Sorensen and Riggs said they ended up in broadband leadership positions without a formal background on the issue. (Source: FBA)

De Wit pointed out that both Riggs and Sorensen had run on a platform for getting everyone in their communities connected to broadband. “You have [legislators] who are working actively not just with the providers, but other members of the community, other folks who drive industry in the state,” she said, with agriculture being a prominent voice in the conversations.

“Broadband is one of the great unifiers,” said de Wit in her opening remarks. “It crosses state lines, it crosses party lines and I’m very proud to work on one of the few remaining bipartisan issues left in this country.”  

“The role is pretty broad [for state legislators],” said Sorensen. “Because first and foremost, I’m not an industry expert, I’m a mural painter by training. Just bridging that education gap and making sure we know exactly what we’re talking about. [I’m] leaning heavily on my broadband office. We have a great Chief Information Officer in Iowa. 

“Our role is mostly to get government out of the way when we’re in the way for connecting broadband… In a rural area, it’s so much about connecting that middle mile to the last mile. Where it doesn’t make sense for a lot of the private industry to serve Maw and Paw Jones, three miles down the gravel road, when they’re the only person they’re serving and you’re running fiber for three miles, that’s where the state comes in.”

Like Sorensen, Riggs describes himself as “self-taught” on technology and internet policy. He noted that state legislators are both policymakers and appropriators that are closer to their constituents than Congress. “We hear from them all the time,” he said. “We go back to our districts every weekend, we go into the same grocery stores, we go to the same events. ‘Where’s my internet?’ We hear that mantra a lot. I get it from all over the state because I chair a committee in that jurisdiction for broadband.”

Riggs said that broadband policy is a bi-partisan issue in Missouri, with 25% of the state’s suburbs without good internet, leading to plenty of discussion with all stakeholders. “We communicate constantly back and forth to providers, within the General Assembly, it’s not just the lobbyists, we talk to everybody,” said Riggs. “That’s been a real godsend for us. It’s basically the understanding that we’re all in this together. And the only way to solve this is all together at the same time.”

When Sorensen entered office in 2018, he was a relatively lone voice promoting broadband. “It was pre-COVID,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of push for everybody being connected and that was what I was pushing for. One of the things I ran around saying was, ‘Let’s get everyone in Iowa connected to FCC standard broadband connection or better.’ I had that same [position] with a handful of other legislators coming in, we started a group called the Broadband Bros. We met after caucus and talked about ways that we could further engagement with the lobbyists and the governor and other stakeholders. What we could do as legislators, like I said before, to get out of the way, or to fund or to implement stuff into Iowa code AV, which is what’s set aside for all this, this code and law that focuses on broadband.”

COVID ended up changing the rules and perception of broadband for the state at large. “COVID was a blessing in this industry in the sense that it highlighted how deficient we were not only across Iowa but across the country,” said Sorensen. “It went from me begging to get $5 million in 2020 right before COVID and I was able to get $100 million in 2021. It had people calling me from all over the state, republicans, democrats, the governor, everybody was like, ‘You’ve been bringing this up forever,’ you know, and so you kind of fall backwards into becoming the IT guy. And then the Speaker of the [Iowa] House started a special IT committee specifically for this because we realized how important it is.”

Iowa House Representative Ray Sorensen, II, and Missouri House Representative Louis Riggs explore state broadband policy with Pew Charitable Trusts’ Kathryn de Wit during the State Broadband Summit. (Source: FBA)

Riggs noted he was able to work with the Missouri executive branch and having a similar lightbulb moment with the pandemic. “COVID was good for us in the sense that people understood telemedicine in ways they had never experienced before, the use of online education out of necessity,” he said. “But I go back to something with us, we really need a statewide point person on broadband. Governor Carson was from one of the most rural counties in Missouri, period. He asked what that looks like, he just sat there and shook his head a little bit and said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ And that was easy.”

Within three months after that meeting, Missouri held a massive meeting with over 100 broadband providers and stakeholders. “Everybody behaved themselves, called the meeting, basically sat down and had that ‘Come-to-Jesus’ moment,” Riggs said. “We’re going to do broadband. And we look at it very simply. The only reason you shouldn’t have broadband in Missouri is if you don’t want it. And if you don’t want it, God help you, it’s time to sell the house.” 

Missouri and Riggs view BEAD funding as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide broadband to all the state, requiring an “all hands-on deck approach” with constant communication between the executive and legislative branches of the state government. The Governor expanded the state broadband office from one person to a dozen, including hiring one of the people out of Riggs’ office. 

The $1.7 billion allocated to Missouri, the third highest in the country, “wasn’t an accident,” stated Riggs. “We jumped through all the hoops, we were very robust in our approach. When the speaker appointed an interim committee in 2021, we’d sit down all over the state, we had subject matter hearings, issued a report, which I wrote 26 pages, in which you can actually read. Every one of those recommendations in some way, shape, or form was enacted into law in 2022. All are. We take a very measured approach and we are transparent, everybody understands the nature of the problem, and we basically put our heads together and just figured this thing out.”

Sorenson emphasized that high-speed broadband was essential for attracting jobs and people to the state. “I’m chair of economic development, too,” he said. “It’s a huge economic driver for a state to be like, ‘Come to rural Iowa, because you can work in New York City from a very affordable acreage in Iowa.”

With all the talk about technology, Riggs said the major policy factor that stood out over the last five years was the need for higher broadband speed standards. “We weren’t able to get 100/100 symmetrical,” said Riggs “We tried. Didn’t work. 100/20… They tried to put in 25/3 and to put it in statute. We’ve looked at and said, ‘Why on earth are we spending money to do bad technology?’ They’ve done that before and it didn’t end well. Having said that, we did a victory lap. Our economic development folks have been celebrating what we’re able to do with the first round of funding. Frankly, the providers who are out there doing it are our neighbors, they don’t treat us like colonists, they are not there to extract wealth, or they’re basically to go into places where people don’t go.”

