Research

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Universal Service Fund (USF or Fund) has been one of the nation’s most important tools for connecting our nation, including rural communities, low-income families, schools, libraries, and rural health care facilities. However, the funding mechanism that supports the Fund is under significant duress. The “contribution base” – the revenues used to calculate USF contributions – has declined 63% in the last two decades, from $79.9 billion in 2001 to $29.6 billion in 2021.

Pew Research Center released a sweeping report looking at how Americans have used the internet in the pandemic, how reliant they were on digital tools, and some of the struggles they have had as they tried to conduct many of the work-related, educational, social and community activities of their lives online. The headlines from the survey included:

The Technology Policy Institute launched a new broadband map intended to help policymakers and others make evidence-based decisions, including how to best implement, evaluate, and take advantage of new infrastructure programs. Users can customize maps and analyses by data type and source, geographic region, time frame, and more. During the current open beta period, users can register to see the map here and will receive a full access link via email.

LightBox released its nationwide internet connectivity map, showing that nearly 1 in 6 Americans is not connected to the Internet as well as 60 million Americans nationwide. This new map layers the location of approximately two billion Wi-Fi access points on top of LightBox’s national Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric, which details the precise geospatial extent, address(es), occupancy classification, and number of business or dwelling units for structures across the United States.

Speedtest by Ookla analyzed how much internet speeds have increased over the past four years, and which countries have seen some of the largest gains. Major findings include:

Research indicates that people living in rural areas struggle to obtain broadband connections mainly because of the low density of housing. Fewer people living in a community, especially over large swaths of land, translates into higher costs to build and maintain the most common broadband technologies. This white paper on the rural broadband industry was researched and written by Doug Dawson, President of CCG Consulting, a telecommunications consulting firm that works with rural communities and providers.

The radio spectrum that governments license to mobile operators is central to the development of mobile broadband services. However, there is significant variation around how much and when spectrum is assigned, as well as its costs. We assessed whether policies to assign spectrum had an impact on consumer welfare in 64 countries during the 2010–2017 period and found evidence that policies that reduce the amount of spectrum available to operators, delay the assignment of spectrum and increase the cost of spectrum all impacted two important consumer outcomes - network coverage and quality.

58% of respondents across the US, UK and Germany said they encountered more home Wi-Fi issues than before the COVID-19 pandemic, and a remarkable 55% said they had daily issues with their home Wi-Fi. Consumers also strongly prefer their broadband operator take the lead in ensuring a quality Wi-Fi experience, with 80% saying they would rather their broadband subscription included home Wi-Fi networking gear instead of purchasing it themselves through retail. 90% of people said they are using their home Wi-Fi more now than ever, with, at the top end of the scale, almost half of Americans (48%)

The study examines the dangers of government-owned broadband networks and warns that increasing the number of government-operated networks (GONs) would do little to lower their costs or increase broadband subscribership. Specifically, the study highlights the significant historical failures of GONs, and how they have left taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars in government debt and forced consumers to pay higher prices for other municipal utility services to make up for operational losses. Key findings:

Online businesses and platform work can create the impression that the digital economy is ephemeral and placeless. But the digital economy is experienced locally, and its effects are spatial. Measuring them requires better community-level data on economic activities online. While new government data measures broadband subscriptions down to neighborhoods, existing public data do not measure how broadband is used in local communities, and whether this digital activity affects economic outcomes.