Rural Home Broadband Might Not Always--or Even Often--be an Example of Digital Divide

Rural areas always face challenges when it comes to home broadband, for simple reasons: the cost of fixed networks in areas of low population and housing density is challenging. But the latest survey data from NTCA suggests matters have improved dramatically. 

The NTCA’s latest poll of its members indicates 61 percent of residents can buy service with downstream speeds of at least 1 Gbps, up from 55 percent in 2021,  45 percent in 2020, and 25 percent in 2019. 

source: NTCA 

Customers unable to buy service at speeds up to 25 Mbps have dropped to about nine percent. 

The 2021 report indicated as much as 76 percent of customers are able to buy services running from 100 Mbps to multi-gigabit speeds. About 55 percent of customers were  in the “1 Gbps or faster” category.

source: NTCA 

There are issues, to be sure. One might argue that non-reporting firms probably support lower speeds than the 38 percent of rural ISPs that responded to the survey request. Keep in mind that the respondents report an average of 4,287 residential and 648 business fixed broadband connections in service. 

It is likely that most of the non-responders are even smaller entities. In other words, as in most markets, it is likely that a small subset of ISPs in the U.S. rural ISP market represent most of the total potential customers. 

The important takeaway is that rural home broadband is improving fast and already is on a par with urban service levels in many cases. That is not the impression a casual observer might get if reading, seeing or hearing about the digital divide in news reports. 

As often is the case, reality can be distorted unless “both sides of the story” are told.

Home Broadband Now Driven by Entertainment Use Cases

Some 25 years ago, it might have made sense to assume that home use of PCs drove demand for home broadband. That clearly is not the case anymore. These days, video streaming and gaming dominate in-home data demand. Also, in terms of minutes or hours of use, it is likely that mobile devices are bigger sources of engagement than are PCs.

source: Statista 

Leichtman Research Group reports that 90 percent of U.S. households buy an Internet access service at home, up from 84 percent in 2017, and 74 percent in 2007. That figure correlates with PC ownership and use at home. 

That is an important finding for policy advocates since people who do not use PCs or the internet are unlikely to have much interest in home broadband.

The important caveats are that home broadband is useful for users of mobile and gaming devices and for watching streaming video. It would be interesting to see surveys shift to include smartphone use, gaming consoles and streaming video use, essentially ignoring value for PC users, to see if the correlation with home broadband is equally strong. 

It now is likely that the value of home broadband encompasses smartphone, video entertainment, gaming and computing use cases in relatively equal measure. 

Likewise, mapping home broadband to 4K TVs and smartwatches might be useful, though perhaps not as crucial as those other anchor services. Streaming video tends to triple data consumption, and higher-resolution video consumes more data than high-definition TV. 

source: Increase Broadband Speed  

Also, higher resolution video requires more bandwidth than lower-resolution video. Likewise for cloud gaming, a shift away from consoles and to cloud gaming could grow data consumption  six times, according to Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Intelligence. 

source: Increase Broadband Speed 

These days, the devices most commonly connected to home broadband, and the devices most commonly used, are likely to be smartphones, TVs and gaming consoles, rather than PCs. 

Leichtman Research also found that broadband access accounts for 99 percent of households with an Internet service at home. Dial-up might still be used by one percent of customers, in other words, but internet access and broadband now are virtually synonymous. 

Of respondents  that use a laptop or desktop computer at home, 96 percent have an internet access service at home. Those that do not use a laptop or desktop computer at home account for 58 percent of all those that do not get Internet service at home.

But in many parts of the rest of the world, smartphones are likely to remain the way most people get access to the internet. By some estimates, in 2025, for example, about 75 percent of the world’s people will get access to the internet solely using their smartphones. 

The point is that the historic argument that home broadband makes sense for users of PGs is outmoded. Home broadband matters for mobile phone users, gamers and TV watchers. In terms of actual in-home bandwidth consumption, PCs are getting to be the least significant source of data demand.

Grocery Delivery Remains a Difficult Business

Some observers of Amazon Prime’s new charges for grocery delivery are predictably disturbed by news that Amazon Fresh customers now will have to order at least $150 in merchandise for a single order to get free delivery.

Perhaps they should not be so surprised. According to consultants at McKinsey, “a typical North American grocer achieves a positive net profit-and-loss (P&L) margin of about $4 on a traditional $100 grocery basket when the customer is walking the aisles in the store.”

When the grocer has to manually pick from the store and deliver to the customer, net P&L margin becomes approximately –$13 for a $100 online grocery basket order.

Even with good cost controls, grocery delivery remains a difficult business model.

"Platform" Business Models are Difficult For Lots of Good Reasons

It comes as no surprise that when an industry runs headlong into a business model discontinuity, the search for an alternative model becomes acute. A broken business model is an existential crisis of the first order, challenging the very ability to stay in business. -

And business models have been an issue for connectivity and data center providers for decades, in ways large and small. Competition and its effects on gross revenue and profit margins have been key for the former; a shift to cloud computing has arguably been central for the latter. 