Being a farming state, Iowa is also looking towards the future of agriculture and how broadband will enable it. “We look at it from the last acre standpoint, we’re finally hoping to have that conversation, we’re to that point,” said Riggs. “We know the next generation of farming [equipment] isn’t going to have cabs [for drivers]. It’s all GPS. It may be drone-enabled, it may be a [wireless] tower, we don’t know yet. You’re still working out the bugs in the software, but we know that’s our future so we need to get ahead of that.”

Affordability and sustainability for new broadband connectivity is a concern for both Riggs and Sorensen. “You’ve spent $100,000 to dig to reach these people and then they can’t afford [to connect] to what you’ve just done – it is kind of an upside-down model,” said Sorensen. “It’s pretty self-explanatory. You’ve got to make sure people are connecting the dots.” 

Both representatives are looking forward to the next steps in effectively implementing BEAD funding. “With $1.7 billion on the way, we need to put every last cent to work in Missouri for Missourians, first for unserved and underserved,” said Riggs. “This is our once-in-a-generation opportunity, we get one chance to get it right.”

“I think that’s great, how they put this big box [of funds] and states are able to customize how they’re going to accept it and work with that funding,” said Sorenson. “What’s next is how are we going to spin it and roll it out, making sure your maps are accurate, making sure that all the broadband offices across the country are working in concert with the passion of telecommunications, following all the rules. The big thing for me is like Ronald Reagan said, for the government to say ‘we’re here to help’ sometimes sounds pretty scary. Making sure we get out of the way when we’re in the way and making sure that we’re solving problems.”

Each had a different request to the fiber broadband ecosystem as the panel ended. “Honestly, talk to us,” said Riggs. “The key to good advice is taking it in. The more you inform us, the more we can inform ourselves as policymakers and appropriators. The lines of communication are always open.”  

“My ask is understanding the educational shortfall,” Sorensen stated. “We’re not industry nerds, so we don’t understand every single aspect of the industry. I liken it to my parents thinking I’m an industry wizard because I can turn the iPhone on and off. If I say 100/100 or 25/3 to my parents, I might as well speak Greek.” 

Quarterly Overview

Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Grants 

Initial proposals for BEAD have begun to stream into the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). While we assess these initial Volume One and Volume Two submissions, FBA continues to advocate on critical aspects of these proposals to ensure that all unserved and underserved locations are connected to high-performance, affordable broadband infrastructure, with a preference for fiber. Some of this advocacy includes expanding the Letter of Credit (LOC) requirement, clarifying the application of Build America, Buy America (BABA) provision for fiber, and improving the Extremely High-Cost Threshold.

BEAD Letter of Credit Requirement

FBA sent NTIA a letter requesting that they reconsider the irrevocable standby Letter of Credit (LOC) requirement for subgrantees receiving support under BEAD. Many FBA members will face challenges raising the collateral to meet this requirement and it will likely cause providers to divert capital away from fiber deployment. FBA supports assuring that all parties have the financial capabilities to complete projects, but the proposed goes beyond what is necessary to achieve that goal. We are most concerned that requiring a LOC will minimize competition and participation in the BEAD program ultimately disadvantaging communities and their residents.

Build America, Buy America (BABA)

On August 22nd, NTIA issued a proposed waiver for the BABA requirements. FBA and our members reviewed the waiver and submitted comments to NTIA about it. The proposed waiver is broken down into three parts, addressing optical fiber and fiber optic cable (considered construction materials), electronics, and enclosures (both categories considered manufactured materials). FBA has weighed in with recommendations on all three of these areas and our members have submitted their own individual comments. Our proposals included a limited waiver – “for non-optic-glass inputs (e.g., an overclad cylinder) to preforms used to manufacture optical fiber and fiber optic cable in BEAD program projects.” This need is due to supply chain concerns at peak building times. We also suggested the waiver include a more precise definition of the “covered” electronics or clarification of the scope of the waiver. We recommended the Commerce Department issue a more expansive nonavailability waiver for enclosures. Should Commerce decide not to adopt such a general waiver for all enclosures, FBA proposed that the Department provide a limited waiver that permits multiple options for achieving compliance. All submitted comments are currently being reviewed by NTIA.

BEAD Threshold Financial Model

FBA, in partnership with research firm Cartesian, unveiled a financial model in August 2023 that helps states calculate their extremely high-cost per location threshold (EHCT) for fiber broadband deployments using their BEAD funding. The sophisticated tool leverages geospatial analysis to build a financial model that states can use to develop their own cost thresholds for fiber deployments. NTIA’s BEAD Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) directed states to expend program funds for all-fiber deployments except in the highest-cost areas, where alternative broadband technologies can be used. Importantly, no single EHCT threshold will universally meet program goals for each state’s specific allocations because the economics of deploying broadband technologies vary greatly across the country. 

The model allows states to test various inputs and visualize the implications of different thresholds. It considers the extent of fiber coverage, the extent of alternative broadband technology coverage, and whether any funds remain. What is most valuable about this model, is that there are many ways to calculate a cost per location and to maximize fiber coverage for the greatest population while still ensuring universal connectivity.

Broadband Infrastructure Playbook 3.0

In August, FBA in partnership with NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association and Cartesian, launched a series of new modules for FBA’s Broadband Infrastructure Playbook. These modules were developed to further assist state broadband offices in their ongoing development of BEAD infrastructure funding administered by NTIA. FBA published “Playbook 3.0” modules on the following topics: Permitting, Extremely High-Cost Threshold, Challenge Process, and Cybersecurity/Supply Chain. These Playbook 3.0 modules are fundamental to key elements of each state’s BEAD funding implementation plan, and a resource to ensure that each state broadband office gets these critical policy elements right. Additionally, this group hosted a webinar on these important topics in mid-October that may still be viewed on the FBA website.

