NTIA to Seek Comments on Broadband Programs Near Christmas

An NTIA request for comment on implementing programs funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act could come “before Christmas holiday or shortly thereafter,” said Director-Communications Policy Initiatives Russell Hanser at a Fierce Technology virtual event Monday (see 2112140086). Experts debated during panels throughout the week how states and federal agencies should prioritize the new broadband funding, with several suggesting public-private partnerships.

The request will be “more discrete” than the average FCC NPRM, Hanser said: “We’re trying to be much more targeted in questions.” The comment period will likely be “fairly tight,” he said, and states are going to be “critical partners” in the broadband equity, access, and deployment (BEAD) program. There’s “going to be a lot of push-pull interaction, and we need to be close partners,” Hanser said. BEAD provides $42.5 billion for states to use for broadband infrastructure deployment and adoption.

Infrastructure investments and connectivity speeds remain a challenge in rural areas, said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield Monday. “We’re making some interesting progress” with community providers building out, Bloomfield said, and BEAD will result in that gap “hopefully shrinking drastically in the day[s] to come.”

The new funding is “possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity to build broadband networks through public-private cooperation,” said AT&T President-Broadband Access and Adoption Initiatives Jeff Luong Tuesday. The new funding is a “positive sign” for rural markets, said CommScope Vice President-Sales Bill Lee, saying states with existing broadband offices are “a little bit ahead of the game.” But it's “absolutely critical” that broadband maps are done to ensure funds go where the need is, Bloomfield said. “We’ve got to know where we have broadband and where don’t,” said T-Mobile Vice President-Strategic Alliances and External Affairs Clint Odom: “None of this works if we don’t know where to build broadband networks.”

The “most important thing” to do to further adoption is public outreach, said Fractional CIO-Strategic Advisor Jon Walton Thursday. A difficult part of the FCC’s emergency broadband benefit program for local officials was “building and incentivizing partnerships” with organizations to help households enroll, said Detroit Director-Digital Inclusion Joshua Edmonds. “It’s why we’re happy to see ... funding for outreach partners” in the affordable connectivity program, Edmonds said. It’s “encouraging” that the FCC did this, said Connected Nation Vice President-Digital Inclusion Heather Gate, and it’s “critical the funding goes to the right place.”

Open radio access networks are “another tool” for addressing the digital divide, which is “a hugely valuable thing,” said Neil McRae, chief architect at U.K.-based BT. “We’re looking at it for things like neutral hosts, where we can build a solution that allows multiple operators to connect in rural locations.” BT has an ORAN pilot on rural use in Wales, he said, and is looking at use of ORAN in very dense urban markets.

With ORAN “you can optimize the network … for some of these very difficult use cases,” McRae said. You can use the RAN controller “to fine-tune the radio beams or to fine-tune the way the radio is talking to them so that what wasn’t connectable before may well be connectable today,” he said. ORAN also allows an operator to keep power consumption low by centralizing the network “in a place where power is more readily available,” he said.

“We’ve still got challenges around scale, value and pricing,” McRae said. ORAN was originally focused on cutting costs, but that’s not “the way I think we should think about it,” he said. The price is “at least comparable” but the big advantage is it opens up areas that were otherwise difficult or too expensive to serve, he said. ORAN allows connecting a village with only a few homes, he said: “Before the only solution was something so expensive you would never do it.”

The biggest impediment in the U.K. and worldwide is regulatory red tape, McRae said. “Even if we have these great solutions, if we can’t go out and build them because of the local regulatory environment it can be quite frustrating.”

Alessandro Defilippi, chief technology officer at Peru’s Internet para Todos, said IPT is embracing ORAN. About 30% of IPT’s 4G nodes use ORAN, he said.

Because the company is also operating a traditional network, it can compare the two, Defilippi said. One of the “pros” of ORAN technology is low energy consumption, which helps in rural areas, he said. IPT is also able to optimize the network using software changes and “implementation times are reduced,” he said. But the provider is also finding ORAN technology has a way to go to be fully mature and needs “new features, more counters … more interfaces,” he said. The overall cost of equipment is similar to a standard network, but that should “decrease once [ORAN] gets more deployments all over the world,” he said. The capacity of the ORAN nodes now isn’t as high as legacy nodes, which is less of a concern in rural markets, he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic was "a catalyst for … real broadband” and “much higher speeds,” said Viasat Vice President-Corporate Development Michael Lubin Wednesday. The question becomes "how much data per month per person is needed to transform their lives," Lubin said. The coming years will be “exciting,” said Andesat CEO Pablo Rasore, and closing the digital divide is "an obligation that we have." The technology for launching and operating a “space-based phone tower ... has become feasible and affordable,” said OneWeb Senior Adviser-Regulatory and Space Policy Ruth Pritchard-Kelly. “These two are going to mesh in just a few months.”