A recent U.S. News And World Report survey of U.S. broadband subscribers shows that Americans are increasingly paying more money for broadband access.

The survey also indicates broad public support for the recently defunded Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), and other government-backed efforts to cap soaring broadband subscription costs.

The organization surveyed 2,500 adults from the country’s five most populous states; 500 broadband subscribers each in California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Not too surprisingly, the survey found that consumers consistently are paying more for broadband than the advertised price, either thanks to steady rate hikes, or the broad use of often sneaky, hidden fees to jack up the advertised cost of service.

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Most Americans remain trapped under a monopoly or duopoly for next-generation broadband (broadband defined as faster than 100/20 megabits per second, or Mbps) access. This lack of competition results in high prices, slow speeds, spotty access, substandard customer service, and an increased occurrence of net neutrality, privacy, or other anti-consumer violations.

The survey found the average U.S. subscriber bill at sign up is now $81 – up from the $77 average monthly price seen in the outlet’s April 2024 survey report. But the average broadband subscription cost when the bill actually arrives was now $98 per month; up from $89 just six months earlier. For most, $100 broadband access is right around the corner.

On the most recent episode of the Connect This! Show, the panel was joined by California-based Internet Exchange builder Matt Peterson of SFMIX. Matt has been in the broadband space for many years on the deployment and operations side of the wholesale and peering system, and joined the show today to talk about the need for better, more practical, more forward-thinking middle mile networks across the United States. However the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program (BEAD) ultimately ends up, if we want to see more competition and the most efficient use of public dollars there is no doubt that we will need additional infrastructure connecting those last-mile networks that hook up businesses, residents, and community anchor institutions around the country.

These are the networks that connect our networks back to the larger Internet; they traverse county roads and state highway systems. Some are owned by and exclusive to the largest providers, like AT&T. Others, like Project THOR in Colorado, were collectively built to increase resiliency for the public good, as well as stimulate last-mile retail service in underserved and unserved parts of the country. California is in the midst of multi-billion dollar middle mile endeavor, and a handful of others states are likewise making significant investments. 

So the question is: are we building enough middle mile in the United States, and equally importantly, are we building it correctly? With all sorts of public and private interests involved, and networks that are often measured in the thousands of miles (or tens of thousands of route-miles of fiber), often with public money, it's an important thing to get right.

We wanted to underline the importance of these things by featuring this segment of the show. The panel talks about the consequences of decisions about everything from where these networks are built, how they are funded, transparency and marketing, and the importance of talking to the last-mile operators that will be interconnecting with them. 

Watch Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) with regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting), joined by special guest Matt Peterson (SFMIX) talk about it all below. 

The middle-mile discussion starts at the 36:00 mark.

During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, organizations that had not previously focused on digital inclusion work scrambled to help their communities stay connected as school, healthcare, and other services transitioned online.

OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates (OCA) was one of these organizations, and in advocating for the digital access needs of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs), found that there was not much data documenting connectivity gaps within these communities. The "model minority" myth, which characterizes AANHPIs as one monolithic group, enjoying “uniform high achievement and high income, [and] relatively untouched by racial and ethnic discrimination,” obscures the digital access gaps in many AANHPI communities and has likely contributed to the dearth of research investigating AANHPI connectivity needs.

OCA Broadband Access and Digital Equity Fellow Yen Jeong told ILSR how difficult it has been to challenge the model minority myth: “Every time we say that our communities need more [digital access] support, everyone says that Asian Americans are digitally already very fluent,” Jeong said, adding that the assumption that many AANHPIs have tech jobs makes it especially difficult for OCA to galvanize support for the AANHPI-focused digital inclusion work.

"It’s been really tough to challenge the narrative."  

The assumption that all AANHPIs are connected to the Internet, along with the lack of evidence to break down this assumption, impeded OCA’s efforts to rally support for AANHPIs’ digital access needs, made urgent by the pandemic. Motivated to get all AANHPIs online, OCA launched a major data collection campaign to challenge the model minority narrative and build the foundation for its newest area of advocacy – technology, workforce, and digital inclusion.  

OCA’s Entry to Digital Inclusion

The State of Texas is notorious for pitting communities against one another. This time around, it's the little town versus the big city in the funding arena to improve Internet access.

Last week, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar kicked off his Texas Broadband Listening Tour 2022, scheduled to take place at 12 different locations statewide. The goal of his stakeholder listening tour is to collect feedback for Texas' newly created broadband development office and how the state should spend a once-in-a-generation windfall of federal resources to close the digital divide. Great news for a state the size of Texas with 29 million residents, right? It depends on where you live. The majority of the communities hosting a public forum are smaller communities. Remember the Alamo? Not Heger's office. Dallas and Austin made the list of stops, but San Antonio and Houston, with some of the state's highest populations, didn't make the cut for the tour. 