A Full FCC

In September, Anna Gomez was confirmed to be an FCC Commissioner, bringing the Commission to full capacity. Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks were both also reconfirmed for additional five-year terms. FBA supports the confirmation of all three nominees. The U.S. remains in the midst of an enormous investment cycle to bring high-performance broadband service, especially fiber connectivity, to every household, business, and anchor institution, as well as to support 5G/6G, smart cities and grids, and other advanced technologies and applications. A full complement of FCC Commissioners will be critical to ensure a functional and effective regulatory landscape.

Title II Reform

In early October, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. The NPRM was voted on and adopted at the October 19th FCC Open Meeting by a 3-2 vote. There will be a 60-day initial comment period and FBA will participate in this comment process. FBA has always and continues to maintain that there must be a measured approach to regulation in this space, ensuring that the market is able to function in order to continue extensive investment and deployment of our nation’s critical fiber broadband infrastructure, as well as affordable connectivity for all Americans.

Under the Dome

In September, the federal government avoided a shutdown at the 11th hour by passing a stopgap bill that was signed into law by President Biden just before the expiration of current appropriations. At the time of this column being drafted, uncertainty is the theme of this Congress and that shows no prospect of abating. 

Rural Broadband

The House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee held a hearing on rural broadband and broadband funding on September 21, 2023. FBA submitted a letter for the record to voice our support for increased coordination and funding for broadband deployment and adoption programs to ensure unserved and underserved locations in all areas, including rural communities, have access to high-quality and affordable fiber broadband services.

Permitting Legislation

In September, Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) introduced the CLOSE THE GAP Act. This bipartisan bill brings solutions to the table that will contribute to long-needed reforms to help streamline permitting and facilitate fiber broadband deployment. FBA fully supports this legislation and hopes to see similar solutions introduced in the House and ultimately enacted into law.

Fiber Broadband Association Public Policy Leadership

The FBA Public Policy Committee is led by co-chairs Chris Champion, Vice President, Government Affairs, C Spire; and Jordan Gross, Manager of Federal Government Affairs, Corning. Ariane Schaffer, Government & Public Policy, Google Fiber, is the FBA Board Liaison. If your company is interested in joining the public policy committee, please email mmitrovich@fiberbroadband.org to join.

“The Status of U.S. Broadband” annual report is built on consumer research, with the study focusing on internet use among U.S. online customers. The 2023 edition, conducted in May 2023, had a sample size of 4,000 households. Mike Render, Founder and CEO of RVA, presented findings from the study on the October 11, 2023, episode of FBA’s Fiber for Breakfast podcast.

“People see broadband or high-quality internet as extremely important in their lives and increasing over time,” said Render. Overall interest in broadband has gone up from 60% to 75% since 2019, when the first RVA consumer survey was conducted.  

The survey asked households to indicate their interest in potential broadband applications, ranging from medical and safety to using VR to work remotely. Individuals highly valued high-speed broadband to provide access to medical care (71%), independent living for seniors (70%), and home safety (69%) among the highest applications, with more exotic uses such as being able to inhabit and socialize with a remote Avatar-esque robot cited by more than a third of the respondents surveyed. 

Clean Clothes and Broadband

RVA examined the relationship between reliable high-speed broadband and other amenities sought in single family homes and apartments and came up with some interesting results. “We ask people every few years about what’s important when you buy a house,” said Render. “The laundry room always comes out number one, very high-speed broadband is number two. Broadband beats hardwood floors, a great kitchen with granite countertops, and all those other things.” The laundry room came in at 69% while broadband rated very important at 65%.

The exact same results emerged in the multiple dwelling units (MDU) space of apartments and condominiums, with an in-unit washer and dryer being the number one feature most desired and high-speed broadband coming in second. “It’s more important than good parking, soundproof walls, storage space,” said Render, with the in-unit washer/dryer at 59% while broadband was ranked at 52%. 

Fiber’s Gains in 2023

Over the last two years, fiber has gained a net change of 15% over other types of broadband connections in operation as consumers change their providers, while cable modem took a net 14% decrease in usage between the gains of fiber and fixed wireless, a point Render said was more evidence of fiber’s gains since the media is only available in less than half the country.

Overall, fiber holds a 23% market share, compared to cable’s 47%, with other types such as wireless and satellite at 17% and DSL at the bottom with 13%. “You can see over time as fiber continues to grow in market share, cable is starting to dip.” 

While fiber is gaining in market share, it is also providing gains in value to the housing market.
“For single-family homes, you’re adding almost 5%, which is the highest number we’ve seen,” said Render. “People are seeing it is important and they’re willing to pay some extra price for fiber.” MDU condo owners receive 3.2% additional value by having fiber available while renters will pay nearly 13% more for units that have fiber broadband.

Fiber is perceived to be the best delivery method for broadband, according to the survey. “Sixty-three percent, nearly two-thirds of everyone says fiber is the best, with cable second and fixed wireless third,” stated Render. “Fiber’s mindshare has never been higher. We know this from the greatest movement to fiber during broadband churn. We know it from the real estate premiums that we saw and the greatest percentage calling fiber best, so the consumer is getting it. This matters because the market share move to fiber will probably be faster and deeper than most expect.”

Render expects the fiber shift to happen more rapidly than most predict due to the increasing number of public and private fiber networks being built over the next five years. “Service providers are anecdotally telling us that they’ve never seen getting to their first 20% uptake rates faster than it’s happening currently. So we expect that the sheer take was going to happen fairly quickly.”

The growth in fiber leaves cable companies dependent upon legacy coax plants and vulnerable, with the lagging deployment of DOCSIS 4.0 only expected to start later this year or early next year insufficient to counter the surge. “It will be a next step in their case to try again, to move fiber deeper in many cases, but it’s still coax for the last leg. It improves the upload speed and reliability somewhat, but it probably is not going to be sufficient.”

Render said that cable companies simply advertising gigabit speeds is not enough to get past fiber’s reputation of speed, reliability, and latency, leading many operators to transition over for cost savings and competitive reasons. “I’m going to have fiber from Cox, so you know cable companies are getting into the game, but for the biggest ones, it’s hard for them,” said Render. “They’re steadfastly trying to hold to coax as long as they can, but I think it’s going to be more difficult than they think.” Fiber may pass cable’s U.S. market share within the next seven to ten years, Render speculated, but RVA will have to conduct some more research to be confident of that timeframe. 

