There’s no question in Shirley Bloomfield’s mind about which technology the broadband industry should focus on for the future: “We’re really bullish on fiber.”
When Telecompetitor interviewed Bloomfield — CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association — she laid out the reasons why she believes fiber is a technology that is ready to face the future.
“We work really closely with Corning. And I’ve heard Wendell Weeks [CEO of Corning] and the Corning team talk about how their first fiber still has not run out of capacity 30 or 40 years later,” Bloomfield said.
While fiber, like any technology, requires ongoing maintenance, Bloomfield says there is a once-and-done element to fiber that doesn’t exist with other technologies. Her concern with other non-fiber technologies is that work may have to be redone to upgrade or replace them.
“When it’s tough to get access to supplies, when it’s tough to get access to crews, the idea of doing something that — in five years — you’re going to be doing again is cost-ineffective.”
While fiber is usually a more expensive technology to deploy than various wireless options, Bloomfield believes future bandwidth needs will require fiber technology capable of faster, more reliable speeds. “I know a lot of members of Congress are [saying], ‘Well, wouldn’t it be just cheaper if we just did aerial or wireless or whatever?’,” Bloomfield said.
“And then you look at the trend lines of how consumers utilize connectivity: the exponential factor of how much more we consume, how much faster we expect [broadband] to be, how much less patient we are to download, upload, whatever it might be, and how quickly we forgot what it was like to live through the pandemic when we were all doing it in the same place at the same time.”
In addition to increased consumer demand, Bloomfield pointed out the economic benefits rural providers have brought to their communities because of their investment in fiber.
“When I look at the economics of what our members have been able to do when they have built fiber to the prem[ises] for their customers, you really can’t compare that to anything else,” she said. “Consumers want it, which is one of the reasons why we all see that first to a market with fiber is usually the winner because that’s what consumers demand — that experience.”
At the same time, Bloomfield conceded that there are some locations that — for the moment — may simply be too hard to reach with fiber. “There’s a sense of reality. You know, you are going to have that person on top of the mountain. You are going to have that ranch that is 10 miles out. So, even as an interim measure, you might be doing a fixed wireless product.
“[NTCA has] members doing that, and members who — under some of the USF [Universal Service Fund] reform, who have taken enhanced ACAM [Alternative Connect America Cost Model] — will have to build out to 100% of their territory. Some of those parts will be tough to build out to, so they might use fixed wireless at the edges, with the intent that, as they can bring fiber further and further out, they will do that.”
Even when fixed wireless is a solution, Bloomfield added, she believes it is a temporary solution until the technology can be replaced by fiber in the future. “It’s one thing when you’ve got five people on that fixed wireless network. And then you’ve got ten, then you’ve got fifteen. The service denigrates, the speed denigrates, the capacity is limited. It just is. God forbid you all are watching a movie at the same time.
“[The NTCA members] who use fixed wireless really think of it as just a tool until they can get fiber out there.”
Bloomfield has even stronger reservations about the type of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet offered by companies like Starlink.
“You will always have latency [with satellite internet]. And when I look at these government programs, they’ve got Buy America provisions. But satellites orbit the Earth: so, we’re putting government funding into a technology that serves the U.S. for part of the time, but it’s not all U.S.-based the rest of the time. How does that work?”
In September, NTCA submitted comments to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), stating in no uncertain terms their preference for fiber over alternative technologies in building the broadband networks of the future.
“Various technologies will of course have a place in ensuring ‘Internet for All,’” the comments read, “but NTIA and Eligible Entities should pursue all avenues in prioritizing the deployment of fiber infrastructure to as many locations as possible, before turning to other reliable broadband technologies to eligible locations where necessary and then finally looking to the use of alternative [i.e., non-reliable] technologies in very limited circumstances.”
In conversation with Telecompetitor, Bloomfield concluded that fiber is, simply, the most prudent technology for future-proofing networks and being responsible stewards of federal and state funds. “We just think it’s the best investment, and we think that people [i.e., the broadband industry] are going to be pound foolish if they don’t just do it right the first time.”
This is the third article in a four-part Industry Perspective series, based on interviews with Shirley Bloomfield. The other three articles are:
