CT remains behind in broadband access
As President-elect Joe Biden continued to fill Beltway posts this week, the telecommunications industry homed in on West Hartford native and broadband access proponent Jessica Rosenworcel as the likely candidate to become chair of the Federal Communications Commission.
As to the state of broadband in the state where Rosenworcel grew up? Broadband access got a major boost this year as a result of a massive pandemic investment in laptops for students — but universal availability remains elusive, with Connecticut continuing to trail neighboring states in hooking up all homes.
Connecticut is in the early stages of the biggest broadband initiative since cable TV and telephone companies pushed into the modem era two decades ago: the statewide installation of 5G “wideband” transceivers on cell towers, utility poles and structures.
Carriers trumpet 5G as capable of hitting
download speeds of 100 megabits per second, which would make it a capable replacement for cable broadband. While industry experts continue to criticize the services being introduced by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon as reaching only half that download speed in many instances, that would still be double the 25-megabit baseline the FCC uses to define broadband.
But blanketing the state will take time — and if one day reaching into every corner of Connecticut, will come over the objections of some who fear the millimeter waves emitted by devices as a possible threat to human health, when positioned so close to homes and businesses.
Availability of 5G can come none too soon for others, however, whether as a new source of competition to pressure broadband carriers to rein in rates that are left unregulated; or in giving households and businesses off the beaten broadband path a closer approximate to the 100-megabit services that are deemed ideal for today’s demands like web conferencing and TV streaming services.
“The need for universal broadband access has never been more apparent than during the COVID-19 pandemic,” stated Marissa Gillett, PURA chair, in a statement forwarded by a spokesperson. “High quality, affordable broadband access is essential to every aspect of Connecticut residents’ lives — from remote learning and virtual classrooms to access to telehealth services and critical government programs to e-commerce and remote business operations. The Authority supports projects and initiatives
that deliver high-speed Internet access to unserved and underserved areas.”
As of 2018 — the most recent year the FCC has made estimates —
77 percent of Connecticut households had broadband at the 25megabit floor the commission uses to define the service.
That was far behind Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island, which all cracked the 90 percent mark for broadband access that year along with Delaware; with New York just missing the threshold more than 10 percent percentage points ahead of Connecticut, despite the challenges presented by rural upstate communities in the Adirondacks region and other rural areas.
At 61 percent coverage for 100megabit broadband, Connecticut was anywhere from 8 to 12 percentage points behind New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Coverage is only one side of the broadband-access equation, with pricing the other. During the pandemic, carriers stepped up in expanding availability for low-cost plans for households during the transition to remote learning, and the Lamont administration coordinated the distribution of laptop computers.
But the cost of broadband remains high, with carriers leaning on that revenue stream more than ever as subscribers dump TV subscriptions in favor of streaming services like Hulu, Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.
Norwalk-based Frontier Communications is currently offering a $35 monthly rate for 25-megabit service, but as part of a promotional pricing package that expires after one year; and with the company’s outlook still cloudy as it finalizes a bankruptcy restructuring.
Altice USA has been touting a
$54 monthly “price for life” service in its Connecticut Optimum territories with speeds of up to a gigabit per second, but the package is subject to additional fees subject to change. The company reported an
11 percent year-over-year increase in average revenue from broadband users during the third quarter, with data consumption up 44 percent from a year ago. In late October, CEO Dexter Goei emphasized the importance of broadband rates as a contributor to Altice USA’s overall profit margins.
“Clearly, the shift here away from video and more focus on broadband,” Goei said. “Broadband upselling and higher broadband [average revenue per user] is going to help accelerate that margin growth — and [is] what we continue to do.”
Upon entering office last year, Gov. Ned Lamont pushed through a new law intended to spur 5G wireless broadband by allowing carriers to install transceivers on state property, with a 5G council convened by Lamont drawing up a list of more than 3,600 locales statewide across the state’s 169 municipalities. They run the gamut from a public toilet at Westport’s Sherwood Island State Park to a horse stable in Avon.
The 5G roll out has sparked opposition in some communities from people wary about having powerful “small cell” transceivers attached to utility poles, on fears the millimeter waves emanating from the devices could imperil health. PURA oversees the attachment of “small cell” transmitters to utility poles.
The Connecticut Siting Council has authority over cell towers, with developers, municipalities and others continuing to seek approval for new mobile towers in Connecticut. Norwalk’s First Taxing District wants a 130-foot monopole on West Rocks Road to offload receivers from a decrepit water tower; and Danbury-based Homeland Towers has applications in the works including one for a “faux tree” tower in New Canaan.
“We believe that 2021 will be kind of the first real move into 5G in earnest — and then it will be a very long investment cycle to get us into true 5G architecture,” said Dan Schlanger, chief financial officer for Crown Castle International which vies with American Tower as the largest network of towers in the nation, speaking in mid-November as part of the New Street 2020 Conference. “Instead of connecting people — which is what all of the other ‘Gs’ have done within the wireless industry — we’re now going to be connecting things.
“That’s a huge difference,” Schlanger added. “You’re going to go from 300 million [or] 350 million people, to billions and billions of things.”
This week, Brookings Institution analysts gave a preview of what Biden’s FCC might tackle immediately, with net neutrality topping the list after the Trump administration allowed broadband carriers to set preferred status for streaming services and other content providers willing to pay the most.
But 5G will be an early focus for the FCC as well, Brookings predicted. Rosenworcel addressed the topic in September at a Washington, D.C. conference, more recently advocating for universal broadband access in a Twitter post this week.
“If we do this right, it could render our smartphones the least interesting thing about the future of wireless technology,” Rosenworcel said in September. “This technology will become an input in everything we do.”