But in both industries, executives must expend serious effort to revamp, revise or create different business models as a way of sustaining growth. One example is the replacement of fixed network services by mobile services as the primary engine of growth in the connectivity business. 

For many service providers, mobility now drives 70 percent to 85 percent of revenue growth and  profit. In the fixed networks business, where voice--especially long distance--once drove industry profits, it now is an essential feature of service, but not the revenue driver. 

Internet access now is the key service, but that product is historically challenged as well. Lower costs per gigabyte have been a trend in the connectivity business in every segment, including the mobile business, with the perhaps predictable outcome that mobile operator profit margins drop over time as well. 

To be sure, local markets have different profiles where it comes to general price levels, growth rates, revenue magnitudes and value of revenue sources such as roaming. So revenue upside and growth potential does vary. 

Still, maturation or saturation remain key business challenges. And that is why connectivity providers have spent so much time trying to reinvent themselves, create additional value and new products and features, to outgrow their declining core businesses. 

That, in turn, explains the interest in platform business models. 

“Platform” is a term often seen when people talk about firm business models, and it often is misunderstood, in part because we are so used to hearing the term used to describe computing products and services. 

A platform is a business model. that creates value by facilitating exchanges between two or more interdependent groups, usually consumers and producers. Platforms facilitate interactions between buyers and sellers, audiences and advertisers, Simply, platforms create interactions, linking supply and demand, rather than creating and selling owned products.  

source: Innovation Tactics 

A platform business model is a type of business model where a company creates a foundation for other companies or individuals to build upon and offer their own products or services. This is done by providing a set of tools, resources, and infrastructure that others can use to create and distribute their own products or services.

A platform can take many forms, but generally, it involves three main components: a set of customers, a set of suppliers, and a set of rules and standards that govern the interactions between them. The platform itself can be a digital product or service, such as a website, app, or marketplace, or it can be a physical infrastructure, like a transportation network or a power grid.

source: Innovation Tactics 

Examples of platform business models include:

• Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

• E-commerce platforms like Amazon and Etsy

• Ride-sharing platforms like Uber and Lyft

• Online marketplaces like Airbnb and TaskRabbit

• Payment platforms like PayPal and Venmo

Platforms can create value by connecting customers with suppliers, reducing transaction costs, creating network effects, and making it easier for suppliers to reach customers. Platforms also benefit from economies of scale and scope, as their value increases as more customers and suppliers join the platform.

Whether this can be done in the connectivity business remains to be seen. Some would argue data centers have gotten further down the path. When data centers say they are ecosystems of value, that is true in many respects. Even when the actual revenue model is “selling space, air conditioning and security,” the value of specific data centers frequently includes features such as which connectivity network providers; tenants, app providers; software infra providers or content providers also are collocated within a particular data center.

Does ChatGPT Pose New Legal Risks for Search Engines?

Ignoring for the moment possible regulatory moves on the order of the breakup of the monopoly Bell system (AT&T divestiture) or the Microsoft consent decree, ChatGPT itself poses some new possible issues for Google and other firms that incorporate ChatGPT as part of their operations. 

Though a subtle matter, ChatGPT arguably changes ecosystem roles. Today, Google’s search responses arguably remain in the realm of “finding products and content” rather than “creating products and content.”

A search query produces results created by third parties. A ChatGPT query produces something very different: a specific answer and formulation. The analogy might be that ChatGPT makes its sponsor a content creator; a publisher. 

Search, in principle, only makes the provider an aggregator of third party content. 

In some countries, that distinction can be significant. Today, in some countries, aggregators are not legally responsible for content third parties create. But publishers of content (newspapers, radio and TV stations, magazines, news and opinion sites) can legally be held responsible for what they choose to publish. 

In some instances, that is anything but a subtle difference. The legal defense for an aggregator is that laws protect it from liability when others say things. Of course, in some countries publishers also have protection from prosecution when “reporting the news” or “offering an opinion,” with the exception of willful publishing of material known to be untrue, and injurious to people who are not public figures. 

So ChatGPT raises new issues about whether aggregators and search engines are “merely” conduits for third party information or now become something more like “speakers” in their own right. 

Whether this change ultimately changes legal liabilities is unclear at the moment. Whether those possible levels of legal and financial exposure affect content moderation policies likewise is unclear. 

But it is a new area of uncertainty.

Changes in U.S. FTTH Demand and Supply Sides

There are several reasons--both supply side and demand side--why U.S. “fiber to home” business models appear to have changed. 

Perhaps oddly, fundamental demand for home broadband, though higher than ever, also provides less of the revenue to build the networks.

As important as the fiber-to-home business is, it is responsible for less than 10 percent of AT&T revenues. In the fourth quarter of 2022, for example, mobility drove nearly 69 percent of total revenue. 

In the fourth quarter of 2022. AT&T earned $31.3 billion. Mobility generated $21.5 billion of that amount. The fixed networks business generated $8.8 billion. Consumer fixed network services generated $3.3 billion or so. 

Of course, not all contestants are similarly situated. For many competitive internet service providers, revenue does largely depend almost exclusively on home broadband. Again oddly, revenue potential for such ISPs also seems to have declined. 

Where designers once assumed FTTH per-customer home revenue in triple digits ($130, for example), they now assume revenue in the $50 to $70 a month range. That might seem to eviscerate the business case, if network costs are in the $800 range with additional costs to connect actual customers in the $600 to $725 range, with take rates ranging from 20 percent up to about 40 percent. 

Only a firm with low overhead can make money sustainably at 20 percent adoption rates. For larger firms, adoption in the 40-percent range is likely required. At a high level, AT&T has been saying FTTH payback models work at $50 a month ARPU and penetration of 50 percent, though revenue from targeted newbuilds now exceed those figures, AT&T says. 

It is one thing for a smaller ISP to contemplate building an FTTH network and sustaining itself solely on such revenues. It is quite another matter for a dominant firm in a local area (Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, Lumen, Frontier, Brightspeed). 

Strategic concerns also matter, however. Even if the fixed networks business generates 10 percent of total revenue, that revenue still matters. Without the FTTH upgrade, AT&T risks losing that revenue and profit margin and cash flow contribution. 

In other words, even if never stated so starkly, unless the FTTH upgrade is made, AT&T and others risk losing their fixed networks business to competitors. 

At the same time, though harder to quantify, the payback model for deep-fiber networks can come in other ways. If small cell mobile networks require deep fiber networks, then business value comes also from the value of the backhaul network. So “fiber to the tower” and “fiber to the radio site” become elements of the payback model. 

Fiber access networks also support the business customer revenue stream. For AT&T, fourth quarter 2022 fixed networks business revenue was $5.6 billion, or about 18 percent of total revenue. So “fiber to the business” arguably drives almost twice the revenue as home broadband does, for AT&T. 

In other words, the same network supporting home broadband also contributes to support of the mobility business and business customer revenue streams. 

All that makes for a more-complicated payback analysis for any sizable contestant with dominant mobile revenues. Though the home broadband payback has to be there, the value of what we used to call “FTTH” has to be justified in other ways. 

Smaller ISPs might be able to justify an FTTH network on the basis of home broadband services alone, with 20 percent take rates. It is not so clear a large dominant service provider can hope to do so unless it can reach 40 percent or higher take rates, assuming revenue per account in the $50 to $70 range. 

And even when it does so, total deep fiber network value can hinge on other value contributions. 

Still, there are additional considerations. Supply side support from the federal government can reduce the cost of rural networks builds by 20 percent to 30 percent, which aids the payback model. 

Joint ventures of various types provide similar benefits, at the cost of possibly further reducing net revenue upside. 

And though it is an indirect input, many private equity firms are willing to invest in deep fiber projects with a rather simple formula: buy assets at a five times to six times revenue multiple and upgrade with FTTH to produce an asset selling at 10 times to 11 times revenue multiples. 

Demand side drivers also have changed a bit as well, beyond the “need” for internet access. 

The Affordable Connectivity Program provides a $30 a month subsidy for low-income buyers. That subsidy can be used to buy basic or faster services, and increases demand for internet access. 

In some cases, that means new FTTH facilities benefit both from 20 percent to 30 percent lower build costs, plus $30 a month in consumption subsidies for lower-income households. All those are new elements in payback models that improve the business case on both demand and supply sides.

Computing Now is Inseparable from Communications

Sometimes we only understand the value of something when it suddenly becomes unavailable. 

What is the value of one’s mobile phone, personal computer, applications, television, smartwatch, sensors or transaction appliances when power and internet connectivity are lost? If one could quantify value, it would be a number close to zero, in the absence of power and internet connectivity. 

It is estimated that intentional shutdowns of the internet by governments alone caused $24 billion in economic losses in 2022, for example. Deloitte researchers estimated in 2016 that a one-day internet outage affecting 10 million people in a country with high gross domestic product costs $24 million. 

source: Deloitte 

The point is that modern computing is inseparable from internet connectivity. That applies equally to end users as well as application and service providers; data centers and content owners; transaction platforms, logistics, transport, media and retail operations.

Most computing in the mainframe and minicomputer eras, followed by the early personal computer era, did not rely centrally on wide area networking, though local area connections often were important or essential. That largely remained true in the client-server era. But all that changed when computing became highly distributed in the internet, web, cloud computing and mobile computing periods, when resources were, by definition, remote. 

Paul M. Veillard 

As all media types became digital, content consumption and creation also were decentralized. The obvious implication is that modern computing cannot be divorced from networks and communication. 

Though much computing and processing happens at the edge, in an organization's private data center, onboard a PC, sensor or mobile device, most workloads now require remote processing. Hence the need for good connectivity, ranging from home broadband to mobile networks to metro capacity, inter-city links and subsea networks. 

source: Telegeography