One of the areas with the most lobbying is coming from WISPs that are complaining that the NTIA has exceeded its statutory authority by declaring a strong preference for fiber. The NTIA went so far as to declare that fixed wireless technology that doesn’t use licensed spectrum is not a reliable source of broadband and isn’t eligible for BEAD grants. The wireless industry says that the NTIA is out of bounds and not sticking to a mandate to be technology neutral.
I decided to go back to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs legislation and compare it with the NOFO to see if that is true. Let’s start with the enabling language in the legislation. The IIJA legislation makes it clear that the NTIA must determine the technologies that are eligible for the BEAD grants. One of the criteria the NTIA is instructed to use is that grant-funded technologies must be deemed to be reliable. Reliable is defined in the Act using factors other than speed and specifically says that the term “reliable broadband service’ means broadband service that meets performance criteria for service availability, adaptability to changing end-user requirements, length of serviceable life, or other criteria, other than upload and download speeds.
I interpret ‘adaptability to end-user requirements’ to mean that a grant-eligible technology must have some degree of what the industry has been calling being future-proofed. A grant-funded technology must be able to meet future broadband needs and not just the needs of today.
‘Length of serviceable life’ refers to how long a grant investment might be expected to last. Historically, broadband electronics of all types typically don’t have a useful life of much more than a decade. Electronics that sit outside in the elements have an even shorter expected life, with components like outdoor receivers for wireless not usually lasting more than seven years. The broadband assets with the longest useful lives are fiber, huts, and new wireless towers. If you weigh together the average life of all of the components in a broadband network, the average useful life of a fiber network will be several times higher than the useful life of a wireless network.
NTIA then used the reliable service criteria to classify only four technologies as delivering a reliable signal – fiber, cable modem hybrid fiber-coaxial technology, DSL over copper, and terrestrial fixed wireless using licensed spectrum. Since DSL cannot deliver the speeds required by the grants, that leaves only three technologies eligible for BEAD grants.
The legislation allows the NTIA to consider other factors. It appears that one of the other factors the NTIA chose is the likelihood that a strong broadband signal will reach a customer. I speculate that fixed wireless using only unlicensed spectrum was eliminated because interference of unlicensed spectrum can degrade the signal to customers. It’s a little harder to understand which factors were used to eliminate satellite broadband. The high-orbit satellites are eliminated by not being able to meet the 100-millisecond requirement for latency established by the legislation. I would speculate that low-orbit satellites are not eligible for grants because the average life of a given satellite is being touted as being about seven years – but I’m sure there are other reasons, such as not yet having any proof of the speeds that can be delivered when a satellite network fills with customers.
From the short list of technologies deemed to be reliable, the NTIA has gone on to say several times in the NOFO that there is a preference for fiber. When looking at the factors defined by the legislation, fiber is the most future-proofed because speeds can be increased drastically by upgrading electronics. Fiber also has a much longer expected useful life than wireless technology.
The accusations against the NTIA seem to be implying that the NTIA had a preference for fiber even before being handed the BEAD grants. But in the end, the NTIA’s preference for fiber comes from ranking the eligible technologies in terms of how the technologies meet the criteria of the legislation. It’s worth noting that there are other parts of the NOFO that do not promote fiber. For example, state broadband offices are encouraged to consider other alternatives when the cost of construction is too high. I think it’s important to note that any NTIA preference for fiber does not restrict a state from awarding substantial awards to fixed wireless technology using licensed spectrum – that’s going to be a call to make by each state.
There is a lot of lobbying going on the expand the NTIA’s list to include fixed wireless using unlicensed spectrum and satellite broadband. I’ve even heard of rumors of lawsuits to force the expansion of the available technologies. That’s the primary reason I wrote this blog – as a warning that lobbying and/or lawsuits might delay the BEAD grants. I think the NTIA has done what the legislation required, but obviously, anybody who is being excluded from the grants has nothing to lose by trying to get reinstated in the grants. When there is this much money at stake, I don’t expect those who don’t like the NTIA rules to go away quietly.
3 replies on “The NTIA Preference for Fiber”
NTIA did the minimum on Tecnology requirements, unlicensed FWA is best effort by definition and therefore cannot be defined as reliable. The ability for the spectrum quality to change dramatically without warning is acceptable only in the absence of other solutions or for non real-time needs. Any honest RF engineer would tell you this.
NTIA’s exclusion of unlicensed FWA from its definition of “Reliable Broadband Service” simply invites overbuilding in otherwise served communities and will rob truly unserved communities of the funding they need to close the digital divide. As an “honest RF engineer” (and PE) I’d be the first to acknowledge that engineers can and do disagree, but I’ve seen more service-affecting sustained outages due to fiber breaks than I have to “dramatic changes in spectrum quality.” I certainly like fiber but I like FWA, too. Use the right tool for the right job. So NTIA missed an opportunity – DSL? Really? – and has guaranteed that federal funds will be used to subsidize competition in already served communities.
While fiber is the preferred method per NTIA I think it’s important to note that the projects are expected to be built in 4 years with a waiver for an additional year. No doubt these high cost areas will be difficult to build, and supply chain is not in our favor at the moment. Arkansas, for example, recently published their statewide broadband plan and they too value fiber and its “future proof” capabilities (ie: Nokia demonstrated 100G PON at FiberConnect), but they also value how quickly FWA can be deployed to bring connectivity to those in most need. It will be interesting to see if a hybrid approach of FWA initially and fiber on the back-end would make business cases work and make applications stronger.