Why Are We Building 6G?

I was recently reading the preliminary specifications for 6G, which led me to wonder why the cellular industry is willing to make a huge investment in a new technology that is likely not going to drive a lot of new revenue opportunities. I’m admittedly not a wireless guy, so perhaps I’m missing something. But consider the claims being made for 6G.

Faster Speeds. 6G will support peak data rates at speeds between 50 and 100 Gbps. Is there really a market for faster cellular speeds? Are cellular customers crying out for faster speeds than can be supported by 5G (supposedly 10 Gbps)? What’s not said is that the highest speeds touted by the specification can only come through deployment of superhigh spectrum, which also comes with severe distance limitations outdoors.

Lower Latency. The 6G spec targets latency between 0.1 and 1 milliseconds, which is better than the 4 millisecond goal of 5G. But are there many customers willing to pay extra for that level of low latency?

Enables Immersive Communications. 6G is said to enable technologies like immersive eXtended Reality (XR), remote multi-sensory telepresence, holographic communications, haptic sensors and actuators, and multi-sensory interfaces. While these all sound supercool, and will certainly have proponents, is there enough revenue opportunity from these technologies to justify a massive upgrade of cell towers? Over the last five years, we’ve seen Meta completely fail to convince the world to use the metaverse using fiber connections. Technologies like smart glasses have been a total flop.

These technologies all require significant bandwidth, implying that we’d have to bring cell towers closer to users. Are cellular carriers suddenly going to invest in the small cell network that largely never materialized with 5G? Cellular carriers love the advantages of small cells, but they don’t want to pay for the fiber connectivity needed to support towers everywhere.

Connections for Smart Machines. This means things like autonomous factories and robots. 5G promised smart factories, and there have been some built – but there was not nearly enough revenue from these to support the huge investments in ubiquitous 5G. It’s a very different technology to broadcast 5G inside a factory than from every cell tower. Maybe I have a faulty crystal ball – does anybody see the country swarming with robots in the next decade?

Ability to Connect to Massive Numbers of Devices. This was the big hope for 5G. Cell carriers thought that every car would have a separate cellular subscription. They assumed that farms would be using massive numbers of cellular sensors. They assumed that our homes would be filled with smart appliances and devices connected to 5G.

But this didn’t happen. Iain Morris, the International Editor of Light Reading, recently published an article that cautioned that cellular carriers will be repeating their past commercial failures if they pin their hopes on 6G capturing big revenues from IoT.

The article reminded me of some of the early predictions related to IoT. Dave Evans of Cisco predicted in 2015 that the world would have 50 billion IoT devices by 2020. According to the recent Ericsson Mobility Report, the world had 22.3 IoT devices at the end of 2025, massively short of the 2015 prediction. It’s still an impressive number, since it means there are now almost three IoT devices for every person on earth. But as Morris points out, very few of these devices use 5G. WiFi and other technologies like Loran have captured the IoT market.

The issue that killed the IoT market for 5G hasn’t changed for 6G. It’s still far too costly to use cellular technology to monitor devices that only periodically connect to the Internet. And that is before considering the cost of a cellular subscription.

What’s most troublesome to me about the advent of 6G is that it will be accompanied by the sunsetting of 4G. In the U.S., that is going to mean that rural cellular coverage is going to shrink to a tiny percentage of what is covered today as I discussed in a recent series of blogs. 5G has proven to be a wonderful urban technology. 5G was a mandatory update for cellular companies since 4G was unable to support the increasing numbers of urban cellphones, particularly when customers increased the use of cellular data. But I’m having a hard time seeing the same need for the expensive upgrade to 6G. I know cellular carriers must be quietly having this same conversation.

AT&T v. Duke Energy

On June 24, AT&T filed a complaint with the FCC against Duke Energy Carolinas about the rates being charged for pole attachments. AT&T alleges that Duke is charging rates far higher than allowed by law in North and South Carolina. AT&T claims it is entitled to pay “just and reasonable” rates under FCC rules. AT&T is asking that Duke be required to refund overcharges.

