As ISPs increasingly offer low-cost broadband programs similar to Comcast's Internet Essentials (IE), the number of eligible households climbs, though a significant amount of the subsidization goes to households that would have been subscribed anyway. That's per Technology Policy Institute President Scott Wallsten and Stanford University Public Policy Program Director Gregory Rosston, presented Thursday at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference. The study looked IE from 2011 launch as a voluntary FCC condition on the NBCUniversal acquisition through 2015. It found about 66 percent of subscribers were increases in low-income adoption stemming from the program, the remainder households switching from a competitor ISP or that would have signed up given adoption trends. It said IE-eligible households were more likely to take online courses or training than households in the footprints of other providers. It's unclear whether, when competing ISPs offer similar programs, customers benefit much or if the bonus is to the provider in customer retention. Wallsten told us such programs don't necessarily point to solutions for the digital divide. IE targeted households lacking broadband, and might not fly politically with a government program, meaning automatically broader eligibility for subsidies, he said. As fewer lack connectivity, holdouts become increasingly hard to reach, especially since research shows price isn't the dominant issue, he said, noting IE's heavily reduced monthly bill attracted only a share of the target population online. Comcast didn't comment.

The accelerating rate of cord cutting as vMVPD uptake stumbled shows those over-the-top services aren't a big driver of the trend, said analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson in an interview on C-SPAN's The Communicators set to run this weekend. He said "the new normal" for traditional pay TV is subscriber declines of 5 percent or so per year. He said there's an ongoing bifurcation between sports watchers and entertainment viewers, with the latter leaving cable and direct broadcast satellite as sports programming's fixed costs keep driving up pay-TV subscription costs. Moffett said the state attorneys general challenge of T-Mobile/Sprint has "reasonably good odds" of derailing the deal since the takeover isn't meaningfully different from the first iteration of the transaction that DOJ rejected. He said it's unlikely any tech giants will be broken up under the current antitrust scrutiny because antitrust laws aren't well suited for that and Congress isn't likely to undertake an overhaul soon. He said net neutrality is a hot-button issue largely because the debate was cast in terms of "bad guy" ISPs and "good guy" companies like Netflix. But net neutrality no longer energizes the base and thus is absent from discussion by the Democratic presidential candidates. Moffett said the U.S. is "still a few years out" from having wide blocks of midband spectrum needed to enable the transformational services 5G promises, so in the near term, it will rely on narrow midband blocks. On vMVPDs, they're struggling because they have "fallen into the same trap" as traditional MVPDs by having to offer increasingly fat and expensive programming bundles, the analyst said. Eventually, live TV will be the home only of sports and news, with all other content moving to on-demand, he said. Cable system operators don't necessarily care about sustaining the bundle and can focus on their broadband offerings, but DBS operators "are in a much tougher position," he said, programmers even more so.

Google’s plan to “implement encrypted Domain Name System lookups into its Chrome browser and Android operating system” could massively interfere with “critical internet functions,” telecom groups wrote Congress Thursday. NCTA, CTIA and USTelecom signed the letters to the Commerce, Judiciary and Homeland Security committees in both chambers. Google plans to implement the change through “a new protocol for wireline and wireless service, known as DNS over HTTPS (DoH),” they wrote. “If not coordinated with others in the internet ecosystem, this could interfere on a mass scale with critical internet functions, as well as raise data competition issues.” Google didn’t comment.

Universal Service Administrative Co. is preparing for "any path forward" in response to FCC plans to impose updated minimum service standards for its Lifeline program starting Dec. 1, Catie Miller, communications manager for USAC's Lifeline program, said Wednesday during a webinar for carriers participating in the program. She said it's preparing its call center to address customer concerns and asked industry stakeholders to let USAC know what other support steps it should take. She said carriers must update the type of Lifeline service their customers have, because this would be the first time reimbursement would change based on whether they have voice-only or voice plus broadband service. Under the minimum service standard changes set for Dec. 1, Lifeline support for voice-only service is reduced to $7.25 per month, and minimum broadband performance is 8.75 GB. Industry and consumer groups oppose the changes and want the FCC to delay them until further study (see 1907310074). They seek prompt response to an industry petition for delay so carriers can inform their customers of service changes, if needed, in time to meet regulatory standards (see 1909130020).

Industry and others should take many steps to ensure phone customers are aware of call blocking options, an FCC advisory panel recommended. At Monday's Consumer Advisory Committee meeting, CAC members unanimously approved the recommendations to the commission (see 1909160019). Text was released Wednesday in docket 17-59. People should get "blocked call information where consumers customarily view information about the call-blocking and labeling service," such as in wireless and wireline customers' online account information, the proposal said. "Consumers should have options to manage robocall blocking preferences, such as through a customer portal, in-store, by phone, or other choices." Customer service personnel should be trained to help, the committee said. "Providers should maintain a webpage that includes information about opt-out blocking and labeling tools, clearly explaining to consumers the robocall-related services provided, which calls are blocked, and how to opt in and out. The service should be provided at no additional line-item charge." Don't forget traditional wireline service, CAC suggested. "Explore potential means to protect legacy copper line customers from illegal robocalls," it asked of telcos. "The FCC should continue to directly collaborate with consumer advocacy groups and industry to educate consumers on the options for and risks of various methods of combatting robocalls." Stakeholders should together consider "public service ad campaigns, possibly including a celebrity spokesperson, to educate and alert consumers to the efforts of government and industry to tackle the robocall epidemic, and to educate and alert consumers to the robocall-blocking options," the group said. The agency seeks default call blocking services to be free, an agency spokesperson confirmed. FCC representatives wouldn't say whether CAC wants the same. “NCTA voted in favor of the recommendation" by CAC, emailed a spokesperson for the association. "We appreciate all the hard work of the ... committee in developing it.” The Competitive Carriers Association, amid its conference in Providence, Rhode Island (see 1909180061), declined to comment. America's Communications Association backed the declaratory ruling allowing "robocall blocking, including popular third-party robocall blocking tools, on an opt-out basis," an ACA spokesperson emailed. It hopes "CAC’s recommendations will provide helpful guidance to voice providers in deploying opt-out call blocking that protects their customers from the torrent of unwanted and illegal robocalls.” Incompas declined to comment, while USTelecom said it didn't have a comment right away.