Building new broadband access networks with anything other than fiber “with rare exceptions” using government funding is “irresponsible,” stated Render. “There are mountaintops and so forth out there, so there’s a reason to get fiber closer, but not all the way. But generally, the public gets it that it’s important if we’re spending government money. We want to spend to build something that’s going to last. When the Rural Electrification Administration came with funding to do electricity, there were options of putting in a pretty windmill that would cost less. It would have powered light in a room and maybe a radio, but it certainly wouldn’t have handled everything that came out over the next 80 years. They were smart to go all the way to the best solution.”

“When fiber leads, the future follows. Our PoC Showcase is a great example of the capabilities that fiber can deliver and the markets that fiber will disrupt next,” said Gary Bolton, President and CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association. “These PoCs are an exciting representation of our members’ ability to redefine what is possible when fiber is the enabling infrastructure that allows any industry, business, or market to go further, faster.”

Three POCs won awards for being the most innovative, best community, and game-changer solutions presented at the show.

Most Innovative Award   
“Multi-Vendor Middle Mile Use Cases Enhancing PON Infrastructure via Infinera’s XR Optics Point-To-Multipoint, Automated by netFLEX®,” presented by Infinera and LightRiver. 

The two companies showcased a multi-vendor FTTX PON network implemented with a 400G DWDM Middle Mile point-to-multipoint solution from the router to the OLT, illustrating how service providers can mix and match various network elements while using advanced network intelligence to discover, monitor, and troubleshoot them as needed.

Infinera and LightRiver accepted the award for Most Innovative PoC.

Best Community Impact Award 
“Get Ready for The Next Generation of Applications by Deploying a Disruptive Broadband Architecture” presented by Ciena.

This PoC explored how service providers can rethink their network architectural approach, leveraging disaggregation and virtualization, to push network access closer to the user to deliver and scale capacity where needed. Featuring contributions from Plume and Heights Telecom, Ciena demonstrated how it can provide end-to-end services from the network core to the edge while working with third-party solutions to deliver the best customer experience.

Ciena won the Best Community Impact Award for its PoC demonstration at Fiber Connect 2023.

Game Changer Award 
“Superior Network Performance – Every Way You Slice It” presented by Nokia. 

Nokia’s PoC explored how operators can guarantee quality of service with complete granularity across the network from the IP core to a user appliance in the home. With this level of control, operators can use their fiber network for anything and generate new revenues with guaranteed performance for any service type.

Nokia’s PoC demonstration at Fiber Connect 2023 won the Game Changer Award.

Additional PoCs presented at Fiber Connect 2023 included: 

“Digital 3D Georeferenced Fiber Network Roll-Out Management and Documentation,” presented by DeepUp. 

“Enhancing the Customer Experience and Streamlining Operations with Cloud-Based Provisioning, Billing, and Orchestration,” presented by Ting Internet and Wavelo.

“Leveraging Fiber to Efficiently Capture Small Businesses in Your Markets,” presented by Calix.

“Enhancing Fiber Reach with Ultra-High Capacity mmW Radios at Network Edge,” presented by Ceragon. 

All PoC demonstrations were evaluated live at Fiber Connect 2023 by industry analysts examining the merits of the presentations. 

“We really wanted to go to a place where we can make the biggest impact,” said Rod Hanson, co-founder and CEO of Cityside Fiber. “About 85% of South Orange County currently has no fiber and has only one choice for high-speed internet. We feel like this is where we can make a big impact.”

Hanson and his team looked at competitive network opportunities across the country but kept returning to their home territory since they were familiar with the demographic and regulatory landscape. Cityside Fiber looked at operating as a wholesale open access provider but found problems with the business model and finding qualified ISPs before settling on a retail offering with the ability to lease dark fiber to business customers.

After refining its business plan, obtaining a CPCN license from the state to become a regulated telecommunications carrier, and securing full funding from SDC Capital Partners in February 2023, the company started construction of its fiber network in May. Today, Cityside has its core network turned up and passes an initial 1,200 homes with great expectations for the years to come. 

“We’ve identified in our target market around 250,000 homes passed that are available to us, that’s our long-term plan,” said Hanson. “Over the next five years, we’re looking primarily at South Orange County. We see it as a great market for us. We know the market very, very well and like much of America, there’s very little fiber here.”

Eighty percent of Cityside’s fiber will be underground with the other 20 percent going on aerial as needed. The XGS-PON network will offer residential speeds of 1 Gbps, 2 Gbps, and 5 Gbps delivered using Calix CPE and cloud services, including a managed Wi-Fi offering. A video “partnership” is being developed, but the company would like to direct people to available streaming options in the near-term. 

“We anticipate at some point we’ll be adding additional features,” said Hanson. “Right now, we’re focused on just getting the infrastructure in place and delivering great broadband and a great experience. Our biggest focus point, honestly, is customer experience, because we think anybody can come in and utilize XGS-PON and provide speeds. One of the biggest differentiators that we have is that the customer experience is our key focus.”

Along with its residential offerings, Cityside is targeting small and medium-sized businesses. “We do anticipate at some point we will have an enterprise offering as well,” said Hanson. “And the network is being developed and deployed to support other use cases. There is a layer of dark fiber that we’re deploying that will support [5G] small cells and fiber to the cell We’re very aware of the opportunities that are there and we’re making the investment to make sure that we’re well positioned to do that.” 

Hanson sees more opportunities for private sector investment in urban areas. “Orange County’s not unique,” he said. “The need for fiber is everywhere. If you look across the country, dense suburban markets are in the same boat. It’s great that we have federal dollars going to those areas that are unserved or underserved. But it should be private money going after the areas where there’s a good economic case to be made to go today.”