It’s an interesting complaint for several reasons. This is more of a partnership complaint than a straight complaint about how pole attachment rates are calculated. AT&T and Duke entered into a Joint Use Agreement (JUA) in 1978 since they share ownership of poles in the region. There are 457,901 poles covered by the JUA, with Duke owning 80% of the poles and the remaining 20% owned by AT&T.

One of the nuances of the case is jurisdiction over pole attachment regulation. North Carolina exercised  reverse-preemption of pole attachments, while South Carolina remains with FCC regulations concerning poles. AT&T claims the FCC has authority over the dispute in both states. I have to wonder why this agreement doesn’t fall partially under North Carolina’s jurisdiction, and if the state has somehow conceded authority to the FCC.

The dispute centers around FCC rules included in 47 U.S.C. § 224 that determine the maximum rate that can be charged for a pole attachment. Those rules calculate two different pole attachment rates, one that applies to cable companies and a telecom rate that applies to everyone else. The maximum rate for telecommunications carriers is designed to ensure that a telecom provider pays a proportional share of both the usable space and unusable space on the pole, divided by the total number of attaching entities. There are specific formulas defined by the FCC for the rate calculation, and calculating the maximum rate is mostly an exercise in gathering the right accounting data to populate the formula.

AT&T alleges that Duke is charging them a rate far in excess of the maximum allowed telecom rate. We can only guess how much higher since the public version of this complaint has redacted the higher rates. I can’t imagine how the public would be harmed by knowing the higher rates. There is a table in the complaint that calculates the average telecom rates from 2023 through 2026 at $10.92.

I characterized this earlier as a partnership dispute. AT&T is complaining that the rates that AT&T and Duke pay under the JUA are disproportionate to the amount of space each uses on the poles, such that AT&T pays far more than Duke on a per-foot basis. AT&T also complains that Duke benefits by being able to offset its costs by fees charged to other attachers, something not available to AT&T. Both of these sound more like complaints related to the old Joint Use Agreement that don’t seem relevant to FCC regulation.

AT&T’s argument is largely based on an FCC Order from 2018 that said that the telecom pole attachment rate applies to all new and newly-renewed joint use agreements, including agreements that are automatically renewed or extended.

You may be asking, if you read this far, why I chose to write about this dispute. There are several reasons. First, it’s always fascinating to get a glimpse behind the curtains of the deals made between big companies that we would otherwise never know about. I’m sure that a fiber builder asking to get on a Duke pole in North Carolina has no idea that the poles in question might actually be owned by AT&T. It’s also interesting to see how a big power company like Duke might decide to overcharge a partner in the pole business. The Joint Use Agreement was reached in 1978, which is ancient history in the corporate world. Somebody at Duke probably got a bonus for increasing pole attachment fees to AT&T in violation of an old agreement they might not even been aware of. Finally, I’m a customer of both Duke and AT&T, and regardless of how it resolves, I’m betting that I won’t see any benefit from the decision. This kind of dispute affects stockholder profits and not rates charged to the public.

For the Holiday

For the holiday, I’m republishing my most popular blog that talks about critters and broadband networks. Enjoy your weekend and stay cool!

Most people don’t realize the damage done every year to fiber and other wired networks by animals.

Squirrels. These cute rodents are the number one culprit for animal damage to aerial fiber. To a lesser degree, fiber owners report similar damage by rats and mice. Squirrels mainly chew on cables as a way to sharpen their teeth. Squirrel teeth grow up to 8 inches per year, and if squirrels aren’t wearing their teeth down from their diet, they look for other things to chew. There has been speculation that squirrels prefer fiber to other cables due to some oil or compound used in the fiber manufacturing process that attracts them.

Level 3, before it was part of CenturyLink, reported that 17% of aerial fiber outages were caused by squirrels. A Google search turns up numerous outages caused by squirrels.

