Specialist
Former AVP at AT&T Inc
Agenda
- Operating environment for key wireless carriers and cable companies – rural deployment efforts and challenges
- Biden's broadband plan – key components, likelihood of legislation passing, potential revisions and future knock-on implications
- Viability of municipal broadband business model – assessment of viable options to improve nationwide penetration rates and speeds
- Outlook for H2 2021 and beyond – broadband ARPU runway, convergence of cable and wireless with 5G FWA (fixed wireless access), plus potential wildcards
Questions
1.
What are the key regulatory developments for wireless carriers and cable players especially given that we’re several months into a new administration?
2.
Could you give a brief overview of Biden’s infrastructure plans and particularly broadband funding? What key stipulations are most hotly debated?
3.
Do you think compromises will happen on the speed requirements and the amount of CAPEX necessary? Presumably the CAPEX required to get 25/3 is orders of magnitude lower than 100/100. Do you think things might meet somewhere in the middle?
4.
How will the programme work if it gets passed? Is that a situation where each carrier will commit to the CAPEX and then refund it, or will that funding be allocated upfront? If you think of some of the RLECs [rural local exchange carriers], there’s probably a lack of propensity to spend the amounts that will be required in those rural departments.
5.
What are the early indications as to how this plan might get distributed? Will wireless carriers be favoured, even over wireline and cable players? How do you think the plan may benefit some players vs others?
6.
How large a share of the money going direct to the municipalities do you expect the government-owned network aspect to represent? What are the puts and takes of the viability of a more municipal-based broadband infrastructure?
7.
Do you think the issues maintaining the ongoing network are large enough, where the commercial risk to the national carriers is more fleeting, where perhaps it places a large promotional implication on the pricing of the plans to cater towards government network prices? Might there be some subscriber loss in the interim? Q: Do you think the issues maintaining the ongoing network are large enough, where the commercial risk to the national carriers is more fleeting, where perhaps it places a large promotional implication on the pricing of the plans to cater towards government network prices? Might there be some subscriber loss in the interim? Could the fact that the government-owned network is probably going to struggle longer term to maintain a healthy network play to the carriers’ benefit? How might the knock-on implications play out?
8.
Does the ability to outbid the government-owned networks exist? Might Charter, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon not even bid, because they already have existing infrastructure?
9.
Do you think it is more or less likely that there will be a government-owned preference, or is it 50/50?
10.
Do you think the stipulation around how to define unserved households will need to be shored up? How wide might an inclusive vs exclusive definition of that be, in terms of the percentage of households this plan could apply to?
11.
Do you think net neutrality could become a policy priority for the administration? Is it more or less likely to be something that it will actively consider, especially over the next few years?
12.
You mentioned the biggest factor around when net neutrality will occur is when the new chair is assigned. How far away do you think that might still be, even based on the historical pace of things? Would you expect this to occur in 2021 or 2022? How will that play into whether net neutrality comes through, given the time the administration has?
13.
Do you expect other states to emulate New York’s rate regulation? Do you expect rate regulation to be more prominent on the state level over the interim, as opposed to the longer term?
14.
You mentioned the NTIA [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] needs an appointment prior to the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] and presumably a lot of that is spectrum being front of mind as 5G build-outs start to accelerate. What is the state of spectrum needs? Where do portfolio gaps still exist and what does that mean for how expediently we need more spectrum to be freed up over the coming years?
15.
When do you think we will start hearing updates? Is there anything or anyone we should monitor?
16.
How likely do you think it is that an infrastructure plan including broadband will get passed?
17.
Is there anything else you would like to discuss? Do you have any closing remarks?
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