House Rural Broadband Caucus Launches With Laundry List of Policy Suggestions
From regulatory reform to incentives to help justify the total cost of ownership of a network, rural broadband advocates came to the launch of the House's bipartisan Rural Broadband Caucus Wednesday with a litany of suggestions. "As much as we want to advance rural broadband, if you don't have a government program [to] support the deployment and maintenance, people aren't going to deploy it," said Sarah Tyree, CoBank vice president-government affairs. The caucus' focus was expected (see 1602020057).
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The House members behind the caucus -- Peter Welch, D-Vt., Mark Pocan, D-Wis., Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Bob Latta, R-Ohio -- repeatedly pointed to the economic, educational and telemedicine needs of rural America and their districts as driving the need for the caucus. Pocan said rural towns in his district have passed resolutions voicing concern about the lack of broadband. Welch said the need for universal broadband is akin to the demands that drove policies for rural electrification. He also said rural broadband could be one of Congress' increasingly rare opportunities for bipartisan action.
With 42 percent of the U.S. land mass but 1 percent of its population not reached by broadband, "these markets are not ones that in most cases self-justify investments," said Mike Romano, NTCA senior vice president-policy. And establishing a network carries future costs to be accounted for, such as upgrades as higher-speed broadband offerings become the norm, with neither private capital nor government support solely being enough, he said. "We need to keep pace [with urban broadband providers]; that's not an easy needle to thread." Loan guarantees or one-time grants are inadequate as the ongoing support mechanism extending rural broadband would require, Tyree said.
Availability of adequate low-band spectrum also is a limiting factor for extending rural broadband, said Tim Donovan, Competitive Carriers Association vice president-legislative affairs. Since the secondary market for spectrum has been unsuccessful in driving investments by small companies, Donovan said some form of incentives might be needed to help drive spectrum use in rural areas. Eventually, he said, licensed and unlicensed spectrum combined might help in providing coverage for rural areas.
Physical infrastructure issues also are a problem because broadband providers looking to use federal land have run into delays caused by conflicting feedback or directives from federal agencies, Donovan said. "We need to find a way to match these policies together."
Incumbent LECs face particular regulations that eat up money that otherwise would be spent on capital expenses and other costs of extending their broadband networks, said Lynn Follansbee, USTelecom vice president-law and policy. The group also raised those forbearance issues in a 2014 petition to the FCC (see 1410070050). Some Connect America Fund Phase II money not claimed by carriers would have provided rural access, but the FCC's planned reverse auction will likely end up creating support for some of those areas, she said. Romano said USF could be "key" to ongoing support and upgrades.