Fiber plays a key role in supporting NASA’s enterprise and launch operations at both spaceports, as well as the hundreds of contractors and a steadily growing number of commercial spaceflight companies working with the agency to put people and things into orbit at competitive prices. Kennedy and Wallops are economic engines creating jobs and massive amounts of data that require resilient high-speed broadband for safety and science.

Kennedy Space Center is a multi-user spaceport supporting tens of thousands of jobs. Source: NASA

From Balloons to the Moon 

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) was established in 1945 – over two decades before Kennedy was officially commissioned– and does a lot of things, including conducting research using aircraft, balloons, and suborbital sounding rockets; developing small spacecraft; operating NASA’s only research airport; providing launch and orbital support for NASA spacecraft; conducting Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) testing and operations; and partnering with Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) for the launch of orbital vehicles. Since its founding, there have been over 16,000 launches from the pads on Virgina’s Eastern Shore, ranging from short-hop suborbital sounding rockets, early testing of Mercury capsules before the first astronauts were launched from Florida, and a probe to the Moon. 

WFF is made up of three distinct parcels of land. The airfield and the surrounding base are north of Wallops Island proper and the mainland plot east of the island anchoring the causeway between it and the island. “We’ve got a lot of tenants here,” said Ted Schultz, Service Area Lead, Facility Unique and Specialized Engineering Group (FUSE), WFF. “The rockets are only a small part it. The Navy has its facilities on the island. We’re part of the ground tracking station for the Deep Space Network, the TDRS satellite constellation– we’ve got 24×7 operations here.” 

NASA’s Wallops Island, Virginia is the primary launch facility for Northop Grumman’s Antares rocket for its supply missions to the International Space Station. Source: Doug Mohney

WFF has two diverse 10 Gbps fiber connections to NASA and the rest of the world. Its northbound connection goes through Maryland across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and connects to the NASA network in the Washington, D.C., area. The southbound connection goes through Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband Authority (ESVBA) fiber and its route along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, landing in Norfolk where it goes through commercial services to connect with NASA’s network at the Marshall Space Flight Center to Huntsville, Alabama. 

“We’ve done a whole lot of work over the last 10 years to ensure that that we have geographic diversity for NASA and our tenants,” said Schultz. “We have four different cables to the island itself. About 25 years ago, they laid a fiber optic cable into the marsh. That cable was damaged a couple of times by dredging operations in the area. A year and a half ago, we put in a new 864 strand cable going across the marsh that was directionally drilled underneath for better protection.”

On the island itself, there are multiple launch pads leased by MARS and operated by different organizations for orbital missions, including a large facility for Northop Grumman’s Antares, a smaller pad for Rocket Lab’s Electron next to it, and further south, a barebones concrete pad and gantry for Northop Grumman’s Minotaur. To the north, Northop Grumman has a building where it assembles its Antares rocket with the Cygnus cargo freighter for ISS resupply and the Navy’s Surface Combat Systems Center operates an AEGIS training facility. Under construction south of the Minotaur pad, is a new launch pad, landing pad, and barge dock for Rocket Lab’s larger Neutron rocket, a reusable vehicle that will be built just outside of the mainland entrance to Wallops and is expected to have its first flight in 2025. 

There are four distributed communication hubs with redundant fiber routes to each one along the length of the island, enabling NASA to operate its own network and provide dark fiber to everyone that needs it. “Without dark fiber for our tenants and our partners to interconnect and share data, we’d be completely lost,” said Schultz. “You’ve got a lot of different organizations that have different roles and responsibilities.” For example, MARS uses NASA dark fiber to connect its network of IP video cameras monitoring the launch sites across the island while Northop Grumman maintains communications with its Antares rocket assembly facility on different strands. 

Resilience and redundancy are always in the discussion when WFF pulls fiber since accidents occasionally happen with dramatic effects. The Cygnus Orb-3 launch on October 28, 2014, exploded seconds after liftoff, showering the island with burning fuel and shredded rocket debris. “We used to use an above ground cable tray,” said Schultz. “It could have been a bad day if that vehicle had landed on one. All our cabling on the island was moved underground through our duct system after that.” 

The Big Show at KSC

Since 1968, the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Merritt Island, Florida, has been NASA’s primary launch center of human spaceflight, where the Space Shuttle flew from for decades, and the place where people traveled to the Moon and will do so again in the future. KSC sits adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and its line of launch pads used for commercial and national security operations.

Since the retirement of the Shuttle program in 2011, KSC has transitioned from a NASA-only facility to a multi-user spaceport supporting more than 90 private-sector partners and nearly 13,000 people in the 700 buildings and facilities spread across 144,000 acres. Upgrading KSC over the past decade to support commercial activities as well as to address the burden of legacy telecom media has been a long and ongoing process, with fiber playing a key role in providing more reliable and resilient communications less impacted by lightning and other weather events. 

“We would be in a world of hurt if we didn’t have fiber, because the number of bits we’re required to supply would just not have been feasible,” said George Dutt, Center Mission Integration Lead, Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), NASA. “Our legacy infrastructure was totally inadequate. We started with a copper infrastructure and transitioning over to fiber helped us out tremendously. We have a lot of legacy infrastructure which was originally designed by the Army Corps of Engineers back in the early ‘60s. Our main infrastructure is underground. We have no aerial presence at all, because of the lightning and moving things on roads. It basically consists of orange ducts encased in concrete with manholes spaced around 700 feet apart. We installed our first fiber optics cable around the mid-80s, a mixed cable of multimode and single mode. Eventually we graduated into being just a single mode outside plant facility.” 

Switching over to fiber has enabled KSC to repurpose its legacy telecom infrastructure, removing large copper cables out of four-inch ducts and filling it full of innerducts to get very high capacity and routing diversity. There are about 800 route miles of fiber across the campus, with the minimal installation a 72-strand cable and the largest at 432 strands, “because more seems ridiculous at this point,” commented John Wolff, Outside Cable Plant Design Engineer, KSC. 