Companies use a wide variety of techniques to try to protect from squirrel damage – but anybody that has ever put out a bird feeder knows how persistent they can be. One deterrent is to use hardened cables that are a challenge for squirrels to chew through. However, there have been cases reported where squirrels partially chew through such cables, which still lets in water and can cause future damage.

A more common solution is adding a barrier to keep squirrels away from the cable. There are barrier devices that can be mounted on the pole to block squirrels from moving higher. There are also barriers that are mounted where cables meet a pole to keep the squirrels away from the fiber. There are companies that have tried more exotic solutions, like deploying ultrasonic blasters to drive squirrels away from fiber. In other countries, the fiber providers sometimes deploy poisonous or obnoxious chemicals to keep squirrels away from the fiber. These techniques are frowned upon or illegal in the US.

Gophers. Buried fiber also has a gnawing pest in the pocket gopher. There are thirteen species of pocket gophers that range from 5 to 13 inches in length. The two parts of the country with the most pocket gophers are the Midwest plains and the Southwest. Gophers live on plants and either eat roots or pull plants down through the soil.

Pocket gophers can cause considerable damage to fiber. These rodents will chew almost anything, and there have been reported outages from gophers that chewed through buried gas, water, and electric lines. Gophers typically dig between 6 and 12 inches below the surface and are a particular threat to buried drops.

There are several ways to protect against gophers. The best protection is to bury fiber deep enough to be out of gopher range, but that can add a lot of cost to buried drops. I have a few clients that bore drops rather than trench or vibrate them for this reason. Another protection is to enclose the fiber in a sheathe that is over 3 inches in diameter. A tube of that size is too big for the gophers to bite. Again, this is an expensive solution for buried drops. Another solution is to surround the buried fiber with 6 – 8 inches of gravel of at least 1-inch size – anything smaller gets pushed to the side by gophers.

There are examples of even more exotic animal damage to fiber. Large birds of prey have sharp talons that can create small cuts in the sheathe and allow in water. Flocks of birds repeatedly sitting on a fiber can cause sag and stretching of the fiber. I can remember living in Florida and seeing end-to-end birds sitting on wires – that has to add a lot of weight to a 200-foot fiber between poles. Over the last year I’ve seen several reports of sharks chewing on undersea fibers.

Finally, although not directly animal related, a common cause of rural fiber cuts happens when farmers hit fiber with a backhoe when burying dead livestock. They typically bury wherever an animal died, including in the buried fiber right-of-way.

No Break in Global Chip Shortages

It looks like the chip shortage is going to last longer than expected. At the beginning of this year, it looked like the chip shortage might be over by early to mid-2027. That no longer seems to be the expectation.

As a reminder of the issue, the chip shortage has come about due to chip manufacturers migrating to produce the more profitable chips used by AI data centers. Recent predictions are that 70% of all memory chips manufactured worldwide will go to data centers for the rest of 2026 into 2027. To put that number into perspective, the first public AI model was introduced to the world in November 2022, and the demand for AI chips has grown since then. At that time, about 32% of chips went to the more traditional data centers used for cloud computing.

Electronics of all types rely on chips known as DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory). A DRAM is comprised of a large number of tiny cells that contain one capacitor and one resistor. The simplicity of the structure makes it relatively easy to affordably manufacture chips in volume. The function of DRAM is to temporarily hold data in storage as the computer uses it, and to dynamically cycle in new data as needed during processing.

Broadband devices like Wi-Fi routers, cable modems, and the core electronics used for fiber and wireless networks use a type of DRAM called DDR4. A few other industries, like automotive and consumer electronics, also rely on DDR4 chips. DDR4 chips have less capacity and are cheaper to make than DDR5 chips used for computers and cellphones. By contrast, AI datacenters use HBM (high-bandwidth memory) chips. These are comprised of a three-dimensional stack of DRAM chips. HBM chips are larger and require more wafer space than normal DRAM, and the manufacturing process is more challenging. At least currently, there is a lot more profit in manufacturing the HBM chips.

