This chart, taken from the European Union Report on Broadband, shows that a triple play — phone, cable TV, broadband-Internet, can cost about 36 Euros for a service with 30–100 Mbps speeds, and 21 Euros for a stand alone service.

The average U.S. triple play is about $220.00 a month, and with an exchange rate of 1 Euro=$1.09 Dollars, the overcharging, which we documented, is $150+ a month — or more.

The Digital Divide was created, in large part, because prices are unaffordable, and America is now paying for over 20 million low-income families to have broadband — up to $30. a month allowance.

America’s prices are out of control, yet where are the investigations and audits to explain how overseas prices are a fraction of what we are paying in the U.S.? And why are we giving billions to the companies that helped to create the Digital Divide in the first place?

We assembled our previous research with new findings in this new series, using both 3rd party expert analysis as well as actual examples from December 2023, comparing and detailing the out of control US prices vs the services of free Telecom in France and Spectrum-Charter in New York City.

America’s broken promises and the state 5-year broken broadband plans

America’s prices for broadband have made high speed internet unaffordable for many households, Moreover, the pandemic revealed a major Digital Divide where whole areas of the U.S. were never upgraded to fiber optic networks, much less high speed services even over the copper wires. Thus, no competition to lower rates.

And every state now has plans to ‘bridge the Digital Divide’, but in all of the state broadband plans, none have addressed how the Divide started in their state or about the massive financial price divide between America and the EU or Asian countries that charge a fraction of the prices charged in the US.

Over $150 billion is being given out in state and federal government subsidies over the next few years, and much of It going to the companies that helped to create the Digital Divide.

The states must investigate the core issues as they impact almost every FCC, NTIA, FTC, Congressional and state current and future actions.

The opening chart tells the tale of how the European countries did not allow for massive multiple additional made up fees, such as the Broadcast-Sports fee ($27.90 on a Spectrum Triple Play). Moreover, the services do not charge ridiculous prices for equipment, such as set top box, that is required to use the service. Also, because there is competition, customers have choices and prices have not skyrocketed, but are actually going down.

America’s prices are 5–10 times higher than comparable data from other countries

How can America’s prices for the stand-alone, double and triple play — (phone, cable TV and ISP-broadband) be 5–10 times more when comparing data from other countries, as highlighted in the European Union Commission’s report, published July 2022 for the year 2021. And, as the report details, even basic stand-alone high speed broadband prices overseas are a fraction of what we’re paying in the U.S.

• America’s “Double play” — high speed broadband and phone service — is being overcharged, on average, almost $75 a month — a whopping $900 a year.
• The “Triple play” is being overcharged by $180 a month on average; this comes to overcharged, over $2,200 for the triple play.

The current triple play in America, after the promotional prices end, is now around $220.00 a month, yet overseas, the average was around $40 a month, but the prices overseas are in decline. However, in some countries, it can be as low as $23.00 for 200 Mbps or more; only $15 for the double play.

According to the EU report, we’ve even been beaten out by Bulgaria, Romania and let’s not forget Slovakia:

• “Overall, Lithuania and Romania have the most attractive prices for broadband internet in the EU. All the offers in these countries belong to the cluster of the least expensive countries in their respective baskets. Bulgaria, Latvia and Slovakia follow. Poland, Hungary, France and Spain have low prices especially for Triple Play.”

But when the EU report says prices are “attractive”, we are talking $10–12 bucks a month for stand-alone broadband and $20–23 for the triple play, with speed of 200 Mbps or more.

By the way, Bulgaria does get Netflix and their Top 10 shows are close to America’s viewing.

How is it possible that America’s Triple Play is $150-$200 a month over what is being charged overseas? That’s over $2,200.00 a year ‘extra’ being charged to families — including low-income families and fixed income seniors. This is on top of the fact that there could be only one or no providers of high-speed services in the rural regions or in low-income neighborhoods of cities.

It would be one thing if it was a small differential between the overseas EU group and others price of service, but this is a difference that is too large to be ignored.

What are the underlying issues?

No Serious Competition to keep market forces and rate increases at bay. First, AT&T et al. failed to show up with high-speed competition to keep the cable companies, the other group of providers that use a wired connection, in check. For example, in CA, AT&T-Pac Bell had obligations to bring fiber optic broadband throughout the state and our maps showed that much of AT&T’s entire Los Angeles county region had been left to deteriorate and not upgraded as promised with fiber optic infrastructure.

