ACA Connects #Summit2024 just wrapped up, and our Member made an impact sharing their priorities with top policy makers and leaders in the nation’s capital.
Don’t miss these top #Summit2024 headlines and the stories driving news in the broadband and video landscape.
POLITICO’S MORNING TECH, 3/8/2024:
By John Hendel, POLITICO
STUMPING ON BROADBAND — Although Biden touted his broadband accomplishments during last night’s State of the Union, telecom observers are beginning to question whether his landmark $42.45 billion broadband infrastructure program will break much ground by the November election.
It’s widely seen as a winning campaign issue for Biden, but the administration has so far only awarded funding for a single state — and nearly three months have passed since the administration signed off on Louisiana’s plans to use that money.
— Not as fast as expected: Grant Spellmeyer, the CEO of a trade association of broadband providers known as ACA Connects, is surprised by the sluggish pace around the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, he told John this week during the group’s Washington summit.
“With the exception of Louisiana, you have to say that it’s pretty difficult to figure out how there are shovels in the ground before the election,” Spellmeyer said. “If you had asked me that a year ago, I think I would have said I would have predicted that by September, there would be shovels in the ground. It’s clearly fallen behind a little bit.”
Spellmeyer speculated that the administration may have needed to spend extra time wrestling with the grant program’s low-income affordability requirements, which he says may be more important given the imminent collapse of the Affordable Connectivity Program. (Although supportive, he’s not optimistic it gets funded.)
The Spulu Threesome Prepares for Its Cold-Shower Phase
By John Ourand, PUCK
Yes, everyone already hates Spulu—the streaming consortium between Disney, WBD, and Fox that we still know basically nothing about and promises to make a genuine problem worse. Now, the bundle has a new nemesis grousing around, and ready for a fight.
[…]
Okay, dear reader, we’ve reached the point in the nascent saga of Spulu—the forthcoming sports bundle confederation concocted by frenemies Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery—where the knives are truly out. After all, Spulu was a corporate marriage created for money, not love, and consummated by a troika of mediaco C.E.O.s (including a Murdoch heir and the embattled David Zaslav) with the thinly veiled intention of prolonging the cable bundle. Spulu’s list of haters is long and varied, starting with rival media executives, who were caught off guard; league executives, who were also left in the dark and have concerns about how the service could impact negotiations; and, of course, cable providers.
[…]
[S]mall cable operators hate Spulu the most. They fear the sports-focused streaming service will likely cannibalize their own customers as much as the cord-nevers. Exacerbating matters is the fact that they feel powerless to stop its formation—outside of a long-shot and utterly quixotic bid to have federal antitrust regulators put the kibosh on it. But, alas, desperate times call for desperate measures…
As a result, a group of small-cable executives descended on Washington, D.C., this week as part of the annual America’s Communications Association Connects confab. I like to attend these events as a way to preview bigger issues that will crop up on a national scale. To wit: The vulnerabilities of the cable bundle were first previewed, decades ago, by these smaller distributors before they migrated to a larger, more metastatic level. In fact, I first heard the little guys complain about the rising cost of sports channels. For them, it was a life-or-death struggle. Executives run their small cable systems on such a shoestring budget that they have to justify any sizable rate increase five times over.
Now, it’s the small-cable group that has been dropping video altogether to focus on the more profitable broadband business—for years, in fact, they’ve justified providing bundles of channels as a loss-leader to entice broadband customers. Cable One, for example, has been in the process of shutting down its cable TV business for the past several years. It’s the same story with Colorado-based WideOpenWest, which has been transitioning its video customers to YouTube TV.
The executives at these companies are frustrated because they know they’d never be allowed to roll out their own semi-skinny bundles like the Spulu offering. Cable, once the greatest business model ever, operates on a cartel-style quid pro quo framework. If distributors want to carry ESPN, they also have to carry all the lesser Disney channels. If they want to carry TNT and TBS, WBD will make them pay to carry all the subprime Discovery channels, too.
During the ACA meeting, one idea that gained traction centered on creating a smaller bundle of 35-40 channels, plus some FAST channels. This type of package could keep small cable operators in the video business without having to pay full freight for more expensive channels. Lou Borrelli, president of the National Content & Technology Cooperative, which negotiates programming deals on behalf of the small cable operators, actually alluded to this idea onstage at the event, adding that he expects more details by summer.
Everything was civil and constructive, but my epiphany was that these cable companies are digging in for a real fight. They want the flexibility to offer skinny bundles, like Spulu, to their own customers.
Small and Mid-Sized ISP BEAD Participation a Question; NTIA Eyes ‘Pain Points‘
By Matt Daneman, Communications Daily
Many small and mid-sized internet service providers (ISP) have doubts that they will participate widely if at all in the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. At ACA Connects’ annual summit Wednesday in Washington, President Grant Spellmeyer said members are concerned “about where BEAD is headed” on project requirements and conditions.
ACA Connects Considering Legal Challenge to All-In Video Rules
By Matt Daneman, Communications Daily
ACA Connects “will take a serious look” at challenging the FCC’s “all-in” video pricing rules, which are set for a vote during the commissioners’ March 14 open meeting, ACA President Grant Spellmeyer said.
Throwing Caution: ISPs Express BEAD Pains at ACA Summit
By Amy Maclean, CableFax
ACA Connects’ annual Summit kicked off Wednesday with several warning flags on the field over the $42.5 billion BEAD program.
“By my count, you have something like maybe over 12 states recently that have said they aren’t going to have enough money to cover all unserved and underserved locations. That’s a big miss. There’s still time to course correct, but why is it miss- ing?” asked FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, pointing the blame at the “forced rate regulation” and heavy-handed labor preferences.
Biden’s Broadband Chief Sounds Alarm on Expiring Affordable-Internet Subsidy
By Rob Pegoraro, PCMag
Most of the concern over the impending demise of the Affordable Connectivity Program—the federal subsidy that’s made broadband cheaper or free for more than 23 million households—has focused on the people about to have a new hole drilled in their monthly budgets.
Attendees at a D.C. conference hosted by an association of smaller telecom firms feel their pain: “Half of our problem in this nation is not accessibility, it’s affordability,” said ACA Connects President and CEO Patricia Jo Boyers, at the group’s ACA Connects Summit.