The KSC campus operates a number of 100 Gbps optical rings to provide wide area connectivity around the facility with 10 Gbps connections going into facilities and 10 Gbps copper connectivity available to the desktop. Depending on their requirements, on-campus users outside of NASA, such as contractors and commercial launch operators, may request anything from dark fiber to simply plugging into the local Ethernet port, with dark fiber connected at a demark point to a commercial carrier leaving the facility as needed. Video cameras providing launch coverage are connected using a variety of media. Newer 4K high-definition cameras are on fiber, while legacy ones remain on coax.

While KSC has steadily removed copper from the physical infrastructure, it hasn’t been fully eliminated. “It’s not used very much, but there are a lot of legacy circuits,” said Dutt. “We’re talking circuits that go back 30 to 40 years that just never transitioned off copper. The amount of copper [in use] has shrunk tremendously. If you go into our central office, and you look at the main distribution frame there for copper, it’s shrunk down to maybe one-tenths the space, because we’ve gotten rid of all the copper.”

A significant chunk of legacy infrastructure was removed when KSC transitioned to VoIP, a decade-long migration completed in 2021, but some equipment will remain on copper because of its age, such as weather instrumentation and other sensors. “Some of this copper will stay that way forever. I can give you an example to visualize,” said Wolff. “Say there’s weather instrumentation 40 yards into a field. That’s 40 yards of buried copper cable back to the nearest point where it would be converted back to fiber. The possibility of that ever getting changed is really slim for outlying reporting of that type because it’s expensive to go trench and add another 40 yards of buried innerduct for the fiber and they still have to have power to convert it back over at its equipment.” 

Trenching and new construction also requires various permits, depending on where construction takes place, since Merritt Island is a National Wildlife Refuge and various sites at KSC are of historic importance. “All the digging operations out at KSC have to go through a site plan, an Environmental Impact Statement, and Habitat approval and locates before they can start digging,” said Wolff.

While there are no squirrels to chew on fiber and field crews must keep an eye out for the occasional alligator that they may stumble onto, there are other animals which cause problems. “Rodents can cause a disruption, but it’s rare. About two decades ago, we had some endangered beach mice that got into one of the pad comm rooms and ate some of the fiber cable under the floor,” said Wolff. “They had to be collected. They couldn’t be exterminated, because they’re endangered so they had to trap them and get them out of the bed.”

“The Middle Mile program is a force multiplier in our efforts to connect everyone in America,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communication and Information Alan Davidson in a press release announcing the awards. “Middle mile infrastructure brings capacity to our local networks and lowers the cost for deploying future local networks. These grants will help build the foundation of networks that will, in turn, connect every home in the country to affordable, reliable high-speed internet service.”

NTIA’s new middle mile grants will deploy 12,000 miles of new fiber that will pass within 1,000 feet of 6,961 community anchor institutions, with awards investing an additional $848 million of outside matching into the projects, according to the agency’s press release announcing the awards. The 36 awards range from $2.7 million to $88.8 million with an average award amount of $26.6 million. 

Colorado is one of many states looking to leverage NTIA funding to expand middle mile broadband infrastructure. Source: Adobe

It’s a lot of money to be sure, but with over 260 applications submitted last year and totaling $7.47 billion in funding requests, there is still significant need and demand for additional resources to build out middle mile projects. At Fiber Connect 2023, several organizations involved with applying for NTIA middle mile grants discussed their experiences on the “Middle Mile Grants – How to Take Middle Mile Further” panel held on Sunday, August 20, 2023. Participants included Josh Leonard, Broadband Business Lead, Burns & McDonnell; Dennis Pappas, Director – Fiber Network, NextLight of Colorado; and Travis Ralls, Principal Account Manager, Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) in Texas. 

“We did not get cash,” said Pappas. “We asked for $4.7 million. We were going to edge out our network into Hygiene, Colorado, which is an agricultural area west of Longmont. There’s also some land that was recently annexed by the city of Longmont that has existing homes that don’t meet the FCC minimum requirements for broadband. We planned to add two huts off our existing network and place the splitter cabinets there.”

NextLight’s grant application offered to provide 30% of the project in cash and in-kind services and do the build within 48 months. During the debrief, Pappas was told by NTIA that they would have received extra scoring points if NextLight had offered to put in up to 50% and do the build in two years. “I don’t know if that was the tipping point,” Pappas stated. “They wouldn’t give you any sense of how you scored against the other applicants. It was those different nuances in there that were considered, but not stated, that we missed out on. That was probably the biggest ‘Ah ha’ for me.”

Leonard, who assisted Lower Colorado River Authority and several other organizations in applying for NTIA grant monies, sat in on several post-application reviews and agreed with Pappas. “I was taken by surprise a little bit by the comments about the match as well, because there wasn’t specific guidance about that,” said Leonard. “They didn’t say they would give preference to a 50% or more match. If you’re a commercial entity that’s been doing this a long time and you know how to get the lion’s share of the money, you just come in with that.”

Ralls felt the NTIA evaluation of matching funds was less about specific percentages and more about moving goalposts. “What we saw through the NTIA debrief is that there’s a look of a moving target,” said Ralls. “We thought the target was X. We debrief and we find out we should have matched more. In our case, we’re matching about 36% to 37% of a $42 million total. The next thing we heard is ‘Why don’t you tell us about your latency?’ I think if you were to bring down your latency, then you had a better chance of getting this grant. Where did that come from? We know how to build networks, we understand latency, but we didn’t know that there was a requirement to put in latency in our application.”

Leonard believed NTIA had done well in rewarding partnerships with utilities and ISPs, due to the synergistic benefits of working with utilities. “If you follow the power, the money will go a lot further,” said Leonard. “An average state has at least 10 or more co-ops that cover that state and that rural territory. Why wouldn’t it make sense if we invested all this money for us to do [broadband networks] like we did the electrical grid 80 years ago? I would encourage statewide cooperation, as much as possible, find your like interests. In the long term, I would argue, we’re very much the same in terms of what we need to develop our communities.”