Made-up Fees and surcharges are out of control. One of the sleaziest practices in the US has become the addition of made-up taxes, fees and surcharges that are not mandated or government sanctioned. This is being done so that the companies can quote a price that is missing 20–40% of the total costs,

Made-Up Taxes include:

• Broadcast and Sports surcharge: $15–24.00 a month
• Cost Recovery Fee: $1.99–2.99
• Admin Fees: $1.49-$2.99 per month
• Pass-through taxes, Gross receipts tax, telecom taxes

The largest and most egregious added fee is now the Sports and Broadcast surcharge, which is really 2 separate charges that have been merged in many cases:

“Made-up, Broadcast-Sports Fees Up 820%; Overcharging $250+ a Year — then Quintuple-Taxed, Fee’d and Surcharged.” This article was written in December 2021, and along the way there have been increases bringing the total charge on the Spectrum NY June 2022 bill to $23.70 a month. This one fee on the Spectrum NY Triple play bill is more than the entire charges for a triple play in many overseas EU countries.

This charge went up to $27.90 a month extra in 2023. That is an overall increase of 1,140%.

• Quadruple Taxed, Fee’d and Surcharged. — If the increases to this one fee is not enough, there are made-up taxes, fees and surcharges being applied to this fee as it is considered ‘revenue’ to the company and is taxed as such. And some of these surcharges are actually tax pass-throughs where the company gets to have the customer pay the company’s taxes.
• It is impossible to calculate the exact tax assessment as there is no ‘Rosetta Stone’ to be able to unravel how each tax, fee and surcharge is applied.

But, considering that basic telecom taxes can be 12–20% depending on the city and state, if a 15% tax is applied, that would add an additional $3.55 more per month.

• Not included in the advertised price: To add irony to obfuscation, this fee is never included in the advertised rates, nor is it added completely in the promotional price, making the increases after the promotion even more egregious.
• Not included in the EU statistics for the U.S. Triple Play: Ironically, the EU informed us that they do not include the extra charges and fees in the US because — well, the other countries only have a VAT (Value Added Tax), and not the made-up fees.
• No Oversight, No Audits; Regulators Failed U.S.: The idea that a state-franchised cable service or the Holding Companies that control the state telecommunications public utility can just make up fees and add them to bills with no one asking for a cost analysis or some other justification to raise this make-believe charge, should have the peanut gallery screaming.
• Public has Amnesia: No one knows who these local telecom companies are or what they’ve been able to get away with. And virtually no one could answer basic questions about who the companies are or the services they offer.
• Let’s give government subsidies to keep America in a perpetual state of “Please Sir May I have another?” Currently there are subsidies being given to low-income families to go online, which are then handed over to the same companies that have caused this Divide in the first place; i.e.; a new flavor of Corporate Welfare. We will address these issues in an upcoming story.

The telecom holding companies that control the critical infrastructure wires, towers and antennas created the Digital Divide. They also control the pricing of all services, wireline, wireless, broadband, internet and even cable, and as we will discuss, they also were able to manipulate the accounting formulas to have the state telecom utility act as a cash machine to fund, illegally, the other lines of business.

America must go after these cooked books and must clean up the mess. There is plenty of money to get America upgraded, and it must be seen as the first step in LA County to clean up the mess and decades of public policy and regulatory issues.

Government subsidies, both state and federal, to companies who have created the Digital Divide and can control the prices and profits over the public utility wires needs immediate investigations — not more gifts of largesse.

Bruce Kushnick is Executive Director of New Networks Institute and a founding member of the Irregulators. He has been a telecom analyst for 40 years, and playing the piano for 65 years. A version of this piece originally appeared on Medium on January 9, 2024, and is reprinted with permission.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

With the historic broadband funding finally hitting the states this year, we are at an exciting juncture in the deployment process. As we begin this new phase, it is essential that states, cities, and towns have processes in place to ensure they are ready to hit the ground running when the money arrives in their bank accounts.

Many of our members plan to actively compete for the BEAD money, so we have submitted comments directly to the states on their Initial Proposals to NTIA. Through these comments, we have stressed the importance of ensuring state broadband offices address barriers to deployment including gaining access to the public rights-of-way and streamlining the permitting process.

To reinforce this, we put together the “Broadband Ready City” Checklist as a guide for state and local governments to coordinate and effectively implement the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program.

The checklist covers five points on promoting fair and reasonable costs on applications and accessing the rights-of-way, to timely permitting reviews, greater transparency in the review process, and promoting more innovative deployment processes and construction techniques such as micro-trenching.

We were excited to see Kansas be one of the first states to lead on adopting specific local ordinances ahead of time and before any BEAD funding is awarded. I would like to personally commend Governor Laura Kelly and the Kansas Office of Broadband Development for their work in introducing a new statewide program called “Kansas Broadband Ready Communities.” This is an important step in the right direction.

By certifying communities and towns as a Broadband Ready Community, these state and local review guidelines will enable faster processing that will allow the deployment of broadband infrastructure more quickly, including small cells and other wireless equipment and fiber that is used by both fixed and mobile providers to connect their networks. An efficient and effective permitting process will help ensure that the taxpayer’s investment through the BEAD Program will deliver broadband service faster and more affordably.

We appreciate the Kansas Office of Broadband Development taking this important step, and we urge other states to build on this and implement the language of our “Broadband Ready City” Checklist.

As we continue to work hard to bridge the digital divide, we believe this process will serve as a catalyst for removing barriers to deployment at the state and local level and lead to more successful broadband projects in the future.

Chip Pickering is CEO of INCOMPAS, the internet and competitive networks association. For nearly three decades, he has been at the forefront of every major telecommunications milestone, from his time as a Senate staffer on the Commerce Committee shaping the Telecommunications Act of 1996, to his role as a Member of Congress leading on tech issues and overseeing the transition to the commercial internet. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

The year 2023 has continued to be a significant one for mobile network evolution. Mobile Network Operators  invested in 5G upgrades over the recent years and are at a point where they are reevaluating their next steps based on current return on investment.

Investments for the latest 5G infrastructure have yet to show a significant revenue increase. In fact, subscriber traffic has continued to grow while service plan pricing has remained relatively flat. MNOs realize that further network investment must focus on cost savings and new revenue streams.

Nonetheless 5G enhancements have been a primary focus this past year. New 5G radio frequency bands, like C-Band, were implemented in high traffic venues where its increased bandwidth improved performance. Yet the deployment strategy of higher mmWave frequencies varied across the MNOs. While mmWave supports high data rates and low latency, its propagation characteristics limit its coverage area which requires careful planning and consideration by MNOs.

One application where mmWave has been quite successful is for Fixed Wireless Access services as an alternative to wired broadband. With the use of advanced 5G antenna technology such as Massive MIMO, and a relatively clear line-of-site between towers and FWA users, the distance limitations can be minimized while delivering high performance broadband service. Since the last mile connection is delivered wirelessly, the cost per customer is reduced and the service price can be highly competitive.

Next-generation core network architecture

We are also seeing a ramp in the deployment of the next generation 5G core network architecture. Originally 5G was deployed in a Non-Stand-Alone architecture that allowed MNOs to deploy their 5G RAN as an overly of the existing 4G network, whereby 5G devices depend on 4G signaling and core network to establish a connection.

Moving to 5G stand alone, which is based on cloud-native principles, provides an inherent service-based architecture that supports full end-to-end 5G capabilities including advanced mobile core functionality that opens the door for new services and higher performance. While 5G SA deployment in the US started before 2023, this year has seen continual growth.

A major benefit of the 5G stand alone mobile core is the implementation of advanced functionality including network slicing, Voice over New Radio and time-critical communication. It allows MNOs to create separate network layers for customized capacity, latency, and performance to address specific applications or user requirements. This provides a platform for new edge services based on customer groups, and new revenue streams.

Another key benefit of 5G stand alone is the ability to separate and virtualize the various functions of the mobile network. For example, RAN functions can be moved to optimal locations within the network running on standardized information technology servers or in a hosted cloud.

This architecture allows MNOs to reduce hardware costs compared to traditional network infrastructure options and implement software-based RAN functionality that efficiently scales with traffic needs. The next step is leveraging 5G SA network principles along with Open RAN capabilities as we move into 2024.

Open RAN likely to accelerate in 2024

O-RAN elevates this optimization further by allowing elements from different vendors to interoperate based on the defined standards. This gives MNOs significant flexibility and cost savings through a more competitive and scalable approach.

While there are operational challenges, these challenges can be overcome with careful interoperability testing and verification. One example of this strategy is the recent announcement by AT&T to invest significantly in O-RAN implementation starting in 2024.

Indoor users also benefit from these network architectural advances. DAS solutions have begun to evolve to an O-RAN architecture that simplifies its connectivity to the MNO core network with included baseband functionality. This eliminates the need for a separate and costly BTS signal source traditionally deployed by each of the MNOs.

When an inbuilding O-RAN solution is approved for use by the MNO it can be deployed and managed by the inbuilding solution provider, thereby reducing MNO capital expenditure and operational expenditures while delivering dedicated capacity to the venue. Furthermore, this architecture supports the centralization of RAN functions that can optimize connectivity between the MNO network and multiple venues.

Finally, this architecture further simplifies the integration of neutral host and private network services where 5G SA network slicing and edge services support the ability to offer value-added custom applications to the building owners, tenants, and guests, on top of neutral host service.

While private network solutions have been deployed for quite some time, they primarily serve the internal venue users. Addressing the needs of both private and public mobile users on those solutions has been a challenge due to factors driven by MNO requirements. Fresh solutions have already emerged that solve this challenge with the O-RAN and 5G architectural advances.

These new solutions optimize the coexistence of MNO neutral host and private services on the same scalable platform with improved economics. With the network densification and cost benefits of this approach, it is expected to be an area of growth in the coming year.

John Cinicolo leads Tillman Digital Cities’ Technical Operations function including solution architecture, technology strategy, program execution and technical services. He has more than 35 years of experience building mobile technology business around the world in leadership roles with network infrastructure provides and entrepreneurial startups. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.