Three companies have historically manufactured over 90% of all DRAM chips – SK Hynix Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and Micron Technology, Inc. All three companies have shifted a lot of manufacturing capacity to the HBM chips for AI. Micron fully halted the manufacture of DRAM for personal computers. SK Hynix converted its primary DRAM production line to AI chips in late 2024. DRAM wholesalers are alarmed that the average worldwide DRAM inventory in the supply chain has fallen from a normal 17-week supply in 2024 to a 2-4 week supply currently. All three companies have already pre-sold all of their DRAM capacity for the rest of 2026 and well into 2027.

Unfortunately, there is no short-term relief on the way. Micron is building a new mega-factory in Onondaga, New York, to manufacture DRAM that won’t benefit the supply chain until sometime in 2028. The company is expanding a factory in Taiwan that won’t produce new chips until at least the end of 2027. SK Hynix is investing $13 billion in a new factory in Cheongiu, South Korea, that will be completed at the end of 2027. Samsung is building as new factory in Gyeonngi Province in South Korea that won’t be completed until sometime in 2028.

It doesn’t seem realistic that any other companies will step in to fill the market void because of the complexity and intense quality control needed to make DRAM chips. This means a growing shortage of chips for telecom and other industries for the next two years. A few auto factories have already reduced the number of cars being built due to a lack of chips. For telecom, this is going to result in higher prices and longer waits to get electronics. This also means that ISPs at the bottom of the supply chain, those without the buying power of AT&T or Charter, will see the biggest impacts. Also note that ISPs are going to lose broadband customers who can’t afford to replace a dying computer. As always happens with a big price increase, I can’t imagine that chips will ever return to the old prices. The handful of manufacturers are going to expect higher profits from DRAM than in the past, and due to their monopoly, will be able to charge whatever they want.

Network Challenges from AI Traffic

Cisco recently published a report that looks at the impact of AI traffic on networks. It’s an interesting paper because Cisco found that AI traffic does not operate the same as most other web traffic. While the volume of AI traffic is small today, Cisco predicts that we’ll have to make changes to the web over time to accommodate growing AI traffic volumes. Cisco predicts that by 2035, one fourth of all web traffic will be AI agents and AI models in data centers.

Cisco notes that we’ve spent decades optimizing a web that delivers burst traffic, like video. When a video is viewed from the web, the data stream doesn’t have to be delivered evenly in real time. Instead, all that is needed is for the transmission of the video to reach the viewer before they are ready to watch it. Anybody who has watched a video can see that the streamed video is always working to to stay ahead of what you are watching.

AI traffic is very different. Cisco uses the term AI inference traffic to mean the real-time transfer of AI traffic between the AI models operating in data centers and users. AI inference traffic is delivered at what Cisco calls software speed, meaning the receiving end is ready to digest and use the data as it is delivered, quite different than streamed video that is only trying to stay ahead of a viewer.

The difference between AI traffic and normal web traffic is significant. The typical burst of AI traffic lasts twice as a typical burst of video data. While individual bursts of video data are smaller, the flow rate for video, which means the actual delivery time, lasts ten times longer than AI traffic, since video bursts are spread over time in multiple small bursts.

AI traffic is also two-way and requires a good upstream connection. In fact, Cisco found that 9% of AI traffic requires more upstream traffic than downstream traffic. Cisco believes the need for network upload speeds will increase as AI agents mature.

Current network latency is not a bottleneck for AI traffic, but Cisco says latency will become a problem as the volume of AI traffic increases. This will require a major rework of web architecture when latency becomes an issue.

Cisco found that tasks performed by AI generate 450% more traffic than the same task performed in a more traditional way. In Cisco’s vocabulary, AI agents act as power users and use a lot of network resources.

The bottom line is that AI traffic is different from current web traffic and will not only increase traffic volumes on networks, but it will also change the shape, symmetry, and needed priority of traffic.

There have already been discussions of creating a private web to connect between AI data centers. But that would only solve part of the problem, because AI traffic is eventually delivered to users throughout the web. AI traffic is going to create an interesting new set of challenges for network engineers, something that nobody envisioned just a few years ago.