Leonard said utilities should be more forward thinking in terms of their make-ready access and future building, especially since the distribution grid and supporting infrastructure poles has anywhere from 60% to 80% of its expected lifespan gone and utility poles that are 60 years or older. Utilities may have more qualified money to put into projects than they initially realize if they apply modernization funds. 

“What does that mean?” said Leonard. “Think about your own long range infrastructure plan. We have a grid replacement coming. We also have smart grid, two-way energy distributed energy from a power plant to individuals, energy battery storage is coming in electrical vehicles. Fiber just happens to be the first thing that money is available for and everybody’s talking about. What we learned is NTIA’s grant requirements didn’t say 50% [match]. But 50% clearly made a difference.”

Ralls cited the need to bring in more third-party support from the community as another point LCRA would work on. “We didn’t look at getting all the stakeholders involved,” he said. “We had 20 plus support letters, but that wasn’t good enough. We needed to show how we were going to use these partners, how we were going to have a community that was involved. If we had all together wrote one joint letter that we were going to work together, I think that would have helped and we didn’t know we needed to do that.”

Leonard felt, if anything, NTIA didn’t take as much consideration into multiple stakeholders working together while Lower Colorado River did an excellent job of reaching out to and gathering support from local communities and organizations. “If they’re doing that, why was that not getting a preference?” he wondered. “On the debrief, it was literally verbatim said it was not given preference. And that blew me away.”

Another area where NTIA seemed to have less interest was in the previous operational successes of grant applications. Both Pappas and Ralls felt there should have been preference given to organizations which had solid and documented business track records over those who had, “floundered for years and years and haven’t returned money on that investment yet,” Pappas said. “You know, we’ve built the electrical network and connected almost 27,000 customers. From the revenues we generate, we reinvest into the network.” 

“We’ve been in operation for 80 plus years,” said Ralls. “We provide and generate electricity in the state of Texas. We don’t get any funding from the state but as a subdivision we abide by the rules of the state government. A company that’s been in business for 80 years should probably get some bonus points.”

NTIA Middle Mile Grant Process – An End or a Beginning?

All the panelists saw the end of the NTIA grant process as an experience, providing an opportunity for their respective organizations to refine and apply their work towards other funding programs and mechanisms to secure middle mile funding. “Our plan is to try to go for some dollars through the BEAD process,” said Pappas. “We’ll take what we put together on the middle mile application, because that includes both middle mile and last mile and we’ll just build off that. We took pretty good notes from the [grant application] debrief and there’s a recording as well. We’ll listen to the recording when we get back [from Fiber Connect] and figure out what we can do better the next time around.” He said they would also have money to expand their middle-mile infrastructure through revenues from their current broadband customers, albeit at a slower, more measured pace of expansion. 

Ralls said LCRA, as a sole middle mile provider without any last mile mission, as dictated by the Texas legislature, would team with rural communities in its region on BEAD projects. “We’re planning to work with partners that want to go into certain areas,” Ralls stated. “We think we can help out as a transport or middle-mile provider. We’re still trying to figure out if we become a sub-applicant or however that’s going to work.” 

In addition, Ralls said the citizens of Texas this fall will vote on a constitutional amendment to create a $1.5 billion Broadband Infrastructure Fund that would be funded by part of the state’s current budget surplus, creating more state funding that LCRA could access. “It will have different rules than the NTIA programs,” he said. “It will shore up some funding and enable us to grow our network. We believe we’ll have a great opportunity.”

While LCRA and NextLight didn’t see their organizations tapping into private capital, Leonard said there would be some opportunities for service providers and utilities to do so. “There are infrastructure investors, large investors that are coming up with business models where they say we want to help you modernize your community, but they’re looking at the total perspective of the modern infrastructure, not just your broadband project,” he stated. “They’ll do it on 30-year terms and better than bank [interest] rates. It’s a lease on one side for the infrastructure owner. It usually doesn’t require a bond or a tax.”

Enabling such an arrangement wouldn’t be likely for a single rural public utility, but a group of them would be attractive to some types of private equity arrangements. “If you’ve partnered with your neighbors who have some population density, they’ll treat you as a pool of assets rather than an individual asset, just like owning a diversified EFT in the stock market vs just owning Apple. If you can get a partnership together of multiple communities, it becomes very attractive as a solution,” Leonard stated.

“Anyone would be on pretty solid ground for arguing that fiber is the right way to go if you’re building a brand new network,” said Paul Connolly, Telecom and Networks Practice Leader, Entropy, Inc. “There’s no question for unlimited bandwidth, simplicity in electronics, cheap operation, etc. But we’re in this transition where much of the entire country has hybrid fiber coax in the ground. We have to understand from a cost point of view, do we think that we’re going to rebuild the entire network with fiber and if so, when? That’s the real issue.”

Charter Communications, Comcast, and Cox have tens of millions of homes served with HFC networks that are dependent upon coax cable to connect the customer at the edge of the network. Replacing the coax cable with fiber would be a significant expense that Connolly estimates could run $1,500 per household just to put fiber to the curb with another $700 to connect up the customer.

Multiplied by tens of millions of households, these companies would have to commit billions of dollars to convert their existing HFC customers to all-fiber networks. In comparison, upgrading customers to DOCSIS 4.0 would only cost a few hundred dollars per household and provide speeds between 2 Gbps and 10 Gbps downlink with 1 Gbps to 6 Gbps uplink speeds, depending on what technologies the carrier uses to implement the upgrades.

“The whole point here is to leverage the existing network that’s out there,” said Connolly. “You’re not doing a brand new design for greenfield, you’re trying to figure out, ‘How can I put more functionality into the asset that I’ve already [built] and protect the business?’”

Comcast is starting its first DOCSIS 4.0 build in Fort Collins, Colorado, and intends to add Atlanta and Philadelphia in the very near future. Ultimately, Comcast plans to upgrade 50 million households to 10 Gbps/6 Gbps service with the build completed by the end of 2025 at an estimated cost of less than $200 per household, while Charter plans to upgrade its entire 56 million homes passed footprint by the end of 2025, with different markets being upgraded between 2/1 Gbps to 10/1 Gbps tiers at an average cost of $100 per household.

