Analysts at NARUC Summit See Satellite Rising, Ceiling for Fixed Wireless

U.S. immigration policy has become a “bottleneck” for fiber deployment, said New Street analyst Blair Levin on a panel about expectations for the telecom industry. He said that while tax credits have buoyed fiber, 30% of the construction workforce is foreign-born, and the White House’s aggressive policies on immigration enforcement are making it tough for companies to find workers.

Levin also said the telecom industry could be adversely affected by White House cuts to many programs for low-income households. “They're going to have to spend more on essentials like food, health care and education.” That could lead to millions of households shifting to wireless only or to lower-cost broadband plans, he said.

Ookla analyst Mike Dano said data gathered by the speed test company shows that use of satellite broadband is likely to rise. Starlink's median speeds in the U.S. are increasing, and its reported number of customers has doubled globally over the past year, he said. Ookla data also shows that SpaceX customers like their carrier more than other broadband customers, Dano noted.

Rising competition from Starlink could have a “dramatic” effect on rural telephone companies, Levin said. But Rick Cimerman, NCTA's vice president of external and state affairs, argued that cable is still “the workhorse” for residential broadband. “You are not subscribing to satellite if you have three kids and multiple video streams and homework and everything else that you need done in an average household, because it doesn't have the capacity to do that.”

Ookla data also suggests that there may be a “a ceiling” on new fixed-wireless customers, Dano said. Fixed-wireless speeds have “hit a level” and no longer seem to be increasing every year. “I think there's an assumption now that fixed wireless will certainly continue to gain customers, but if speeds are not increasing,” that growth could stop.

Levin agreed. “There's a big question” about whether fixed wireless “continues to grow ... depending on how much more spectrum it gets, because spectrum is a shared resource.”

Telecom officials from every industry also highlighted cybersecurity concerns at the summit. Chris Boyer, vice president of global security and technology for AT&T, said the company’s biggest focus is currently on attacks by nation-states. “The industry is very much aware of these issues.”

USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter called for infrastructure permitting reform to give carriers more capacity to endure cyberattacks. In addition, he said, laws and regulations haven’t been able to keep up with the growing speed and scale of cyberattacks, and statutes allowing information sharing on cybersecurity among companies need to be made permanent.

Telecom Act Anniversary

During another NARUC panel Monday about the 30th anniversary of the 1996 Telecommunications Act a day earlier, Media Institute President and former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said few concepts from the law should carry forward into any new versions in the future. “It doesn’t make any sense to keep" the law. The “thrust” of the modern communications industry is toward big tech applications that aren’t covered by the legislation, he said.

But Mignon Clyburn, a former FCC commissioner who's now a state utility board commissioner, disagreed, arguing that the 1996 law was “designed to be forward-looking” and that any new version should emphasize federal/state partnerships. White & Case lawyer Earl Comstock -- who, like O’Rielly, worked on the Telecom Act as a congressional aide -- said it was written with technology-neutral definitions that "encompass everything we’re seeing today."

Free State Foundation President Randolph May also said a future act should do away with sorting different industries into regulatory “stovepipes” and replace the “vacuous” public interest standard with a consumer welfare standard.