technology is still cheaper than the alternatives – 80 percent less costly than fiber to the home service and half the price of 4G LTE wireless.

To guarantee the technology will work, Microsoft wants to preserve unlicensed frequencies not currently in use by licensed television stations for “white space” broadband.

“The Incentive Auction reduced the number of available channels that can be used for TV white spaces technologies,” Microsoft noted in its white paper. The company is referring to the FCC’s auction of UHF TV licenses, freeing up channels to be repurposed for wireless data expansion by the country’s mobile phone operators. “To make the significant investments necessary to reach economies of scale, potential TV white spaces network operators and device and chip manufacturers have converged on the need for a minimum of three usable TV white spaces channels in every market, with additional TV white spaces available in smaller markets.”

In other words, Microsoft wants the FCC to ensure at least three unused UHF channels in each city in the country are kept available for unlicensed spectrum users, like white space internet. That brought a scathing response from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) who called Microsoft’s request “nonsense on its face”:

The proposal is either unnecessary, because there will be plenty of spectrum, or it is harmful, because there will not be enough. If you were playing musical chairs with someone and he told you, “you must reserve that chair for me, but don’t worry, there are plenty of chairs for everyone,” you would rightly be suspicious. The post-auction repack is essentially a game of musical chairs for displaced low power stations. Microsoft is telling the Commission: (1) it needs to have a chair reserved for unlicensed use, but that (2) there will be no effect from that reservation on anyone else. One of those assertions is untrue.

Microsoft also claims that only the reservation of spectrum can provide the regulatory certainty that Microsoft needs to increase investment in white space technology. But the truth is the Commission just held a lengthy auction of the very spectrum Microsoft claims it so urgently desires. If Microsoft were interested in increasing investment, it had an unprecedented opportunity to get guaranteed access to 600MHz spectrum with a nationwide footprint. Instead, Microsoft is trying to convince the Commission to give Microsoft a backdoor frequency allocation with exclusive access to that spectrum for free, and on better terms than winning auction bidders received.

Certain parts of the northeastern U.S. are signal-crowded, with no available white space channels.

The NAB objects to Microsoft requesting spectrum without directly paying for it, but Microsoft’s actual request is that those frequencies be reserved for unlicensed users of all kinds, not just for white space internet. The NAB accuses Microsoft of potentially increasing interference for licensed TV stations on a newly crowded, repacked UHF dial, a theory that seems unlikely in the most rural parts of the country where over the air television reception is problematic or non-existent. There are urban areas of the country, particularly in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor where open channel space is either not available or severely limited, but white space internet was designed to resolve rural broadband problems, not urban ones.

To find out what is true and what is theoretical Microsoft announced 12 new white space pilot projects in 12 U.S. states, including Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin that will be up and running over the next year. Few details are available about the specific communities involved or the types of access to be offered. Microsoft only said if it gets its way, it could be providing internet access to two million more Americans by July 4, 2022.

Most customers are likely not going to get the FCC’s definition of broadband (25Mbps) from the current generation of white space broadband technology. Speeds are often comparable to DSL and just as variable, depending on reception conditions. The NAB questions whether this technology will really make much difference.

“Microsoft has been making promises about white spaces technology for well over a decade,” the NAB wrote on a blog post, noting it estimates fewer than 300 customers are getting white space internet access in the U.S. “There remain few tangible consumer benefits associated with white spaces deployments across the U.S.”

For states like New York, embarked on their own efforts to achieve 100% broadband penetration, Microsoft’s project may be too little, too late. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo launched the final phase of the New NY Broadband Program in March, seeking to deliver a final round of funding to secure access to high-speed internet for all New Yorkers by the end of 2018, four years sooner than Microsoft’s target date for its project. New York’s rural broadband expansion program relies primarily on incumbent providers and helps subsidize expansion of their networks to reach customers deemed too expensive to serve without supplemental funding.

States and communities across the country are warning the Federal Communications Commission its proposal to limit local authority over wireless infrastructure siting will create chaos and open the door to public safety and aesthetics nightmares.

The FCC’s proposal would allegedly accelerate wireless infrastructure deployment by removing or pre-empting what some on the Commission feel are improper zoning barriers, unjustified fees meant to deter providers from adding new towers, and various other bureaucratic impediments. It would modify current “shot clock” rules that set time limits on applications and deem them automatically granted if a local or state authority failed to reach a decision in as little as 60 days.

Pai

While the wireless industry has expressed strong support for the proposed changes introduced by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in March during the FCC’s “Infrastructure Month,” many states and localities are fiercely opposed to what some are calling a federal government takeover of local zoning and permitting. States as diverse as Illinois, Utah, and Maine have submitted comments objecting to the proposal, noting it will turn the FCC into a national zoning agency that could allow the installation of new cell towers and monopole antennas just about anywhere if the clock for consideration has run out.

Several communities have also submitted comments to the FCC reminding the agency its existing rules have allowed some providers to abuse the system, with further easing of regulatory oversight on the local level only increasing the potential for more abuse.