Is There an AI Divide?

I recently attended and spoke at an AI conference. One of the things that became clear to me is that we are probably headed for a new digital divide related to AI. What do I mean by that?

In that short period of time, AI has touched a large majority of computer users. A survey from Pew in September 2025 showed that 95% of adults had heard of AI. At the time of the survey, 47% of people had heard a lot about AI, up from 26% measured in a 2022 survey. That’s bound to be a higher number in the summer of 2026. As you might expect, people with a high awareness of AI tend to be younger and better educated. For example, 62% of adults under 30 had heard a lot about AI, compared to 32% of those 65 and older. 60% of adults with post-graduate degrees had heard a lot about AI, versus 38% of those with a high school diploma or less.

Only about 3% of U.S. households pay for a consumer AI subscription. There is a lot of expectation that AI companies will be forced to greatly increase the costs of monthly access, which will undoubtedly lower the percentage of folks who are comfortable working directly with AI. Most people who use AI today interface through some tool like virtual assistants, GPS navigation apps, streaming algorithms, or weather forecasts. According to a survey from Quinnipiac University from March 2026, 51% of respondents say they use an AI tool, up from 37% a year earlier.

Another Pew poll showed that 46% of Americans hold a negative view of AI, while only 26% view it favorably. 57% believe the risks outweigh the benefits, and 41% actively distrust AI systems.

All of these statistics point to a possible AI-divide, separating those who believe in and use AI, from those who don’t trust AI and refuse to use it. This divide already exists, and the future question that will  have to be answered is if those who distrust AI will eventually be won over. It’s easy to forget that AI has only been available to the public since the end of 2022, which, for a new technology, is still in the infancy stages.

There will be consequences if there is a permanent gap between those who use AI and those who don’t or won’t. If AI brings measurable advantages to those who use it, then, over time, non-users will be at a disadvantage in many ways. There is also the possibility that those who distrust AI will be able to thwart its expansion. There are already numerous communities creating barriers to new data centers.

It’s easy to conclude that using AI is a choice, and that anybody who doesn’t use AI has to live with that decision. But consider a few statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It reports that 21% of adults are functionally illiterate, meaning they cannot complete basic reading tasks, such as filling out job applications, reading medicine instructions, or helping with children’s homework. 54% of adults have reading skills below a sixth-grade reading level. Less than half of adults demonstrate strong reading comprehension skills.

These statistics are relevant when talking about using and benefitting from AI, which is ultimately a language model. Literacy is far less of an issue when talking about the use of broadband, because it doesn’t require advanced reading skills to watch videos and engage in other forms of online entertainment and social media.

It’s way too early in the life of AI to draw any conclusions about a possible divide, but it’s not hard to foresee a likely divide between those who benefit from AI and those who can’t or won’t. In a decade, this might become the most important digital dividing line, more so than the digital skills divide we talk about today.

Broadband Shorts June 2026

Digital Equity Grant Lawsuit Update. In April, a D.C. federal judge declined to pause litigation over the Administration’s cancellation of the $2.75 billion Digital Equity grants aimed at increasing digital literacy and digital skill training. The suit was filed by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. The Court found that the case covered distinct issues from the related Climate United Fund v. Citibank case and should proceed on its own merits. A month ago, the administration asked the Court to dismiss the case. However, a DOJ attorney told the Court last week that the government would withdraw from the case and let the grants proceed if all preferences for race are removed from the grant rules. This entire suit, from the beginning, has been about the title of the grant program and not about the substance of the program. This should hearten digital inclusion advocates since there is now a chance of seeing the promised grant funded after all. But before celebrating, its worth noting that the White House removed this grant from its proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Lower Budget for the FCC. Like is happening with many federal agencies, the House Appropriations Subcommittee is recommending a lower budget than requested by the agency for the fiscal year 2027 that starts in October. The agency had requested a budget of $416 million, and Congress reduced that by 6% to $390.2 million. The Congressional appropriations bill also added some conditions to the appropriations:

  • The FCC will be prohibited from updating minimum service standards for fixed or mobile broadband without first evaluating any impact on affordability and consumer choice.
  • The FCC will be prohibited from enforcing the digital discrimination rules passed by the previous FCC.

Update on FCC Router Ban. The FCC expanded its ban on foreign-made WiFi routers to also include “consumer-grade portable or mobile MiFi Wi-Fi or hotspot devices for residential use” and “LTE/5G CPE devices for residential use”. That’s a gigantic issue for the large cellular carriers who have been selling FWA cellular broadband to roughly 1 million new households per quarter. As a reminder, the FCC router ban only applies to any new routers, and carriers and ISPs can continue to import any existing routers they already use today.

But this is quickly going to become a major issue for carriers. The cable industry asked the FCC in the first week of June to swap some components inside existing routers, which would mean these are not identical to routers that were used before the ban. The cable companies warn that without the ability to modify older models that the cable industry faces a huge router shortage in the near future. The Global Electronics Association (GEA) has continued to argue that the FCC’s policy is flawed because security vulnerabilities are not related to where a router was manufactured and is endemic to the technology. Th good news is that the FCC is reviewing, and has approved several new routers.

New Fiber Factories. Corning is partnering with NVIDIA to build three new fiber factories that will increase the company’s capacity by 50%. The factories will be located in North Carolina and Texas. The cited reason for the expansion was the increased demand for fiber for data centers, but this increases fiber availability for all other purposes. NVIDIA is making a $500 million investment in Corning as part of the deal, and the company has an option to buy an additional 15 million Corning shares. This is another example of companies in the AI space investing in each other.

Supreme Court Upholds FCC Fines. The Supreme Court voted 8 to 1 to uphold the FCC’s authority to issue fines against companies that it regulates. The original suit that asked to eliminate the FCC fine authority was brought by AT&T and Verizon, which were trying to avoid fines levied after the two companies sold customer location data. The two carriers had argued that the FCC was improper to fine them since the companies should have been given the option of requesting a jury trial. The two companies said they are considering not paying the fines as another test of FCC authority.

 Spectrum Auction Results. The FCC held the first spectrum auction in four years and auctioned AWS-3 spectrum that is valuable for cellular traffic. The FCC was worried when the spectrum raised only $95 million in the first few days. The One Big Beautiful Bill had ordered the FCC to resume spectrum auctions as a way to raise money to offset tax cuts in the bill. Congress assumed that all upcoming spectrum auctions would raise $85 billion. At the end, the auction raised just over $3.5 billion, which was a big relief to EchoStar. This spectrum was originally won at auction by EchoStar, which was subsequently accused of claiming bidding discounts it didn’t deserve, and the FCC expected EchoStar to make up any shortfall under $3.4 billion. .

AT&T Offers Daily Rates for iPad Users. In a new pricing plan, AT&T is offering a daily rate of $3 to activate broadband on a SIM-enabled iPad. This can be done using the iPad settings and doesn’t require a special app. No contract, subscription, or credit check is required. This is interesting because this is how broadband is sold in much of Africa, where users buy broadband by the day and use those days to tackle all broadband tasks. The $3 rate is not cheap, at $90 per month, but would be a savings for somebody buying usage as few times per week.

Rural Broadband Customer Survey

The OSS/BSS company Innovative Systems recently released its eleventh annual survey about rural household broadband usage. As usual, it contains a number of interesting insights. The survey was conducted in the first quarter of 2026 to consumers across the country.

Here are some of the most interesting findings about usage:

  • 39% of rural households use broadband more than 10 hours per day. Only 7% use broadband for less than 3 hours per day.
  • 46% of rural households have a family member who works at least part-time from home. 66% of those who work from home are under 35 years of age.
  • 66% of those surveyed used some form of AI. The most common uses were personal chatbots, voice assistants (like Siri), smart home devices, customer service chatbots, or tools for creating or enhancing photos and images.
  • 81% of those between 18-34 used an AI tool compared to 50% of those over 65.
  • 97% of respondents use social media. 81% engage in web browsing. 81% use email. 79% stream entertainment. 70% pay their bills online. 35% access smart devices in the home. 33% play online multiplayer games.