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Texas has both unserved and underserved communities living on the wrong side of the digital divide. From 8-80 years old, residents and businesses throughout rural, suburban, and urban communities are all harmed by the lack of community broadband infrastructure, unaffordable connectivity services, and digital discrimination.  

We applaud the approach of public officials doing listening tours. However, we are deeply concerned that many states - red and blue - will ignore the needs of urban residents while focusing solely on solutions for rural areas. We laid this out more broadly in a policy brief we published last year. We can ensure everyone has high-quality Internet access, but we need to make sure that is the explicit goal. 

Five small towns in rural Maine are connecting with one another in a steady grassroots effort to expand broadband access in the Midcoast. After conducting a survey which affirmed the towns’ acute need for better connectivity, a local coalition is navigating state funding and weighing network options. 

In Waldo County, a collection of local officials and community volunteers have formed the Southwestern Waldo County Broadband Coalition (SWCBC) to organize efforts to bring broadband to five towns in rural Maine, clustered about 30 miles east of Augusta. Freedom, Liberty, Montville, Palermo and Searsmont combined have only 3,300 houses along 340 miles of road. The need for better Internet access became particularly visible during the pandemic, as local officials tried to convene online for Selectmen’s meetings. Two selectpersons from neighboring towns connected over this shared need for access, and the coalition grew from there. 

Today we launch the Digital Health Story Collection, an opportunity for health care providers and health care users to share experiences with or difficulties accessing telehealth care across the country. Share your story and help us tell policymakers why having access to fast, affordable, and reliable Internet service is critical for health and well-being.  

As we enter 2022 amid a new wave of Covid-19 infections, we are reminded of the critical necessity for all people to have fast, affordable, and reliable Internet service. Such service makes it possible to work and learn remotely, stay connected with friends and family, access vital public health information, and find employment or housing - all critical for maintaining our physical and mental health. Internet access has also enabled many people to access healthcare remotely through telehealth services, ensuring continuity of care while limiting in-person contact and reducing exposure to the coronavirus. 

​​The pandemic triggered a massive expansion of telehealth, but it’s not available to everyone equally. This is partly because not everyone has broadband Internet access. But it’s also because not everyone has the devices, skills, or level of comfort they need to take advantage of Internet access, even if they have it. 

Over 230 communities have applied for National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Broadband Infrastructure Program grants. But community leaders increasingly say they’re facing costly, unnecessary challenges from incumbent broadband providers, who are exploiting unreliable U.S. broadband maps to overstate existing coverage and defend the status quo.

The NTIA’s $288 million grant program - and the looming $42 billion broadband infrastructure investment plan - will help bring affordable broadband to the roughly 20-30 million Americans without broadband, and the 83 million Americans currently living under a broadband monopoly.

In Grafton County, New Hampshire, 39 municipalities are part of a growing list of communities exploring home-grown broadband alternatives. They represent a grassroots movement driven by frustration with market failure that accelerated during the Covid-19 crisis. In response they’ve bonded together to apply for a $26.2 million NTIA grant to improve the region’s substandard broadband.

A Little Something Called Competition

Grafton hopes to use the NTIA funding to provide a middle mile fiber network, making it easier for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to service each municipality and the county’s 90,000 residents. The network will be open access, inviting numerous ISPs to compete over the same shared infrastructure. Studies have repeatedly shown such open access models result in better, cheaper, faster service. 

We've been writing for years that the artificial restrictions put on municipalities that keep communities from solving their connectivity needs with locally owned and operated networks are unpopular with the vast majority of Americans, irrespective of political affiliation. Today, 17 states persist in keeping these barriers in place.

A new survey out from Consumer Reports shows just how out of touch such policies are, and we've been remiss in not pointing it out. The survey, which comes from data collected in Chicago in August of 2021, highlights an array of important statistics.

They include the fact that "nearly a quarter of Americans (24 percent) who have a broadband service at their home say it’s difficult to afford their monthly broadband costs," with "a larger percentage of Black, non-Hispanic (32 percent) and Hispanic (33 percent) Americans than white, non Hispanic Americans (21 percent) say[ing] it’s ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ difficult to afford their monthly Internet [access] costs."

The most recent survey also finds that "43 percent of Americans who have broadband service in their household say they are dissatisfied with the value they get for the money," a testament to the circumstances for tens of millions of households stuck in monopoly territory with no viable options.

What about municipal or community-owned broadband?

Three out of four Americans feel that municipal/community broadband should be allowed because it would ensure that broadband access is treated like other vital infrastructure such as highways, bridges, water systems, and electrical grids, allowing all Americans to have equal access to it.

A larger percentage of Democrats (85 percent) than Independents (74 percent) and Republicans (63 percent) say municipal/community broadband should be allowed.