“They would say if we overbuilt ourselves [with fiber], we’d spend $1,500 per premise,” Connolly said. “But we’re going to upgrade to multi-gig capabilities at $100 [per premise with DOCSIS 4.0].”

To learn more about Big Cable’s thinking on DOCSIS 4.0 and competing with all-fiber networks, watch the latest Fiber For Breakfast.

https://soundcloud.com/user-491717682/ffb-episode-148-competitive-broadband-in-the-multi-gig-world-dont-count-cable-out?si=06293722981e44acb1e1421ecbebedab&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Mickesh told a story about an employee that met a new acquaintance at a restaurant while waiting for drinks. “Our employee asked her, ‘what do you do for work?’ She said, ‘I’m a grant writer, but I just lost my job.’ They exchanged contact information. A week later, we hired her. We are all recruiters and talent is everywhere,” Mickesh said.

With an unprecedented influx of broadband funding sweeping across the U.S., the industry finds itself amid a wealth of opportunities. The flip side of this reveals challenges in sourcing, recruiting, and retaining the right workforce. Of course, a well-developed talent strategy is the best way to overcome workforce challenges.

Mickesh stated that, “In order for us all to take advantage of funding, we need to be sure that we’re prepared. We have to get more creative and more proactive, and really engage people in different ways to get different results.”

At the foundation, Mickesh suggests that a talent strategy should not only align with your business strategy and objectives, but it needs to play an integral role in the overall strategy. She underscored that while recruitment is a big part of any talent strategy, there are other elements that are crucial to successfully building and retaining a workforce, including equity, employee engagement, career growth and development, and organizational culture.

For the fiber broadband industry specifically, Mickesh offered that talent acquisition could be boosted by both internal and external incentives. She explained, “People know good people. We incentivize our employees to help us find great talent.” Externally, being creative in how a business structures its hiring offers can be helpful. “First and foremost, get good market data and make sure that you’re paying in a way that is attractive, but there are lots of ways to structure offers by understanding what is most important to candidates,” she added. This could include PTO packages or bonuses attached to hiring and/or performance.

It is also important to consider key partners, Mickesh added. “It might be industry or professional organizations, academic institutions, or other types of organizations that might be great resources of talent or great sources to provide deployment to your employees.”

The Fiber Broadband Association is a key partner in fiber technician workforce development, helping train technicians with its Optical Telecom Installer Certification (OpTIC Path) program and working with partners to fill open positions. FBA is currently engaged with 39 U.S. states, 40 service providers, and 67 community colleges and training institutions to deliver OpTIC Path.

To learn more about these workforce development tips, tune into the latest Fiber for Breakfast podcast.

https://soundcloud.com/user-491717682/ffb-episode-147-the-broadband-boom-meeting-talent-challenges-with-success?si=92a467d3913442fbba8f69592d1b1d6f&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

One organization leveraging the TBCP is the Choctaw Nation. “We cover about 10 and a half counties throughout southeastern Oklahoma, which is close to the size of Massachusetts,” said Robert Griffin, Tribal Broadband coordinator, The Choctaw Nation Government Division. “There’s approximately 250,000 in population in that area, where about a third is comprised of Choctaw members.”

Lack of broadband and job opportunity is leading to a voluntary migration of the area’s youth. “They might attend a university locally, but once the youth of the rural Oklahoma area leave, they have a hard time coming back,” said Griffin. “With the building of fiber broadband into those areas, we’re confident based on statistics we’ve seen we’ll be able to grow family and communities much faster.”

The Choctaw Nation has leveraged fiber broadband as a framework to connect its 17 community centers, enabling the Chief to simultaneously deliver holiday messages to as many people as possible. They have also been able to connect the centers to tribal government offices and provide the resources necessary for conducting remote interviews for the tribe and other employers.

Deploying fiber into the community centers created deeper and wider network connections across the territory that are being leveraged to connect other community anchor institutions. This included health centers, schools, and public safety organizations, along with cell towers and the construction of a very unique facility that will bring high-tech aerospace industry jobs to the area.

“We’re going to support an area called Daisy Ranch, a National Emerging Aviation Testbed created a few years ago with an award from the government,” said Griffin. “Since there is very little light traffic within that area, we can do things that other aerospace locations would not allow. For instance, if you want to test a drone going 100 miles an hour, you can do that.”

The test range will support flight testing of uncrewed and crewed aircrafts, such as the emerging class of electrical vertical takeoff (eVTOL) taxis.

To learn more about how fiber is supporting the Choctaw Nation and the latest round of the TBCP, tune into the latest Fiber for Breakfast podcast.

https://on.soundcloud.com/F7Hx9

Only one feature trumped broadband, abet barely: clean clothes. Among the most desired single-family home amenities, having a laundry room came in at 69% as compared to 65% for very high speed/reliable broadband. “It beats hardwood floors and a great kitchen, granite countertops and all those things,” said Render.  

The results were almost the same for the most desired MDU home amenities, with an in-unit washer/dryer at the top of the list (59%), while broadband came in second again, this time with 52% responding. “More important than good parking, soundproof walls, storage space,” stated Render. “It is just very important to people’s lives today.” 

Fiber has had a 15% upward gain in share among those changing providers over the last two years, gaining ground compared to DSL (loss of 3.3%), satellite (5.5% loss) and cable modem (loss of over 14%). Fiber availability has added 3.2% to the value of an MDU or condo, 4.9% value to a single-family home, and nearly 13% to an apartment rental. 

To learn more about the way and amount people value reliable high-speed broadband and fiber, listen to the latest Fiber for Breakfast podcast.

https://soundcloud.com/user-491717682/ffb-week-41-fiber-is-preferred-by-nearly-two-thirds-of-all-internet-users?si=4d436411595a4b4687798161c617d3da&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing