Report: ULTRA UNRELIABLE: How a bad deal with Verizon has cost San Diegans, three years later (PDF) This report provides a three-year analysis of San Diego’s 2019 5G public-private partnership with Verizon. The analysis finds evidence suggesting the public is likely to provide more than $1 million in subsidies to Verizon over the life of the deal, while the City of San Diego has been unable to produce records showing the value of any Verizon-provided community benefit. The report further finds no evidence that Verizon’s network is making meaningful progress toward closing San Diego’s digital divide, and the deal continues to lack any support for local workers. The report provides three recommendations to address the partnership’s shortcomings and ensure that San Diegans are made whole moving forward.
Report: 5G Built Wrong: Corporate Giveaways to Verizon Leave San Diegans Worse Off(PDF) This report analyzes the public-private partnership between the City of San Diego and Verizon, finding that the partnership was executed as a backroom deal that stands to benefit the company instead of centering the connectivity needs of all San Diegans. The report outlines three recommendations to help ensure San Diegans get a fair deal that benefits all residents.
Report: Verizon’s 5G Promises Ring Hollow in Sacramento (PDF) The public-private partnership between the City of Sacramento and Verizon promised to make Sacramento one of the nation’s first “5G cities.” Yet the deal has failed to deliver promised benefits, and residents may wonder whether this partnership is a corporate giveaway.
CWA FCC Reply Comment on the Wireless Resiliency Cooperative Framework (PDF) The Communications Workers of America (CWA) submitted Reply Comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau’s Public Notice seeking comment on improving the Wireless Resiliency Cooperative Framework, particularly in response to network restoration efforts in Florida following Hurricane Michael in 2018.
For more coverage of broadband policy from CWA, visit www.SpeedMatters.org.
Small Cell Deployment
Communications Workers of America (CWA), Subcontracting in Small Cell Deployment: Who’s Doing the Work in Our Streets? (PDF), May 2020 This brief outlines the problem with multi-layered contracting arrangements, and steps local governments can take to ensure safe conditions for workers and the public. Many providers are building wireless networks using a web of out-of-state, subcontracted labor instead of locally-based direct employees, and often these subcontractors are non-union. When installation work goes wrong in the right-of-way, there are serious consequences.
National League of Cities (NLC), Municipal Action Guide: Small Cell Wireless Technology in Cities (PDF), August 2018 This action guide from the National League of Cities provides an overview of small cell technology, as well as guidance on how local governments can plan for, develop policy and processes around, and manage the deployment of, small cell wireless infrastructure. It also provides city leaders with strategies for proactively engaging with wireless providers and residents to plan for small cell networks in their communities.
National League of Cities & National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), Alternative Model Code for Municipalities (PDF), August 2018 NLC and NATOA’s model code is intended as a roadmap to assist local governments in adopting their own ordinances governing use of the rights of way by communications providers.
NATOA, FCC Small Cell Order Implementation Guide (PDF) NATOA released a Guide to help local governments respond to the FCC’s September 2018 Order on small wireless infrastructure deployments and associated fees for use of the rights of way and public property in the rights of way.
Digital Equity
National Digital Inclusion Alliance The National Digital Inclusion Alliance is a unified voice for home broadband access, public broadband access, personal devices and local technology training and support programs. The organization works collaboratively to craft, identify and disseminate financial and operational resources for digital inclusion programs while serving as a bridge to policymakers and the general public.
Worst Connected Cities Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS), NDIA ranks all 186 U.S. cities with more than 50,000 households by the total percentage of each city’s households lacking fixed broadband internet subscriptions.
Pew Research, Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet For more than 15 years, Pew Research Center has documented the growth and distribution of the Internet in the United States. Explore the patterns of internet and home broadband adoption in this fact sheet.
City of San José, Digital Inclusion Fund (PDF) The San José Digital Inclusion Fund is the largest of its kind in the nation. The initiative will be partially funded by the revenue from the small cell usage fees paid by telecommunications companies to upgrade broadband networks that lay the groundwork for 5G, and will provide programs and grants to the community to close the digital divide in San José.