The Lifeline national verifier now connects with the national Medicaid database to test eligibility, the FCC said Wednesday: Eligibility of about 60 percent of the population can be confirmed automatically. It’s “a major step in the implementation of the Verifier,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The NV also connects with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and 12 states, the commission said. State officials, Congress members and Lifeline providers ask why the NV rollout had continued without such access (see 1908280013). Connecting the NV with federal Medicaid is a big step, but verifying up to 60 percent of the Lifeline population isn't enough, emailed John Heitmann, counsel for the National Lifeline Association: It should be at least 85 percent. That's happening in Pennsylvania where there's access to the state Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program databases, he said. Manual processes don't reasonably serve needs of the eligible, and the NV shouldn't hard launch "until it has electronic access to both Medicaid and SNAP databases or before service providers have access" to an application programming interface "that allows them to help consumers navigate the verification and enrollment process, including the ability to transmit documentation via the API," Heitmann said. CTIA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Matt Gerst applauded that "eligible low-income consumers will be able to get support for [their] mobile wireless services."

The Benton Foundation is now the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, as it puts a particular focus on broadband policy, it said Tuesday. It said its priorities will include affordable, open broadband access for U.S. residents and supporting legal and policy experts interested in the public benefits of broadband. It said Andrew Schwartzman is joining (see the personals section).

CEO Randall Stephenson defended AT&T's vertical integration strategy Tuesday at a Goldman Sachs media conference, a week after an activist investor questioned such focus (see 1909090020). Stephenson said if he had been asked five years ago whether it made sense to vertically integrate media and network assets, he would have been hard-pressed to say yes, but content creation is changing radically, and growth now is digital. Having a direct path to consumers provides a better way to offer new digital platforms such as HBO Max. Though Stephenson, 59, has no immediate plans to retire, WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey would be in a good position to be heir apparent if he executes on the company's strategy of integrating premium content and distribution, the current AT&T chief said. Stephenson doesn't plan to participate in more consolidation. He noted that given regulatory uncertainty over mergers and acquisitions, it's hard to predict outcomes. Among current deals is T-Mobile's buying Sprint, which states are challenging (see 1909170035). Stephenson noted AT&T has 170 million customer relationships in pay TV, broadband and mobile, plus it's in 55,000 retail locations: "We touch customers 3.2 billion times a year." Dish Network did a "hard drop" of HBO in Q2 after they failed to reach contract renewal (see 1902130039), but the network grew 3 percent that quarter, he said. AT&T shared the activist letter with its board, Stephenson said, and will see what makes sense for shareholders.

Addressing better emergency alert origination and possible security risks 5G networks might inherit from previous communications networks, the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will issue reports next year and into early 2021, said CSRIC working group chairmen Tuesday. The 2018 false emergency alert in Hawaii (see 1801160054) shows there's no good emergency alert system differentiation between tests and actual alerts, said Craig Fugate, former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator. Broadcasters voluntarily carry alerts, and without a strong working relationship between them and originators, there's a risk of fatigue, especially for amber and silver alerts, he said. Fugate said focus also is needed on cybersecurity and spoofing, to be sure alert originators are authenticated. He said the working group plans to produce recommendations by September 2020. Broadcasters increasingly use social media to communicate when they lose power to transmitters, newsrooms or towers due to disasters or major weather events, and social media will be a focus of reports on improving broadcast resiliency, said Florida Association of Broadcasters President Pat Roberts. It will look at updated best practices for prepping for natural disasters, he said. Its draft is due in January and final report in March, he said. Two working groups are looking at 5G security. Nsight Chief Technical Officer Lee Thibaudeau said network architectures sometimes incorporate security risks from other networks, and in 5G's case that could lead to confidentiality and network availability issues. He said the group looking at 5G vulnerabilities possibly carried forward from other wireless networks expects to have a report in June on those risks, followed by December 2020 recommendations on updates to 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards. Qualcomm Director-Engineering Farrokh Khatibi said his group's related reports on risks potentially introduced by 3GPP standards will come in September 2020, and on ways of mitigating those in March 2021. The 911 move from legacy to IP networks carries potential security risks, especially when those networks are blended, said Mary Boyd, West Safety Services vice president-government and regulatory affairs. A working group report identifying the security risks in legacy, transition and next-generation 911 networks is expected in June, she said, followed by a December report measuring the risk magnitude and remediation costs. Verisign Chief Security Officer Danny McPherson said a report on session initiation protocol security vulnerabilities that could affect communication service provision is expected by March 2021.

The Wi-Fi Alliance released the Wi-Fi Certified 6 program, a compliance program for devices based on IEEE 802.11ax, Monday. The new features and capabilities "enable substantially greater overall Wi-Fi network performance in challenging environments with many connected devices such as stadiums, airports, and industrial parks,” the alliance said. “High speed 5G services need Wi-Fi 6 and so do consumers who want to seamlessly share the moments they create on their mobile devices,” emailed Inkang Song, head-technology strategy group of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics. Song noted Samsung released the Galaxy S10, the world’s first Wi-Fi 6 phone, earlier this year.