The survey asked about how people interact with their ISP:

  • The average respondent is paying $79 per month for broadband. 30% said they would pay more to get a faster speed. 15% said they would accept a slower speed and pay less.
  • 51% of respondents use paperless billing. 42% use a mobile app to check their broadband account. 30% are bundling TV and broadband.
  • Respondents said they would be interested in additional services from their ISP. 28% are interested in security cameras. 24% are interested in cybersecurity protection services. 18% are interested in TV services.
  • 32% of subscribers don’t know the speed tier they are paying for.
  • 14% buy speeds less than 100 Mbps. 36% buy speeds between 100-499 Mbps. 25% are buying speeds between 500 and 999 Mbps. 26% are subscribed to gigabit or faster speeds.
  • Almost half of customers engage with their ISP using social media. Over half of customers prefer to be contacted by email or text.
  • 19% of respondents have left a review online about their ISP.

The survey also asked about satisfaction with ISPs. Here are some of the key findings:

  • 18% of those surveyed have changed ISPs in the last two years. 50% changed to get a lower price. 42% changed to get a faster speed. 42% were looking for better reliability.
  • When asked for the factors that drive satisfaction with an ISP, the responses said good and consistent speeds (69%), fair price (66%), good customer service (52%), good technical support (37%). Of the lowest importance were the ability to bundle (27%) and the fact that the ISP is local (4%).
  • 57% said they would consider buying broadband from their cellular provider as long as the broadband met their speed and reliability needs. This ranged from 66% of customers aged 18-34 and 44% for those older than 65.
  • 43% said they would consider broadband from Amazon Leo if it is comparable in speed and reliability. This ranged from 50% of those 18-34 and 36% of those over 65.

Finally, the survey asked rural households about television viewing:

  • 45% still get TV programming from a cable or satellite company.
  • 33% get programming from an online streaming service.
  • 15% only watch TV from an antenna.
  • 16% don’t watch TV.

Promises Made, Promises Broken

I noticed that the Charter/Cox merger has been approved by the FCC, the DOJ, and the Public Service Commission of New York. The final hurdle is the California Public Service Commission, where Charter is hoping to get a decision by August from the CPUC. In exchange for an agreement for the merger, Charter has promised to spend at least $275 million on network upgrades to achieve symmetrical gigabit speeds across its California footprint within three years. Charter also promises to offer a statewide low-income price plan for five years that includes a $20 plan for 100/20 Mbps speeds, and that would be free for Lifeline Pilot participants. Finally, Charter promises to provide $23 million in support to the nonprofit CETF (California Emerging Technology Fund) for digital literacy and device subsidies, plus $7 million to regional broadband groups.

I had a chuckle when I saw the promises being made by Charter. It reminded me of many times that carriers didn’t follow through on big promises made to regulators. One of the most memorable broken promises came from Verizon in Pennsylvania – a story that has been well documented in a book by Bruce Kushnick, The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net. In 1993, the State agreed to deregulate Verizon and provide big tax breaks as long as Verizon would deliver 45 Mbps broadband service to the entire state by 2015. By the early 2000s, Verizon reneged on the offer and reduced the promised speeds to 1.5 Mbps. Verizon eventually built FiOS fiber in selected urban and suburban markets and ignored the rest of the state. There were some rural Verizon customers who never even got the slow DSL.

In 1999, the two Baby Bell companies SBC and Ameritech, asked to merge. SBC promised regulators that the merger would spark a new, nationally competitive telecommunications carrier and committed to expand beyond its thirteen-state home region. Within a year of the deal closing, the FCC opened an investigation against SBC for failing to meet its competitive entry timelines and because of growing volumes of consumer complaints about declining residential service quality.

