Last year the Biden FCC implemented a new rule requiring that broadband providers include a “nutrition label for broadband,” making any fees, restrictions, usage caps, or other limits clear at the point of sale. The proposal was mandated by Congress as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law.

But four years after Congress proposed the idea, a new study indicates that many ISPs aren’t doing a great job adhering to the rules. The Trump FCC has also announced that it's taking formal steps to weaken or eliminate the rules as part of the agency’s broad, frontal assault on consumer protections.

The new academic study (first reported on by Broadband Breakfast) by York University researchers Jonathan A. Obar and Boxi Chen gave 35 different U.S. ISPs a ten-star based grade on how well they are adhering to the FCC broadband label requirements, including label placement, standardized formatting, machine-readable data files, and required policy links.

The results weren’t pretty: only sixteen ISPs properly placed labels at the point of sale as required, and not a single ISP received full marks for completely adhering to the FCC’s requirements. Only six ISPs received a full ten star ranking for proper formatting.

The CBN team's Associate Director for Communications Sean Gonsalves recently published a piece in ProMarket about the continuing consolidation of telecommunication markets and why municipal broadband is a better option. He writes:

"Last month, AT&T announced it would acquire all of Lumen Technologies’ fiber internet business for $5.75 billion. According to a company statement, the purchase will net AT&T one million fiber customers and significantly expand its fiber footprint in Denver, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Seattle.

Across AT&T and Lumen’s service areas, where they offer wired or licensed fixed wireless Internet service, more than half of the locations they claim to serve have two or fewer options for high-speed internet service.

Good news for AT&T stockholders. Not so good news for broadband-hungry subscribers who, for years now, have been paying among the highest prices for internet service of any developed nation in the world. Ever wonder why that is? The answer is as painfully obvious as our overpriced monthly internet bills.

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When big telecom giants consolidate—especially in a market where most people have only one or maybe two internet service providers (ISPs) to choose from—the results are predictable: without meaningful competition for something as fundamental as internet connectivity in an internet-connected world, monopolists have no incentive to improve service, invest in network upgrades, or compete on price.

A new study by The Brattle Group found that the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) generated more savings for taxpayers than it cost. Healthcare savings generated by the low-income program alone more than offset its annual burden to taxpayers, undermining claims that the program was dismantled as an act of fiscal efficiency.

The ACP, part of the 2021 infrastructure bill, provided 23 million low-income households a $30 broadband discount every month. It provided a larger $75 a month discount for low-income residents of widely underserved tribal areas.

The ACP also provided low-income Americans a $100 subsidy to help them afford a laptop, tablet or a desktop computer.

Generally viewed as a rare bipartisan success story, the ACP took direct aim at a primary problem across U.S. broadband: affordability.

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But the program was unceremoniously allowed to expire in 2024 after GOP leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to even bring funding bills to the House floor for a vote, despite widespread support from industry, consumer groups, and even then Republican Ohio Senator JD Vance.

Here at ILSR we’re no stranger to telecom monopoly-backed efforts to mislead the public about the significant benefits of community owned broadband access.

That’s why a new “study” by the industry-backed Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) maligning municipal broadband doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

The study professes to take a look at a very small number of municipal broadband networks, then makes sweeping and patently false claims about the entire sector.

“In most cases, local governments have neither the competence nor the economies of scale to deliver broadband as well as private ISPs,” the study concludes. “So, favoring government-owned networks wastes societal resources, creates unfair competition, and is frequently unsustainable in the long run.”

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There’s numerous problems here. One being that the survey only looked at 20 municipal broadband networks in a country where more than 450 community broadband networks – serving close to 800 different communities – now pepper the American landscape.

The study author acknowledges the study’s sample size was “too small for the data to represent all U.S. [government-owned broadband networks] reliably,” then proceeds to make broad sweeping assumptions unsupported by any actual evidence.

A recent U.S. News And World Report survey of U.S. broadband subscribers shows that Americans are increasingly paying more money for broadband access.

The survey also indicates broad public support for the recently defunded Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), and other government-backed efforts to cap soaring broadband subscription costs.

The organization surveyed 2,500 adults from the country’s five most populous states; 500 broadband subscribers each in California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Not too surprisingly, the survey found that consumers consistently are paying more for broadband than the advertised price, either thanks to steady rate hikes, or the broad use of often sneaky, hidden fees to jack up the advertised cost of service.

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Most Americans remain trapped under a monopoly or duopoly for next-generation broadband (broadband defined as faster than 100/20 megabits per second, or Mbps) access. This lack of competition results in high prices, slow speeds, spotty access, substandard customer service, and an increased occurrence of net neutrality, privacy, or other anti-consumer violations.

The survey found the average U.S. subscriber bill at sign up is now $81 – up from the $77 average monthly price seen in the outlet’s April 2024 survey report. But the average broadband subscription cost when the bill actually arrives was now $98 per month; up from $89 just six months earlier. For most, $100 broadband access is right around the corner.

As the federal government makes unprecedented investments to expand high-speed access to the Internet, unbeknownst to most outside the broadband industry is that nearly a third of the states in the U.S. have preemption laws in place that either prevent or restrict local municipalities from building and operating publicly-owned, locally-controlled networks.

Currently, there are 16 states across the U.S. (listed below) with these monopoly-protecting, anti-competition preemption laws in place.

These states maintain these laws, despite the fact that wherever municipal broadband networks or other forms of community-owned networks operate, the service they deliver residents and businesses almost always offers faster connection speeds, more reliable service, and lower prices.

In numerous cases, municipal broadband networks are able to provide low-cost or free service to low-income households even in the absence of the now expired federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). And for several years in a row now, municipal networks consistently rank higher in terms of consumer satisfaction and performance in comparison to the big monopoly Internet service providers, as PCMag and Consumer Reports have documented time and time again.

Nevertheless, these preemption laws remain in 16 states, enacted at the behest of Big Cable and Telecom lobbyists, many of whom have ghost written the statutes, in an effort to protect ISP monopolies from competition.

The Infrastructure Law Was Supposed to Move the Preemption Needle But …

The Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA), Maine’s quasi-governmental public agency in charge of broadband expansion and digital equity, is seeking proposals to help design and construct a major 536-mile fiber network that should dramatically improve affordable fiber access across vast swaths of the Pine Tree State.

For several years Maine officials have proposed spending $53 million to build a major middle mile fiber network known as the Maine Online Optical Statewide Enabling Network (MOOSE Net).

The middle mile network would extend fiber into numerous underserved Maine communities, boosting broadband competition and access while hopefully lowering prices.

Last year, Maine received a $30 million grant to help fund the network’s construction, courtesy of the National Telecommunications Information Administration’s (NTIA) $980 million Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program. The MCA’s proposal was one of just 32 proposals selected out of 260 applicants for federal broadband funding.