Communities have complained some providers have intentionally overwhelmed local authorities by submitting “bulk applications” that attempt to win approval for dozens of new sites with incomplete or missing paperwork. Others report providers using the public rights-of-way have placed large pieces of infrastructure in direct line with residents’ front doors, have created public safety problems with equipment that blocks drivers’ views at intersections, and had to contend with requests to place 120-200 foot monopole antennas on the edge of public highways and abandoned retired infrastructure providers fail to maintain or remove.

Can you find the hidden monopole tower?

The Utah Department of Transportation, among others, calls the FCC’s proposal “detrimental to public safety” and warns the FCC could end up creating a new loophole allowing providers to submit defective applications and then stalling required corrections until the shot clock runs out.

“No decisions are made on incomplete applications because the requested information is necessary for a decision to be issued,” Utah’s DOT writes. “This information may include, but is not limited to, when and where the work will be performed, type of installation, impacts to the traffic of the state highway. All safety issues must be addressed. Any shot clock start considerations by the Federal Communications Commission must be based upon completed applications. Otherwise the telecommunications company may fail to submit a completed application and continue to not submit all the requested information until the shot clock time period has run out. Such an approach would have detrimental impacts to safety of the traveling public on state highways because the Federal Communications Commission seeks to remove any authority from the states and local governments to address safety and placement after the shot clock has run out.”

Utah also fears the FCC’s decision to set uniform fees for applications could end up subsidizing large telecom companies with taxpayer dollars.

“Any requirement mandating lower fees than the actual costs will require the states to subsidize the telecommunications industry,” Utah’s DOT warned.

Maine’s Department of Transportation worries the FCC is putting the interests of multi-billion dollar telecom corporations ahead of the citizens of the state and their own needs. By allowing telecommunications companies to win irrevocable rights to place wireless towers where they want by running out the clock, the interests of those companies overshadow the public interest.

“The only ‘right’ that any entity receives to locate within Maine’s highway corridors is a revocable permit,” the DOT wrote. “To minimize overall expense and downtime, it is essential that facilities are appropriately located the first time around and there should not be any rules stating that it is in any way appropriate for an entity to construct facilities in a location that has not been explicitly approved by the applicable licensing authority, property owner or facility owner.”

Because the FCC’s proposal is so wide-ranging and skewed in favor of telecom companies, several state and local agencies are asking the FCC to clearly affirm that a company’s business interests should never come before public safety, future transportation needs, or at the public’s expense.

“Any new or revised rules should clearly affirm a state or local highway agencies’ authority to properly manage the highway corridor in the interest of highway safety, operations, and right of way preservation for future highway purposes,” offers Maine’s DOT, adding that after the state’s experience with financially troubled telecom companies abandoning outdated or damaged infrastructure, the public should not have to pay to clean it up.

“Accommodation of wireless towers or other monopole structures within the highway corridor also present hidden public expense when relocation of those facilities cause construction delays or when such facilities are abandoned by a [company] that declares bankruptcy,” the agency noted.

The Illinois Department of Transportation echoed Utah and Maine, noting the telecom industry needed to work with local and state officials to ensure timely permitting.

Instead, the telecom industry has spent millions lobbying state and federal legislators to curtail or eliminate local oversight and control. While many telecom companies are honest and accommodating, especially when they are considering major infrastructure expansion, some are not and work to game the system.

IDOT notes it is willing to manage the burden of processing applications on a timely basis, but utilities should not be rewarded with a right to run out the clock with an incomplete application.

“The burden of timely issuance of permits is shared by both the state and the industry,” IDOT wrote. “It is important that the utility fulfill its duties and meet their obligations.”

Benjamin

In one instance, a large telecom company submitted a very large number of permit applications across Illinois for a network upgrade it had no plans to commence in the near future, overwhelming permit offices. If the FCC’s reforms were in place, many of those applications would have been automatically approved after the deadline for consideration ran out, even though the provider was in no hurry to start work.

“The concept behind this is […] if a government authority doesn’t respond in a timely manner, the permit is automatically granted,” the filing said. “The [proposal] is attempting to shift the burden of court appeal to the [local permitting authority] as opposed to the permit applicant.”

Columbia, S.C. mayor Steve Benjamin believes the FCC is trying to solve a non-existent problem.

“Simply put, local rights-of-way management does not discourage wireless deployment,” Mayor Benjamin said in March. “Instead, it serves numerous public policy goals and ensures that rights-of-ways are managed in a manner that allows for all users to safely and efficiently use public rights-of-way. The city is deeply concerned […] the Commission is simply seeking to preempt local authority and to dictate how local governments should manage public property, all in an effort to marginally increase the profits of an already profitable industry at the expense of important and legitimate public interest goals.”

Despite claims from America’s wireless companies that they deliver world-class wireless speeds, a new report from Akamai shows the United States only ranked 28th fastest in the world, beaten by the African nation of Kenya that ranked 14th.

Kenya’s 13.7Mbps average mobile broadband speed is almost twice as fast as the global average and consistently better than the U.S., where 10.7Mbps is the average. Nearly 90% of Kenya relies on mobile phones to reach the internet, primarily because its fixed line network never developed adequately to support faster broadband speeds. Kenyans have cell phones with cheap data plans, supported by a growing optical fiber backhaul network.

The United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, France, Norway and Denmark all scored the highest, with UK customers now getting an average speed of 26Mbps over 4G connections.

What two North American countries are not on this list?