When AT&T asked in 2015 to acquire DirecTV for $48.5 billion, the company promised federal regulators to build out more than 12 million high-speed fiber connections. The company quickly fell short of that promise, and many believed that the company was faking fiber passings by counting apartment complexes that were near to its existing fiber network. AT&T eventually decided that building fiber was its best business plan, but it had totally blown off the 2015 promise.

When Charter asked to merge with Time Warner Cable in 2016, the company promised regulators that it would expand its network to unserved rural areas, that it would hold down prices, and would not implement price caps. By 2020, Charter petitioned the FCC to get off the hook for these promises and called them “unduly burdensome”

In 2020, when T-Mobile wanted to buy Sprint for $26 billion, the company promised it would rapidly expand rural 5G coverage. The company also promised to freeze post-paid rate plans for three years. Soon after the merger, the company said the agreement was no longer feasible.

I could fill a few pages with similar stories. Big carriers make whatever promises are needed to get approval for mergers or deregulation, and then typically proceed almost immediately to find ways to get out of what they promised. It’s hard to predict if California will approve the Charter/Cox merger. But I think California fully understands that promises made related to mergers are rarely promises fully kept.

FCC Questioning State Pole Regulation

The FCC issued a Public Notice with the longest title I can remember: Wireline Competition Bureau Reminds Reverse-preemption States of Obligation to Effectively Regulate Pole Attachments and Seeks Comment on Need for Changes to the Commission’s Certification Rules to Ensure Effective State Pole Attachment Regulation.

The Public Notice asks for comments on the effectiveness of regulations in States that have chosen to regulate pole attachments, meaning rules that regulate how telcos and others get access to poles that are in the public right-of-way. Comments are due on the Public Notice by July 13, 2026.

States were given the right to regulate pole attachments in Section 224 of the 1934 Communications Act. Twenty-three States have elected to regulate poles over the years, and the FCC has created regulations for the States that have not done so. In one of the oddities of regulatory language, States that have elected to regulate pole attachments are said to have “reverse-preempted” the federal pole attachment rules.

The Public Notice is seeking comments on whether States are properly regulating the rates, terms and conditions of pole attachments. More specifically, the FCC is asking what steps it could take to make sure that state pole attachment regulations are “transparent and effective”.

In strongly worded language, the FCC reminds States of the “obligation to effectively and clearly regulate pole attachments in their jurisdictions.” In what feels like a veiled threat, the FCC asks if it should require reverse-preemption States to refile new certifications for FCC review. This could present an opportunity for the FCC to refuse the certifications and take over the pole attachment rules. It will seem likely that there will be lawsuits if the FCC tries to take back jurisdiction of pole attachments, since the state’s right to regulate pole attachments is clearly stated in the Communications Act.

There is one annoying mention in the Public Notice that this is being done to protect the $42 billion BEAD program. NTIA’s Benefit of the Bargain rules cut the amount that will be used for infrastructure in half. Of the remaining BEAD awards, a lot will go to satellite, fixed wireless, or buried fiber construction that will not require the use of pole attachments. If only this was being done to protect $42 billion of infrastructure construction.

I also have to wonder about the timing of this. Many States are in the process of signing BEAD contracts, and some of the earliest steps for an ISP starting a new project is to immediately start the pole attachment paperwork process along with seeking rights-of-way. Even if the pole attachment rules could be better in some states, the FCC’s action would make more sense if it had been started a year earlier.

I think that it would be very disruptive if the FCC chooses to seize pole attachment regulation back from the states. At a minimum, in a state where the regulations reverted to federal authority, it seems likely that pole owners will take some time to fully digest and cope with the change, and to look at forms and processes.

I could be wrong, but this feels more like the FCC trying to take regulatory authority from States more than an attempt to improve BEAD. While BEAD is a large grant program, the many other grant programs in recent years have collectively funded more fiber than BEAD. My guess is that some States will fight to keep their own pole attachment rules, and any attempt to do this will result in a protracted court fight, and that BEAD will be in the rearview window before this is settled.